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celestial object
- an object in outer space
- stars, planets, moons are some
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astronomer
- a scientist that professionally travels into space
- eg. chris hadfield
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revolution
- a complete turn around a star or planet by a smaller celestial object
- eg. earth revolution=365.24 days
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rotation
- a complete spin of a celestial body on its axis
- eg. earth's rotation=24 hours
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constellation
- a group of unrelated stars that form a design
- none are perfect
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light year
- how far light travels in a year
- equal to 9.5*10^5 km
- used to measure distances in space
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apparent magnitude
how bright a star is from earth
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asterism
- a small group of stars within constellations
- eg. the big dipper
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pointer stars
the stars at the far end of the big dipper that point to polaris on a 5 to 1 ratio
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circumpolar
- stars visible all year long
- eg. polaris
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zenith
look straight up for this constellation
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tides
- caused by stretching of earth by moon
- not moon's gravity
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moon's phases
- the positions at which the moon is seen
- eg. new moon, waxing crescent
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solar eclipse
- when the moon totally covers the sun
- can be partial
- don't look at it
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lunar eclipse
- when you can no longer see the moon in earth's shadow
- the one you're more likely to see
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why we have seasons
do to earth's tilt, sometimes different parts of the earth recieve different amounts of sunlight
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planet
- a body of circular matter that emits no energy on its own
- inner planets are rocky
- outer planets are gassy
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solar system
- the sun and everything that revolves around it
- includes oort cloud and kuiper belt
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retrograde motion
when the planets do weird things in the sky because we are on a different orbit
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Astronomical unit
- 149 597 871 kilometers
- used to measure space stuff
- the distance between the sun and earth
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orbital radius
- how large an orbit's radius is
- measured in AU
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geocentric model
- earth is centre of solar system
- believed to be true until recently (a few hundred years)
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heliocentric model
- sun is at centre
- common model today
- everything orbits around sun
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comet
- flying ice particle with other stuff that leaves a con trail
- has weird orbit
- named after discoverer
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asteroid
- small planet-like object without any form of atmosphere
- basically a space rock
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meteroid
- space rock that isn't orbiting anything
- potential meteor
- tiny
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meteor
- a meteroid when it enters earths atmosphere
- potential end of world
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meteorite
meteor after falling through earth
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trans neptunian object
an object past neptune's orbit
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