Bing Homepage Quiz Answers (7/31/2022): 31 July 2022
1: These are noctilucent clouds. What does ‘noctilucent’ mean in Latin?
A See-through
B Night-shining
C Otherworldly
Noctilucent roughly means ‘night-shining,’ an apt name since the clouds are difficult to see during the day. They’re the highest clouds in our sky, about 50 miles up. Formed of icy dust, they can be seen long after the sun has set on Earth’s surface, but while the noctilucent clouds are still in sunlight. They occur only in summer, when that layer of the atmosphere is at its coldest.
The correct answer is Night-shining.
2: About how much does an average cloud weigh?
A 100 pounds
B Nothing, they’re weightless
C 1 million pounds
It may look like fluff, but experts say the average cumulus cloud weighs more than 1 million pounds, calculated by weighing the water droplets the cloud contains. So, if they weigh so much, why do clouds float? Because the moist air in clouds is less dense than dry air—in other words, they float on air just as oil will float on water.
The correct answer is 1 million pounds.
3: Clouds typically occur in the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. What’s that layer called?
A Stratosphere
B Troposphere
C Thermosphere
From the Earth’s surface to between 5 and 9 miles up into the air, the troposphere is where much of Earth’s weather happens, so most of the clouds form there. But the rare noctilucent clouds seen in this image are way up in the mesosphere, the coldest layer of our atmosphere, about 50 miles above the surface.
The correct answer is Troposphere.