| Term | Definition |
|---|
| geocentric system | Earth is the center of the revolving planets and stars |
| heliocentric system | Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun |
| Copernicus | worked out the arrangement of the known planets and how they move around the sun |
| Galileo | used the telescrope to make discoveries that supported the heliocentric model |
| Kepler | found that the orbit of each planet is an ellipse |
| ellipse | oval shape, which may be elongated or nearly circular |
| solar system | consists of the sun, 9 planets and their moons, and several kinds of smaller objects that revolve around the sun |
| Ptolemy | thought geocentric system where the planets move on small circles that move on bigger circles |
| sun's interior | consists of th core, the radiation zone, and the convection zone |
| core | central region, produces an enormous amount of energy |
| nuclear fusion | hydrogen atoms join together to form helium |
| radiation zone | a region of very tightly packed gas where energy is transferred mainly in the form of electromagnetic radiation |
| convection zone | outer-most layer of the sun's interior |
| sun's atmosphere | includes the photosphere, the chromosphere, and the corona |
| photosphere | inner layer of the sun's atmosphere; means the sphere that gives off visible light |
| chromosphere | middle layer of the sun's atmosphere; is the color sphere |
| corona | outer layer which looks like a white hao around the sun |
| solar wind | on the sun, streams of electrically charged particles |
| sunspots | areas of gas on the sun's surface that are cooler than the gases around them |
| prominences | a huge, reddish look of gas tat protrudes from the sun's surface, linking parts of sunspot regions |
| solar flares | an eruption of gas from the sun's surface that occurs when the loops in sunspot regions suddenly connect |
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