Terms
Astronomy - scientific study of what is beyond the earth
Celestial object - any object that exists in space
Universe - everything that exists, including all energy, matter and space
Star - massive collection of gasses held by its own gravity and emits huge amounts of energy
Luminous - producing or giving off light/ shining
Sun - our star, an average star
Scientific notation - putting numbers into manageable form
First number is between 1 and 9
The exponent is the number of decimal places
Planet - a large round celestial object that travels around a star
Solar system - the sun and everything that travels around it
Satellite - a celestial object that travels around a planet or dwarf planet
Orbit - the closed path of a celestial object or satellite as it travels around another celestial object
Moon- a type of satellite
Galaxy - a huge, rotating collection of gas, dust and billions of stars, planets, and other celestial objects
Milky way - galaxy the Earth is in
8.2 - 8.3
Corona - outer part of the sun’s atmosphere
Sunspots - dark spots on the earth’s surface that are cooler than the area surrounding them
Galileo Galilei - astronomer who lived approximately 400 years ago- the first to observe and study sunspots in detail
Aurora Borealis - display of shifting colours in the northern sky caused by solar particles colliding with matter in the Earth’s upper atmosphere
Aurora Australis - simultaneous display of Aurora Borealis in the southern pole
Astronomical unit - approximately 150 million km
Average distance from the sun to earth
Dwarf planet - a celestial object that orbits the sun and has a spherical shape but does not dominate its orbit
Astroid - space rocks with metal found in a band called the “astroid belt” between Mars and Jupiter
Meteoroid - pieces of rocky debris smaller than asteroids
Meteor shower - when a number of meteors radiate from one point in the sky visibly on a certain date
Comet - chunk of ice, dust, and rock that breaks down when it approaches the sun (the ice melts)
Coma - a gaseous cloud when a comet sublimates from the sun’s heat
8.9 - 8.11
Light pollution - pollution from manmade lights, often found near cities
Artificial satellites - helps forecast the weather monitor agriculture, and in telecommunication technologies, navigation, assist military activities, and explore the universe
Sputnik 1 - First artificial satellite sent by the Soviet Union
Alouette 1 - Used to observe the Earth’s ionosphere
First satellites by Canada, placing us third in the space race
RADARSAT - allows satellites to view all parts of the Earth in polar orbits
GPS - a group of satellites that work together to determine the positions of given objects on the surface of the earth
Chapter 9
Miscellaneous
Kuiper Belt - space past neptune and holds space junk
Eris - dwarf okabet ub tge jyouer vekt
Oort Cloud - most distant region of our solar system that is filled with icy objects of space debris
Chapter 9 Terms
Light years - is a unit of distance, not time - the distance that light travels in a year
Solar Mass
Andromeda - Furthest thing we can see without technology, and are on a crash collision course with us where the Milky Way will be absorbed
Edwin Hubble - first to see other galaxies but DID NOT make the Hubble telescope
Dark matter Isn’t visible but must be there because of the way other objects interact and move/ makes up the majority of the universe
Dark energy - isn’t visible but is responsible for the expansion of the universe/ is stronger than gravity
Big Bang Theory