Solar System Vocabulary
Terms
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- Equinox
- The two days of the year on which neither hemisphere is tilted toward or away from the sun
- Gas Giants
- The name given to the first four outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
- Gravity
- The attractive force between two objects; its magnitude depends on their masses and the distance between them
- Orbit
- The path of an object as it revolves around another object in space
- Prominence
- A loop of gas that protrudes from the sun's surface, linking parts of sunspot regions
- Retrograde rotation
- The spinning motion of a planet from east to west, opposite to the direction of rotation of most planets and moons
- Revolution
- The movement of an object around another object
- Rotation
- The spinning motion of a planet about its axis
- Satellite
- Any object that revolves around another object in space
- Solar eclipse
- The blocking of sunlight to Earth that occurs when the moon is between the sun and Earth
- Solstice
- The 2 days of the year on which the noon sun is directly overhead at either 23.5 degrees South or 23.5 degrees North
- Sunspots
- Dark, cooler regions on the surface of the sun