In the March 2025 issue of The Planetary Report, we shared space trivia questions submitted by Planetary Society members. Here are those questions, along with their answers. 

Want more trivia? Members can participate in weekly trivia contests in our online member community. 

Question #1: Which spacecraft was the first to successfully land on Mars and send back images to Earth? — Christopher Dedman-Rollet, USA

Answer: Viking 1, which landed on Mars and transmitted images in July 1976. (The Soviet Mars 3 landed earlier but stopped transmitting after 110 seconds and sent back only a gray image with no details.)

Question #2: Three real-life astronauts for NASA also served aboard Star Trek’s U.S.S. Enterprise: two on the original ship (NX-01 from "Star Trek: Enterprise") and one on the Enterprise-D (from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”). Can you name them all? And for a bonus point, can you tell us what else those three NASA astronauts have in common (other than being cool NASA astronauts who were also on "Star Trek")? — Mel Powell, USA

Answer: Mae Jemison, Mike Fincke, and Terry Virts

Bonus answer: They each flew on exactly one Space Shuttle mission (different missions), and all three were on board the Endeavour.

Question #3: What is the total number of astronauts who have landed on the Moon? — Ricky Gonzalez Flores, USA

Answer: 12

Question #4: Who was the pioneering female astronomer whose meticulous research allowed her to define the "standard candle" with which to measure vast cosmological distances, thereby proving conclusively that Andromeda was a galaxy far outside of the Milky Way? — Graham Mackintosh, USA

Answer: Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Question #5: Which spacecraft has been out as far as Jupiter's orbit without going near that planet? — David Frankis, United Kingdom

Answer: Rosetta

Question #6: Which mission proved Murphy's Law is universal by landing on a planetary surface with a penetrometer to measure soil compressibility but instead measured the compressibility of one of the lander’s camera’s lens caps that had been ejected onto the surface? — Allan Tarr, Canada

Answer: Venera 14 in 1982

Question #7: In what way does Dragonfly's wind tunnel testing differ critically from other wind tunnel testing? — Bob Ware, USA

Answer: The wind tunnel used to test Dragonfly has the ability to fill with the Titanian atmosphere mixture to mimic the atmospheric flight conditions on Titan.

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