Space Vocabulary

Random Vocabulary

100

A unit of measurement for distance used to measure large distances in space.

What is Astronomical Units?

200

the imaginary line between the north and south poles which the Earth spins upon

What is Axis of Rotation? 

300

The motion of one object moving around another object

What is Revolution?

400

To spin in place

What is rotation? 

500

a repeating curved path one object in space takes around another object

What is Orbit?

Planets

100

Consisting of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars all of which have solid rocky surfaces.

What are the Terrestrial Planets? 

200

Consisting of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all of which have thick atmospheres and no solid outer layer of their planet.

What are the Gas Giant Planets? 

300

A smaller spherical object in space that resembles a small planet but lacks certain technical criteria required to be classified as such.

What are Dwarf Planets?

400

The ideal distance from a star that creates the appropriate environment for liquid water to exist.

What is the Goldilocks Zone?

500

This planet is the 5th planet from the Sun

What is Jupiter? 

A/C/M

100

Small objects made of rock or metal that orbits the Sun. Can be connected to causing the extinction of dinosaurs.  

What is an asteroid? 

200

Objects in space that have entered a planet’s atmosphere that burn due to traveling at high speeds.

What is a meteor? 

300

Cosmic snowballs of frozen gasses, rock and dust that orbit the Sun.

What are Comets? 

400

 A small, rocky or metallic object that orbits the sun in space.

What is a Meteoroids? 

500

A rock that has fallen to Earth from space.

What is a Meteorite?

Eclipse

100

total or partial blocking of one object in space by another

What is an Eclipse?

200

When the moon travels between the Sun and the Earth causing the Earth to become engulfed in a shadow cast by the moon

What is a Solar eclipse?

300

When the moon moves into the Earth’s shadow making it appear darkened in the night sky

What is a Lunar Eclipse? 

400

Inner region of a shadow 

What is an umbra?

500

Outer region of a shadow

What is a penumbra? 

Moon Phases

100

the alternate rising and falling of sea levels due to the gravitational forces between the Moon, Sun and the rotation of the Earth

What are Tides?

200

The period when the Moon appears to be growing as more area is illuminated with sunlight

What is Waxing?

300

The period when the Moon appears to be shrinking as the visible surface is decreasing

What is Waning?

400

when the moon is between half-moon and full moon, a majority of the moon is illuminated

What is Gibbous? 

500

when the moon is between new moon and first or last quarter, only a sliver of the surface is illuminated

What is Crescent?