Space Vocab

Question 1

Orbit

Answer 1

The orbit of the moon is nearly circular. The planets in the solar systems have a slightly elliptical orbit of comets is highly elliptical

Question 2

Solar System

Answer 2

What is a system? Anything that is organized and predictable is a system.

Question 3

Galaxy

Answer 3

Our solar system is located in a galaxy known as the Milky Way

Question 4

Universe

Answer 4

Earth and the other planets of the solar system are all a part of the Milky Way galaxy. The universe has numerous galaxies, like the Milky Way

Question 5

Satellite

Answer 5

The moon is a natural satellite that orbits Earth. The planet Jupiter has many many moons, four of witch are lo, Europa,Ganymede,and Callisto. Artificial satellites are made by man and launched to orbit Earth and other planets

Question 6

Impact crater

Answer 6

It is a depression in the surface in the planet

Question 7

Rotation

Answer 7

Rotation is the act of spinning around an axis, which is “tilted” in relation to the sun. This causes our seasons

Question 8

Revolution

Answer 8

The movement of an object, in an orbit, is called revolution. Earth completes one revolution around the sun, every 365.26 days, in an elliptical orbit. The also revolves around Earth in an orbit of 27.3 days

Question 9

Season

Answer 9

As Earth revolves around the Sun, it’s tilted axis causes some parts to be pushed toward the Sun and others away from it. During June, the Northern hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, and places like North America, Europe, and Asia experience summer. During this time, the Southern hemisphere experiences winter.

Question 10

Equinox

Answer 10

An equinox is a date of the year when daylight and nighttime each last 12 hours everywhere on Earth. On all other days of the year, day and night last different amounts of time, and differ in length from location to location on Earth. There are two equinoxes each year. They occur when the plane of Earth’s tilt is tangent to its orbital plane. As a result, neither hemisphere is tilted toward or away from the Sun.

Question 11

Solstice

Answer 11

Because Earth’s rotation axis is tilted relative to its orbital path around the Sun, the apparent path of the Sun across the sky changes with the seasons. In the summer, the Sun gets higher in the sky than in the winter. The summer solstice is the day that the mid-day Sun reaches its highest point in the sky. The winter solstice is the day that the mid-day Sun is lowest.

Question 12

Mare

Answer 12

String tides are strong tides. They occur when the sun’s and moon‘s gravitational pull are in line with each other.

Question 13

Umbra

Answer 13

the fully shaded inner region of a shadow cast by an opaque object, especially the area on the earth or moon experiencing the total phase of an eclipse.

Question 14

Eclipse

Answer 14

An eclipse is an astronomical phenomenon caused by the revolution of the Moon around Earth. When the Moon moves into Earth’s shadow, we see a lunar eclipse. When the Moon is positioned directly between Earth and the Sun, its shadow falls on Earth, producing a solar eclipse.

Question 15

Penumbra

Answer 15

the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object.

Question 16

Astronomical

Answer 16

Astronomical unit is used to measure distance in the solar system. The distance from Earth to the sun is 1 AU and the distance from Mars to the sun is 1.5 AU.

Question 17

Ellipses

Answer 17

a regular oval shape, traced by a point moving in a plane so that the sum of its distances from two other points (the foci) is constant, or resulting when a cone is cut by an oblique plane which does not intersect the base

Question 18

Terrestrial planet

Answer 18

Within the Solar System, the terrestrial planets are the inner planets closest to the Sun, i.e. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

Question 19

Gas giant

Answer 19

a large planet of relatively low density consisting predominantly of hydrogen and helium, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune.

Question 20

Asteroid

Answer 20

Asteroids are irregularly shaped rocks that revolve around the Sun. Most asteroids are present in a band located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, known as the asteroid belt

Question 21

Comet

Answer 21

Comets are balls of ice and rock that are seen moving across the sky. A comet’s body has two parts, a head and a tail. Comets move about the Solar System in orbits that take them far from the Sun. As they revolve around the Sun, their tail grows longer because the ice in the head boils away.

Question 22

Meteor

Answer 22

A view of the night sky might include a fast streak of light that quickly disappears. You might call it a “Shooting Star”. It is actually a meteor.

Question 23

Meteorite

Answer 23

When a meteoroid moving away from the asteroid belt hits Earth’s surface, it is called a meteorite. Due to the tremendous impact, a crater is formed on Earth’s surface where the meteorites strike.

Question 24

Geocentric

Answer 24

When the Earth is placed at the center of a system, the system is said to be geocentric. The Moon revolves around the Earth. The Earth-Moon system is geocentric.

Question 25

Heliocentric

Answer 25

Heliocentric comes from the Greek word “helios”, meaning Sun. The Sun is the center of the solar system. All the planets in the solar system orbit around the Sun.

Question 26

Gravity

Answer 26

The pull of gravity on the Earth and on the Moon is different. Earth is much larger than the moon. So, its mass is greater and the gravitational pull here is 9.8 m/s2. But on the Moon, the gravitational pull is only 1.6 m/s2. So, an object will weigh less on the Moon than it does on Earth.

Question 27

Tide

Answer 27

A tide is a periodic variation in the surface level of bodies of water caused by gravitational attraction of the Moon and Sun. The water levels during the tides vary with the relative positions of the Sun and Moon with respect to Earth.

Question 28

Waxing

Answer 28

Waxing is “Maxing,” or growing with light until a full moon is reached. Waning is the opposite, or decreasing after a full moon, and is always illuminated on the left. Then, there is a waxing or waning Gibbous moon, which means more than half of the moon is illuminated.

Question 29

Manning

Answer 29

of the moon) have a progressively smaller part of its visible surface illuminated, so that it appears to decrease in size.

Question 30

Gibbous moon

Answer 30

The definition of gibbous refers to a moon in between a half-moon but less than a full moon, or something that protrudes or creates an obvious bulge. When the moon is more than half full, this is an example of a gibbous moon. When you have a humpback, this is an example of a gibbous back.

Question 31

Crescent moon

Answer 31

crescent. A crescent is a thin, curved shape that’s thicker in the middle and tapers to thin points at each end, like the little sliver of moon you might notice in the sky. Crescent was first used to describe the shape of the waxing, or growing moon, and if you listen closely you can hear its similarity to increase

Question 32

Full moon

Answer 32

the time when the moon’s whole disk is illuminated

Question 33

New moon

Answer 33

the phase of the moon when it is in conjunction with the sun and invisible from earth, or shortly thereafter when it appears as a slender crescent.

Question 34

Quarter moon

Answer 34

First quarter moon means the moon is one quarter of the way through ..

Question 35

Perihelion

Answer 35

Planets revolve around the Sun in elliptical orbits. The point in the orbit of a planet where the planet is closest to the Sun is its perihelion. At perihelion, Earth is 147 million km away from the Sun.

Question 36

Aphelion

Answer 36

Mercury has a very elliptical orbit. The position in the orbit when it is farthest from the Sun is its aphelion.