The Solar System

These flashcards cover key vocabulary related to the Solar System and concepts discussed in lessons 2 and 3.

Solar

Related to or determined by the Sun.

Light year

The distance that light travels in one year.

Solar System

A collection of planets and other celestial bodies orbiting one star.

Yellow dwarf

A type of star that is medium-sized; the current state of our Sun.

Exoplanet

A planet that is not in our solar system.

Asteroid

Rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system.

Comet

Frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system that heat up and release gases and dust as they approach the Sun.

Meteoroid

Fragments and debris in space resulting from collisions among asteroids, comets, moons, and planets.

Dwarf planet

An object that orbits the Sun, is nearly round, but has not cleared its orbit of debris.

Kuiper Belt

A region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune that contains many small, icy bodies and dwarf planets.

Galaxy

A massive system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter, held together by gravity.

Orbital debris

Nonfunctional, human-made materials in orbit caused by satellite collisions or explosions.

Auroras

Streams of light in the sky caused by interactions between Earth's magnetic field and particles from the Sun.

Gravitational pull

The attraction that mass exerts on other mass.

Milky Way

The galaxy that contains our solar system.

Gravitational pull from black holes

The force exerted by a black hole that draws in nearby objects.