Moon, Sun and Earth
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29 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 astronomy | the study of the moon, stars and other objects in space |
| rotation | the spinning movement of a planet on its axis |
| axis | an imaginary line that passes through Earth's center and the North and South Poles, about which the Earth rotates |
| revolution | the movement of an object around another object |
| orbit | the path of an object as it revolves around another object in space |
| solstice | the 2 days of the year on which the sun reaches its greatest distance north or south of the equator |
| equinox | the 2 days of the year on which neither hemisphere is tilted towards or away from the sun |
| force | a push or pull exerted on an object |
| gravity | the attractive force between objects; its strength depends on their masses and the distance between them |
| inertia | the tendency of an object to resist a change of motion |
| phase | one of the different apparent shapes of the moon as seen on Earth |
| eclipse | the partial or total blocking of one object by another |
| umbra | the darkest part of a shadow |
| penumbra | the part of the shadow surrounding the darkest |
| tides | periodical rise and fall of the level of water in the ocean |
| solar eclipse | the blocking of the sunlight to Earth that occurs when the moon is directly between the sun and Earth |
| lunar eclipse | the blocking of sunlight to the moon that occurs when Earth is directly between the sun and moon |
| spring tide | the tide with the greatest difference between consecutive low and high tides |
| neap tide | the tide with the least difference between consecutive low and high tides |
| telescope | a device built to observe distant objects by making them appear closer |
| craters | a large, round pit caused by the impact of a meteoroid |
| maria | dark, flat areas on the moon's surface formed from huge, ancient lava flow |
| meteoroids | a chunk of rock or dust in space |
| highlands | mountains |
| calendar | a system of organizing time that defines the beginning, length and divisions of each year |
| law of universal gravity | states that every object in the universe attracts every other object |
| mass | the amount of matter in an object |
| weight | the force of gravity on an object |
| telescope | a device built to observe distant objects by making them appear closer. |
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