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Astronomy
Intro to Astronomy
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Scientific Method | Scientist form theories and test them against evidence gathered by experiment or observation |
| Field of View | Area visible in an image |
| Scientific Notation | System of recording very large or small numbers by the power of ten |
| Solar System | Sun and the non luminous bodies that orbit a star and shine by reflected light. |
| Star | Self luminous ball of hot gas that generates its own energy |
| Astronomical Unit | Average distance from Earth to the Sun |
| Light Year | Distance that light travels in one year |
| Galaxy | Great cloud of stars, gas, and dust held by the gravity of all the matter |
| Milky Way | Hazy band of light that circles the sky, produced by the combined light of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy |
| Milky Way Galaxy | Spiral galaxy containing the Sun |
| Spiral Arms | Long spiral pattern of bright stars, star clusters, gas, and dust that extends from the center to the edge of the disk of spiral galaxies |
| Natural Motions | Motion of objects toward their natural places; fire and air, up; earth and water, down |
| Violent Motions | Motion other than natural motions |
| Acceleration of Gravity | Measure of the strength of gravity at a planets surface |
| Momentum | Change in velocity, change in either speed or direction |
| Acceleration | The rate of change of velocity with respect to time |
| Hypothesis | An assumption or concession made for the sake of argument |
| Theory | The analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another |
| Natural Law | Conjecture about how nature works in which scientist have overwhelming confidence |
| Inverse Square Law | Rule that the strength of an object (such as gravity) decreases in proportion as the distance squared increases |
| Field | A way of explaining action at a distance, commonly referred to as gravity in Astronomy |
| Angular Momentum | A measure of the rotation of the body about some point |
| Circular Velocity | The velocity needed to stay in a circular orbit |
| Geosynchronous Satellite | An Earth satellite whose Eastern orbit with a period of 24 hours |
| Center of Mass | The balance point of the system |
| Closed Orbit | Returns the orbiting object to its starting point |
| Open Orbit | Does not return the object to its starting point |
| Energy | Ability to do the work |
| Kinetic Energy | A moving body that has energy |
| Potential Energy | The energy an object has because of its position in a gravitational field |
| Joules | Translates to Energy in the metric system |
| Spring Tides | Ocean tide of high amplitude that occurs at full and new moon |
| Neap Tides | Ocean tide of low amplitude occurring at first and third quarter moon |
| First Prostulate (P of Rel) | Observers can never detect their uniform motion except relative to other objects |
| First Prostulate (Alternate Version) | The laws of physics are the same for all observers, no matter what their motion, so long as they are not accelerated |
| Special Relativity | The first of Einstein's theories of relativity, which dealt with uniform motion |
| Second Prostulate | The velocity of light is constant and will be the same for all observers independent of their motion relative to the light source |
| General Theory of Relativity | Einstein's more sophisticated theory of space and time, which describes gravity as a curvature of space-time |
| Electromagnetic radiation | Changing electric and magnetic fields that travel through space and transfer energy from one place to another |
| Wavelength | Distance |
| Nanometer | A unit of length equal to 10 to the power of 9 |
| Angstrom | A unit of distance |
| Frequency | The number of cycles that pass in one second |
| Photon | A quantum of electromagnetic energy; carries an amount of energy that depends inversely on its wavelength |
| Infrared Radiation | Electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths intermediate between visible visible light and radio waves |
| Ultraviolet | Electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than visible light but longer than X rays |
| Atmospheric Windows | Wavelength regions in which Earth's atmosphere is transparent |
| Nucleus | Central core of an atom containing protons and neutrons; carries a net positive charge |
| Protons | A positively charged atomic particle contained in the nucleus of atoms |
| Electron | Low-mass atomic particle carrying a negative charge |
| Isotope | Atoms that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons |
| Ionization | Protons and neutrons are bound tightly into the nucleus, but the electrons are held loosely in the electron cloud |
| Molecule | Two or more atoms bonded together |
| Coulomb Force | Electrons are bound to the atom by the attraction between their negative charge and the positive charge on the nucleus |
| Binding Energy | Energy that holds that atom |
| Quantum Mechanics | Law that describes how atoms are behaved |
| Permitted Orbits | Orbits of only certain sizes |
| Ground State | The lowest energy level an electron can occupy |
| Excited Atom | Electrons moved from a low energy level to a higher energy level |
| Energy Level | One of a number of states an electron may occupy in an atom, depending on its binding energy |
| Heat | The flow of thermal energy |
| Kelvin Temperature Scale | Temperature of the gases in the photosphere |
| Absolute Zero | Temperature at which an object contains no thermal energy that can be extracted |
| Black Body Radiation | Radiation emitted by a heated object |
| Wavelength of Maximum Intensity | The wavelength at which the object emits the most intense radiation, occurs at some intermediate wavelength |
| Continuous Spectrum | A spectrum in which there are no absorption or emission lines |
| Absorption Spectrum (Dark Line Spectrum) | A spectrum that contains absorption lines |
| Absorption Lines | A dark line in a spectrum |
| Emission Spectrum | Produced by photons emitted by an excited gas |
| Emission Lines | A bright line in a spectrum caused by the emission of photons from atoms |
| Transition | The movement of an electron from one atomic orbit to another |
| Spectral Sequence | The sequence of spectral types |
| Spectral Types | A stars position in the temperature classification system O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. Based oon the appearance of the star's spectrum |
| L Dwarf | Type of star that is even cooler than the M stars |
| T Dwarf | A very low mass star at the bottom end of the main sequence with a cool surface and a low luminosity |
| Doppler Effect | An apparent change in the wavelength of radiation caused by the motion of the source |
| Redshift | The lengthening of the wave lengths of light seen when the source and observer are receding from each other |
| Radial Velocity | That component of an object's velocity directed away from or toward Earth |
| Blueshift | The shortening of the wavelengths of light observed when the source and observer are approaching each other |
| Collisional Broadening | Caused by collisions between atoms, and consequently it depends on the density of the gas |
| Density | Amount of matter per volume in a body |
| Doppler Broadening | The smearing of spectral lines because of the motion of the atoms in the gas |
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djy_8736
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