Space Flashcards
The Big Bang theory
An effort to explain what happened during and after that moment
Black holes
Regions of space time that use gravitational pull to suck up all matter
Galaxy
A group of millions or billions of stars and planets brought together by gravitational pull. There are three types of galaxies; spiral, elliptical and irregular. Most galaxies appear alone but some appear in pairs.
Solar system
A group of planets that orbit a star.
Moon
Moons are natural Satellites meaning they orbit things with a large gravitational pull
Planet
A celestial body that is orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self gravity to produce a (nearly round) shape, and has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
Dwarf planets
A celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self gravity to produce a (nearly round) shape, but has not cleared the neighbour around its orbit and it’s not a satellite
Meteors
Meteors are meteoroids that are burning up in the earths atmosphere; when a meteoroid survives the entry and impact with the earth it’s called a meteorite. Many meteorites hit the earth everyday, but most are small enough, as small as a piece of dust that they either burn up or completely or do not do any damage
Comets
Are composed of ice and are often referred to as dirty snowballs. When comets approach the sun, long tails of water vapour can be seen from earth
Astronomical unit
The average distance between the earth and the sun. Au = distance from the sun in km/ 149 million km
Constellation
Patterns in the the stars identified by ancient cultures
Light year
The distance light travels in one year. One light year= 9.5 trillion km
Milky Way
A spiral galaxy that we live in. Flat like a rotating disk with dust staying in the middle
Revolution
The movement of one object around a centre or another object
