Basic Astronomy Words
Terms
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- Showers
- When many meteors enter our atmosphere at once, or almost at once.
- Radio telescope
- An antenna or set of antennas that is used to detect radio radiation from space.
- One Year
- the length of time the Earth takes to orbit the Sun.
- Eclipse
- When one ""body"" (like the moon) passes through the shadow of another.
- Dust tail
- the dust left behind a comet, reflecting sunlight.
- Annular eclipse
- a type of solar eclipse in which a ring (annulus) of sunlight remains visible.
- Asteroid belt
- a region of the solar system, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, in which most of the asteroids orbit.
- Double Star
- A binary star; two or more stars orbiting each other.
- Black hole
- A region of space that nothing, not even light, can escape from.
- Astrophysics
- The science of applying the laws of physics to the universe.
- Astronomical Unit (A.U.)
- The average distance from the Earth to the Sun.
- Coma
- The region around the head of a comet.
- Core
- The center of a star or planet.
- Belts
- Dark bands around certain planets, like Jupiter.
- Comet
- A object orbiting the sun that when it gets close to the sun shows a coma and may show a tail.
- Constellation
- one of 88 areas that the sky has been divided into to make finding a star or other object easier.
- Meteoroid
- An chunk of rock from space that is smaller than an asteroid.
- Light year
- the distance that light travels in one year.
- Full moon
- The phase of the moon when the side facing the earth is completely lit by sunlight.
- Fireball
- an very bright meteor.
- Giant planets
- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
- Highlands
- Places on the moon that are above the level that may have been smoothed by flowing lava.
- Geology
- the study of the Earth.
- Great Red Spot
- Thel large red storm going around like a tornado on Jupiter.
- Gibbous moon
- the phases between half moon and full moon.
- Meteorite
- An chunk of rock from space after it hits a planet or moon, especially on the earth.
- New moon
- The phase when the side of the moon facing the earth is the side that is not lit at all by sunlight.
- Shooting stars
- Meteors.
- Asteroid
- a "minor planet" ,a chunk of rock smaller than planet size but larger than a meteoroid, in orbit around a star.
- Spring tides
- The tides of the ocean are at their highest when the earth, moon, and sun are in a line.
- Terrestrial Planets
- Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
- Star
- a ball of gas that makes its own light and heat because of nuclear reaction in its center.
- Tail
- Gas and dust left behind as a comet orbits close to the sun. The sunlight makes the tail bright.