Exam #1 Flashcards
- Minor Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy
- 2500 light years across, 10000 light years in length
- Contains the Solar System
Orion Arm
The point where moon’s orbit is farthest from the Earth
Apogee
The point where moon’s orbit is closest to the Earth
Perigee
The recurring increase and decrease in the number of sunspots over a period averaging about eleven years
Sunspot Cycle
The Lunar hemisphere that is always facing away from the Earth
The Dark Side of the Moon
The specific type of fusion that occurs inside the Sun
Solar Fusion
American Space Scientist that was instrumental in establishing the field of magnetospheric researching space
James Van Allen
Astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator
A pioneer in the field of exobiology and was among the first to determine that life could have existed on Mars
Carl Sagan
The Northern Lights
Aurora Borealis
The Southern Lights
Aurora Australis
The troposphere, stratosphere, and the ionosphere
Earth’s Atmosphere
A spaceport in southern Kazakhstan
The place where Russia launches their space rockets
Baikonur Cosmodrom
Defunct human-made objects in space which no longer serve a useful function
Space Pollution
Reduced-gravity aircraft that provides brief near-weightlessness environments for training astronauts, conducting research and making gravity-free movie shots
Vomit Comet
The boiling of liquids in the vacuum of space
Vacuum Boiling
Austro-Hungarian German physicist and engineer
Considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics
hermann Oberth
Is one of NASA’s 10 field centers
NASA’s primary launch center of human spacefight
Kennedy Space Center
American robotic space probe launched by ANSA
Last spacecraft in its program
Mariner 10
Thick, toxic atmosphere filled with carbon dioxide and it’s perpetually shrouded in thick, yellowish clouds of sulfuric acid that trap heat, causing a runaway greenhouse effect
Atmosphere of Venus
A type of intrusive igneous rock composed predominantly of calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar
m o o n r o c k
Anorthosite
The leading theory stating that a Mars-sized body collided with Earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago, and the resulting debris from both Earth and the impactor accumulated to form our natural satellite
Origins of the Moon
US Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California
Launches spacecrafts from the Western Range, and performs missile testing
Vandenberg AFB, CA
The two moons of Mars
Deimos and Phobos
A large shield volcano on Mars
Largest volcano in the Solar System
Olympus Mons
Four largest Moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto
Galilean Moons
The tilt of this planet is at 98 degrees
Looks like the planet is rotating on its side
Possibly the result of a collision with an Earth-sized object long ago
Axis of Uranus
a celestial body that orbits the sun, has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape, and has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit and is not a moon
Dwarf Planets
The points of equilibruim for small-mass objects under the influence of two massive orbiting bodies
LaGrange Points