Earth and Space
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42 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Solar System | objects that orbit the central star, known as the Sun; e.g. planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteoroids |
| Asteroid | a piece of rock, smaller than a planet, that orbits the Sun; many are found orbiting in a region between Mars and Jupiter |
| Comet | a mass of frozen gases and rock particles that orbits the Sun |
| Meteoroid | a chunk of rock that moves about within the solar system; called a meteor if it enters a planet's atmosphere; called a meteorite if it impacts the surface of a planet or moon |
| Photosphere | most prominent layer of the Sun's atmosphere; emits the light we see; is blocked during a total eclipse |
| Corona | the outermost and largest of the layers of the Sun's atmosphere Sunspots |
| Sunspots | dark areas of the Sun's surface, which are cooler than surrounding areas |
| Prominence | a mass of glowing gas looping out from the surface of the Sun, usually near sunspots |
| Solar flare | a sudden burst of hot gas from the Sun that releases large amounts of energy into space |
| Solar winds | a stream of electrically charged particles flowing from the Sun |
| Aurora | illumination of the sky near the poles as a result of solar particles entering the ionosphere |
| Rotation | spinning on an axis; a day on Earth is based on a 24 hour rotation |
| Revolution | the circling of one object around another object; a year on Earth is based on 365 ¼ days for revolving around the Sun |
| Elliptical | the slightly oval shape of Earth's orbit around the Sun |
| Phases of the Moon | the appearance of the Moon that depends on how much of the sunlit side of the Moon faces Earth |
| Waxing phases | the lighted side of the Moon gradually increases |
| Waning phases | the lighted side of the Moon gradually decreases |
| New moon | none of the lighted side of the Moon faces the Earth |
| Crescent moon | a small slice of the lighted side of the Moon is facing Earth |
| Quarter moon | one-half of the lighted side of the Moon faces Earth |
| Gibbous moon | more than one-half of the lighted side of the Moon faces Earth but not yet full |
| Full moon | all of the lighted side faces the Earth |
| Eclipse | the shadow caused by a body blocking the light from another |
| Tides | daily changes in the level of the surface levels of Earth's oceans due to the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun |
| Spring tides | higher than usual high tides and lower than usual low tides caused by the lining up of the Sun, Moon, and Earth; occur when the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon are combined |
| Neap tides | tides that are not as high or low as usual caused by the Sun and Moon being at right angles to the Earth; occur when the pull of the Sun and Moon act against each other |
| Tilt of Earth's axis | the central line around which the Earth spins is not straight up-and-down but is slanted at a 23 ½ degree tilt |
| Lunar eclipse | when Earth is directly between the Sun and the Moon, blocking the Sun's light so that Earth's shadow is cast over the Moon |
| Solar eclipse | when the Moon is directly between the Sun and Earth, blocking the Sun's light casting a shadow over a certain area on Earth |
| Seasons | periods of time in Earth's year that have different numbers of hours of daylight and different angles to the Sun's rays because of Earth's tilted axis |
| Solstice | either of two days during the year when the tilt of Earth causes the length of day to be the longest or the shortest |
| Equinox | either of two days during the year when the Sun is directly above the equator; daylight and night are the same length |
| Gravity | the force of attraction between two masses; a more massive object has greater pull on a less massive object; the closer the objects, the greater the pull |
| Mass | the amount of matter in an object; is the same no matter where the object is located |
| Weight | the measure of gravitational force on an object; influenced by mass but they are not the same Spring scale tool used to measure weight |
| Galaxy | regions in outer space made up of billions of stars, gas, and dust clouds; they have different shapes - elliptical, spiral, irregular |
| Milky Way Galaxy | the name given to the spiral galaxy of which the Sun and its solar system are a part |
| Light year | a unit of distance that astronomers use to measure distance to stars and galaxies in space; equal to the distance light travels in one year |
| Optical telescope | a tool used to collect visible light, then uses lenses or mirrors to focus the light producing larger, brighter images; may be reflecting or refracting |
| Radio telescope | an instrument that uses a large antenna to gather radio waves emitted from objects (stars and galaxies) in space Satellite (man-made) an object place in orbit that contains instruments and/or telescopes to collect information from space |
| Space probe | contains instruments and travels through space to gather information and transmit it back to Earth |
| Spectroscope | an optical instrument that separates the light given off by an object into bands of different colors; can be used to identify elements in a star |
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