Q 1. ‘Samoa’ – officially the Independent State of Samoa formerly known as Western Samoa, is an Oceanian country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962.In the year 2011, Samoa became famous for taking a very unusual step to improve it’s ties with major trade partners Australia and New Zealand. What did this small island country do?
Q 2. The Planet which has highest escape velocity in solar system is ___________________?
Q 3. Which is the largest natural satellite of our Solar System?
Q 4. Professor Chandrasekhar was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars. He graduated with a degree in physics before reaching his 20th birthday . Chandrasekhar’s most notable work was the astrophysical Chandrasekhar limit.
What is Chandrasekhar limit?

Q 5. On which day of the year, the distance between the Sun and Earth is maximum?
Q 6. Which state is the only Diamond producing state of India?
Q 7. Which is the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust?
Q 8. Which is the world’s longest railway line?
Q 9. Sunlight takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach us. How much time it takes moonlight to reach Earth?
Q 10. Which planet has the longest day? (In other words the slowest rotating planet of our Solar System). Very strangely,the day is actually longer than it’s year.
It is also the only planet rotating East to West while all other planets including Earth, rotate West to East. Because of this,the Sun rises there in the West and sets in the East.
Answers
Ans 1. Samoa positioned to the East of the International Date Line, in May 2011 decided to forego a day shift to the time zone on its West.

Samoa announced the decision in May in a bid to improve ties with major trade partners Australia and New Zealand.(Neighbouring Tokelau decided to follow suit in October)
The island nation was 21 hours behind both the countries – effectively meaning a loss of “two working days a week” with them – but it is now set to go three hours ahead. The “shift” was taken place with effect on December 27, 2011. At midnight, when it was 9 p.m. on December 28 in Sydney, clocks in Aspia, the capital of Samoa, jumped to 00:00 of december 29. The decision to adhere with the eastern side of the date line was purportedly taken 119 years ago, to make business with the United States and Europe easier. Now, as the volume of the trade with their neighbouring countries has surged. Samoans have decided to go “back to future”.
Ans 2. Jupiter – Escape velocity on Jupiter is 59.5 km/s while on Earth it is 11.2 km/s. This is because of the huge mass of Jupiter which is 317 times that of the Earth.
The formula for escape velocity is √(2GM/R).
While Jupiter has a radius 11 times Earth’s its mass is approx 300 times as great, so Jupiter’s escape velocity is about √ 27 times Earth’s or 5.22 times as great. No other planet is as massive as Jupiter even if it has the greatest radius.
Note: Jupiter’s volume is so huge that it can accommodate 1300 Earths. It has 2.5 times the mass of all the other planets put together.
Ans 3. Ganymede – Satellite of Jupiter. (2nd largest is Titan, moon of Saturn) Ganymede’s discovery is credited to Galileo Galilei, who was the first to observe it on January 7, 1610.
Ans 4. The Chandra limit is the upper limit of mass that a star can have and still become a white dwarf as it dies. Anything over this mass amount will result in the star exploding or becoming a black hole as it dies.
To read further, click here.
Ans 5. July 4, The point where the Earth is farthest from the Earth is called Aphelion. The nearest point is Perihelion which occurs on Jan 3 every year.
Ans 6. Madhya Pradesh (Panna Mines)
Ans 7. Oxygen – The most abundant element in the Earth’s crust is Oxygen. (Most abundant metal – Aluminium)
Ans 8. Trans-Siberian Railway – With a length of 9,289 km, it is the longest railway line in the world. There are connecting branch lines into Mongolia, China and North Korea. It has been connecting Saint Petersberg with Vladivostok since 1916 and is still being expanded.
Note: In terms of total length of the Rail network in the country, USA is the largest followed by China, Russia and India.
Ans 9. 1.3 seconds
Ans 10. Venus (Also know as Morning Star and Evening star). It takes 257 earth days to complete one rotation i.e. 1 Day on Venus = 257 Days on Earth. But it completes one revolution around the Sun in comparatively lesser time, 225 days. Hence, very interestingly Year is shorter than Day on Venus.
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