Bigger than big and our journey to now vocabulary

Asteroid

A small rocky body orbiting the sun. Large numbers of these, ranging enormously in size, are found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, though some have more eccentric orbits.

Astronomical unit

A unit of measurement equal to 149.6 million kilometres, the mean distance from the centre of the Earth to the centre of the sun.

Biodiversity

The variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable.

Climate change

Long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns in the environment.

Cosmos

The universe seen as a well-ordered whole.

Galaxy

A system of millions or billions of stars, together with gas and dust, held together by gravitational attraction.

Gravity

The force that attracts a body towards the centre of the earth, or towards any other physical body having mass.

Hertzsprung-Russel

A graph in which the spectral types of stars are plotted against their absolute magnitudes.

Interstellar

Occurring or situated between stars.

Light years

A unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year. (9.4607 x10^12 km)

Meteor

A small body of water from outer space that enters the earth’s atmosphere, becoming incandescent as a result of friction and appearing as a streak of light.

Nebula

A cloud of gas and dust in outer space, visible in the night sky either as an indistinct bright patch or as a dark silhouette against other luminous matter.

Red shift

The displacement of spectral lines towards longer wavelengths in radiation from distant galaxies and celestial objects. This shift is proportional to the velocity of recession and thus to distance.

Robot

A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer.

Space

A boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction.

Spectrum

A chart or a graph that shows the intensity of light being emitted over a range of energies.

Star

A luminous ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, held together by its own gravity.

Stellar parallax

The shift in position of a nearby star when seen from 2 different places in Earth’s orbit around the sun.

Telescope

A tool that astronomers use to see faraway objects.

Theory

A supposition of a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.

Universe

All existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. The universe is believed to be at least 10 billion light years in diameter and contains a vast number of galaxies; it has been expanding since its creation in the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago.

Allele

Each of two or more alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome.

Biodiversity

The variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable.

Biogeography

The branch of biology that deals with the geographical distribution of plants and animals.

Chromosome

A threadlike structure of nucleic acids and protein found in the nucleus of most living cells, carrying genetic information in the form of genes.

Complementary base

Either of the 2 nitrogen-containing sections of a nucleotide that bond together to connect strands of DNA or RNA.

Pair

A number of things resembling one another, or belonging together; a set.

Evolution

The change in the characteristics of a species over several generations and relies on the process of natural selection.

Fossil

The geologically altered remains of a once-living organism and/or its behaviour.

Gene

The basic unit of heredity passed from parent to child.

Genotype

A scoring of the type of variant present at a given location (i.e a locus) in the genome.

Heterozygous

The presence of 2 different alleles at a particular gene locus.

Homozygous

The presence of two identical alleles at a particular gene locus.

Isolation

State of being separated from others.

Meiosis

A type of cell division in sexually reproducing organisms that reduces the number of chromosomes in gametes.

Mitosis

A type of cell division that results in 2 daughter cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus.

Mutation

Any change in the DNA sequence.

Natural selection

A mechanism of evolution. Organisms that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes that aided their success. This process causes species to change and diverge over time.

Nucleotide

A molecule consisting of a nitrogen-containing base, a phosphate group, and a sugar.

Phenotype

The observable characteristics in an individual resulting from the expression of genes.

Speciation

How a new kind of plant or animal species is created. Speciation occurs when a group within a species separates from other members of its species and develops its own unique characteristics.