Space and stars

Question 1

Nebulae

Answer 1

a cloud of gas and dust in outer space

Question 2

Asterisms

Answer 2

a prominent pattern or group of stars, typically having a popular name but smaller than a constellation.

Question 3

Asteroids

Answer 3

a small rocky body orbiting the sun.

Question 4

Comets

Answer 4

a celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust

Question 5

Meteoroids

Answer 5

a small body moving in the solar system

Question 6

Meteors

Answer 6

matter from outer space that enters the earth’s atmosphere

Question 7

Meteorites

Answer 7

a meteor that survives its passage through the earth’s atmosphere such that part of it strikes the ground.

Question 8

Solstice

Answer 8

sun reaches its maximum or minimum declination, marked by the longest and shortest days (about June 21 and December 22).

Question 9

Equinox

Answer 9

when day and night are of approximately equal length (about September 22 and March 20).

Question 10

Geocentric

Answer 10

having or representing the earth as the center, as in former astronomical systems.

Question 11

Heliocentric

Answer 11

having or representing the sun as the center, as in the accepted astronomical model of the solar system.

Question 12

Ellipse

Answer 12

a regular oval shape, traced by a point moving in a plane

Question 13

Astronomical unit (AU)

Answer 13

a unit of measurement equal to 149.6 million kilometers, the mean distance from the center of the earth to the center of the sun.

Question 14

Light-year

Answer 14

a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year, which is 9.4607 × 1012 km (nearly 6 trillion miles).

Question 15

Interstellar matter

Answer 15

matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy.

Question 16

Protostar

Answer 16

a contracting mass of gas which represents an early stage in the formation of a star, before nucleosynthesis has begun.

Question 17

Main sequence

Answer 17

diagram as a continuous band extending from the upper left (hot, bright stars) to the lower right (cool, dim stars).

Question 18

Solar wind

Answer 18

the continuous flow of charged particles from the sun which permeates the solar system.

Question 19

Azimuth

Answer 19

the direction of a celestial object from the observer, expressed as the angular distance from the north or south

Question 20

Altitude

Answer 20

the height of an object or point in relation to sea level or ground level.

Question 21

Zenith

Answer 21

the time at which something is most powerful or successful.

Question 22

Parallax

Answer 22

the effect whereby the position or direction

Question 23

Doppler effect

Answer 23

an increase (or decrease) in the frequency of sound, light, or other waves as the source and observer move toward (or away from) each other.

Question 24

vast collection of stars held together by gravity.

Answer 24

Galaxy

Question 25

beginning of the life cycle of a star

Answer 25

Nebulae

Protostar

Question 26

red shift

Answer 26

object moving away from earth