Fun Things
Comet
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, and forms a visible tail
Oort Cloud
A spherical shell around our solar system. It may contain more than a trillion icy bodies. Long-period comets (which take more than 200 years to orbit the sun) come from the Oort Cloud.
Planet
any large heavenly body that orbits a star (such as the sun)
Aurora Borealis
Bright glows and bands of light that appear in the skies at night near the North Pole. They are also called the northern lights.
(think- boreal forests, Boreas is Latin denoting the god of the north winds)
Light-Year
the distance that light travels in one year - about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers). Used a measurement of length in astronomy.
Solar System
the sun and the planets, asteroids, comets, and meteors that revolve around it
Matter
The stuff that everything is made of. Atoms are a tiny bit of matter. Big planets have lots of matter. Even you are made of matter!
Supernova
The explosion of a star that makes it as bright as a whole galaxy.
Star
A ball of shining gas, made mostly of hydrogen and helium, held together by its own gravity. Turning hydrogen into helium creates the energy that makes stars shine
Molecule
A molecule can be a single atom or a group of atoms. Example- Water is a substance, and one molecule of water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, which we write as H2O
Asteroid
Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the Sun. Although asteroids orbit the Sun like planets, they are much smaller than planets.
Kuiper Belt
A donut-shaped ring of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. Pluto is the best known of these icy worlds.
Universe
All of space and time, and everything in it. It’s everything ever!
Nebula
The word is Latin for "Cloud". A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. Stars are often formed here.
Exoplanet
All of the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun. Planets that orbit around other stars are called exoplanets. Exoplanets are very hard to see directly with telescopes. They are hidden by the bright glare of the stars they orbit.
Meteoroid
A little chunk of rock in space smaller than a pick up truck. If it were bigger, it would be an asteroid.
GPS
This stands for Global Positioning System. It’s a system that uses satellites, ground stations, and receivers to tell you exactly where you are on Earth.
Galaxy
A collection of thousands to billions of stars held together by gravity. The galaxy we live in is called the Milky Way.
Aurora Australis
Bright glows and bands of light that appear in the skies at night near the South Pole. They are also called the southern lights.
Black Hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing – no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light – can escape from it.
Meteorite
A meteoroid that lands on the surface of a planet.
Satellite
An object that orbits another object. A moon is actually a satellite. We also say satellite to refer to spacecraft that people build that orbit Earth, other planets, moons, asteroids, or other objects out in space
Solar Flare
Solar flare: A burst of energy and particles from the sun. It releases gases, radiation waves, and magnetic storms.
Constellation
Constellation: A group of stars in the sky. They're often named after an animal, object, or person. The stars form certain patterns based on where you are. We have one view of stars here on Earth, but from another solar system or galaxy, the constellations would look different.
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.