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Astronomy Vocab
Unit 2 astro vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Astronomy | the branch of science that deals with space |
| Geocentric | a description of all cosmos |
| Heliocentric | Model of the Milky Way Universe |
| Retrograde motion | Motion of a planet to move opposite of other planets in its system |
| Ellipse | A curve on a plane |
| Astronomical Unit (AU) | Unit of length from the earth to the sun |
| Rotation | action of moving around an axis |
| Revolution | Time it takes to complete one day |
| Precession | Change of orientation |
| Perihelion | Planets that orbit the sun |
| Aphelion | Point furtherst from the sun |
| Perigree | Point in orbit when the Planet Earth is closest to the planet |
| Apogee | Highest point of something |
| Phases of the moon | An explantion of the moons phases |
| Solar eclipse | moon comes between the sun and the earth |
| Lunar eclipse | Earth's shadow blocks the sun |
| Crater | Hole made from meteor |
| Terrestrial Planet | Habitable planet |
| Jovian Planet | Gas planet |
| Nebula | Cloud of space dust |
| Planetesimal | Object made from space dust |
| Asteroid | Small rock belt orbiting the sun |
| Comet | Floating ball of rock-like substance in space |
| Coma | Cloud surronding frozen nucleus of a comet |
| Meteoroid | Piece of stone like rock that travels in space |
| Meteor | Passage of comet or other rock through Earth's atmosphere |
| Meteorite | Solid piece of debris from comet/asteroid |
| Electromagnectic Spectrum | Range of all possible frequencies |
| Photon | Elementary particle |
| Spectroscopy | Study of interaction between electromagnetic radation and matter |
| Doppler Effect | Change in frequency of a wave |
| Refracting telescope | Type of telescope with a curved lense |
| Reflecting telescope | Type of telescope with curved mirrors |
| Radio Telescope | form of radio reciever |
| Hubble Telescope | Space telescope in Earth's low orbit |
| Space Shuttle | Low Earth orbit spacecraft |
| Photosphere | the luminous visible surface of the sun, being a shallow layer of strongly ionized gases. |
| Chromosphere | a gaseous envelope surrounding a star |
| Corona | a white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light seen around a luminous body, especially around the sun or moon. |
| Solar Wind | an emanation from the sun's corona consisting of a flow of charged particles, mainly electrons and protons, that interacts with the magnetic field of the earth and other planetary bodies. |
| Sunspot | one of the relatively dark patches that appear periodically on the surface of the sun and affect terrestrial magnetism and certain other terrestrial phenomena. |
| Prominence | an eruption of a flamelike tongue of relatively cool, high-density gas from the solar chromosphere into the corona where it can be seen during a solar eclipse or by observing strong spectral lines in its emission spectrum |
| Solar Flare | a brief powerful eruption of particles and intense electromagnetic radiation from the sun's surface, associated with sunspots and causing disturbances to radio communication on earth Sometimes shortened to flare |
| Aurora | a radiant emission from the upper atmosphere that occurs sporadically over the middle and high latitudes of both hemispheres in the form of luminous bands, streamers, or the like, caused by the bombardment of the atmosphere with charged solar particles th |
| Nucleur Fusion | What happens in the sun |
| Constellation | any of various groups of stars to which definite names have been given, as Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Boötes, Cancer, Orion. |
| Binary star | a system of two stars that revolve about their common center of mass. |
| Light year | the distance traversed by light in one mean solar year, about 5.88 trillion mi. (9.46 trillion km): used as a unit in measuring stellar distances. |
| Apparent magnitude | the magnitude of a star as it appears to an observer on the earth. |
| Absolute magnitude | the magnitude of a star as it would appear to a hypothetical observer at a distance of 10 parsecs or 32.6 light-years. |
| Main sequence star | any star lying on a diagonal band that extends from hot stars of high luminosity to cool stars of low luminosity; any stars in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram from the upper left to the lower right of the diagram; also written main sequence star |
| Red giant | a star in an intermediate stage of evolution, characterized by a large volume, low surface temperature, and reddish hue. |
| Supergiant | SUPERHUGE STAR |
| Cepheid Variable | a variable star in which changes in brightness are due to alternate contractions and expansions in volume. |
| Nova | a star that suddenly becomes thousands of times brighter and then gradually fades to its original intensity. |
| Nebulae | Also called diffuse nebula. a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. Compare dark nebula, emission nebula, reflection nebula |
| Hertzsprung Russell Diagram | One of the most useful and powerful plots in astrophysics |
| Protostar | an early stage in the evolution of a star, after the beginning of the collapse of the gas cloud from which it is formed, but before sufficient contraction has occurred to permit initiation of nuclear reactions at its core. |
| Supernova | the explosion of a star, possibly caused by gravitational collapse, during which the star's luminosity increases by as much as 20 magnitudes and most of the star's mass is blown away at very high velocity, sometimes leaving behind an extremely dense core. |
| White dwarf | a star, approximately the size of the earth, that has undergone gravitational collapse and is in the final stage of evolution for low-mass stars, beginning hot and white and ending cold and dark (black dwarf) |
| Neutron Star | an extremely dense, compact star composed primarily of neutrons, especially the collapsed core of a supernova. |
| Pulsar | one of several hundred known celestial objects, generally believed to be rapidly rotating neutron stars, that emit pulses of radiation, especially radio waves, with a high degree of regularity. |
| Black Hole | a theoretical massive object, formed at the beginning of the universe or by the gravitational collapse of a star exploding as a supernova, whose gravitational field is so intense that no electromagnetic radiation can escape. |
| Galaxy | a large system of stars held together by mutual gravitation and isolated from similar systems by vast regions of space |
| Hubble's Law | the law that the velocity of recession of distant galaxies from our own is proportional to their distance from us. |
| Big Bang Theory | a theory that deduces a cataclysmic birth of the universe (big bang) from the observed expansion of the universe, cosmic background radiation, abundance of the elements, and the laws of physics |
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