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TheSolarSystem
Key Vocab about our Solar System
Question | Answer |
---|---|
Rotation | The spinning of the Earth on it's axis. |
Orbit | A regular movement around an object, like the Earth around the Sun or the Moon around the Earth. |
Revolution | The time it takes for a planet to make one complete orbit. Earth's revolution is one year. |
Lunar Highlands | The mountainous areas of the Moon. |
Maria | The smooth, dark regions on the surface of the Moon. |
Elipse | When the Moon blocks sunlight travelling to Earth and creates a shadow. |
Tides | The result of the Moon's gravitational pull on Earth - water is pulled towards the moon to create high tides. |
Solar System | Planets that orbit a star. |
Astronomical Unit | The measurement for huge distances in space - one AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun, or 150 million km! |
Comet | A large body of ice and rock that travels around the Sun in an elliptical orbit, that sometimes have a tail of gas and dust. |
Meteorite | Any fragments from space that fall to Earth. |
Constellations | Groups of stars that form patterns in the sky. |
Galaxy | Groups of billions of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity. Earth is in the galaxy, the Milky Way. |
Supernova | An exploding star. |
Light-year | The distance light can travel in one year - about 9.5 trillion km. |