SPACE GLOSSARY Flashcards
are immense systems containing billions of stars.
Galaxies
is our own galaxy. Just about all that you can see in the sky belongs to our galaxy—a system of
roughly 200 billion stars.
Milky Way
is made up of the Sun
solar system
is the closest star to Earth and the center of our solar system.
THE SUN
appear as dark spots on the Sun, and are believed to be cooler than the rest of the Sun.
Sunspots
is the term used for a body in orbit around the Sun.
Planet
is the term for a body in orbit around a planet.
Satellite (or moon)
is the term for the path traveled by a body in space.
Orbit
also known as the minor planets, are small bodies orbiting the Sun that resemble planets.
Asteroids,
are made up of frozen dust and gases, and have been described as large, dirty snowballs with icy
centers.
Comets
are fragments of comets, planets, moons, or asteroids that have broken off.
Meteors
are composed of intensely hot gasses, deriving their energy from nuclear reactions going on in their
interiors.
Stars
occur when a star runs out of energy and shuts down. The force of gravity at its center pulls the
mass of the star in on itself, forcing it to collapse.
White dwarfs
are also called failed stars. They lack enough energy to be true stars but are also too massive and
hot to be planets.
Brown Dwarfs
is an extremely large exploding star. Just before the star dies, it releases huge amounts of energy,
briefly becoming millions of times brighter than it was. Then it immediately shrinks.
supernova
