Glossary
Apollo - all 17 missions of Apollo had a goal to land on the moon. One of the most known stories today is Apollo 13 which was made into a movie.
Neil Armstrong - The first man to walk on the moon.
asteroids - Large chunks of rock in space.
astronauts - People who travel into space. Russian astronauts are called cosmonauts.
astronomy - The scientific study of the universe and the things in it.
atmosphere - The layer of gases that surround a planet or moon.
Big Bang - A theory which states that the universe began with an enormous explosion.
Black Hole - a region of space where there is so much matter and gravity that not even light can escape. A small incredibly dense object in space. This unusual object is so dense that nothing not even light, can escape its gravitational pull.
Cape Canaveral - Cape Canaveral is located in Florida at the site of the John F. Kennedy Space Center where many U.S. space shuttles are launched from.
Roger Chaffee - Was one of the three men to die doing a test burn for an Apollo Mission
Challenger - It was the U.S. space shuttle that exploded killing seven astronauts.
Columbia - The first space shuttle to orbit and return to Earth.
comet - An object in space made out of ice, dust, and other materials.
constellation - a pattern of stars that are grouped together in the sky.
Copernicus - Over 450 years ago in 1543 Copernicus was the first to believe that all the planets go around the sun.
core - The center of a planet, moon or asteroids. It is made from different materials from its surrounding layers.
crater - circular depression on a planet, moon, or asteroid caused by being hit by another object.
Earth - third planet from the sun.
eclipse - a shadow cast by one celestial object on another.
exploration - to search in unknown places.
Galileo - was the person to find out that Jupiter had four moons and proved that every thing didn't go around the Earth, but it went around the Sun.
galaxies - a huge family of stars, dust and gas that is held together by gravity
John Glenn - In 1962 John Glenn was the first U.S. man to orbit the Earth. In 1998 John Glenn was the oldest man to go into space.
gravity - the force that attracts objects to each other.
Virgil Grissom - One of the first astronauts to make more than one flight.
Halley's Comet - a comet seen from the Earth every 76 years.
Jupiter - Fifth planet from the sun and the largest in our solar system.
launch - To lift off from Earth on a journey into space.
Leonoid Meteorite showers - Meteorites that are thought to come from the constellation Leo (the lion).
Jim Lovell - Commander of Apollo 13.
Mars - Forth planet from the sun.
Mercury - Closest planet to the sun.
meteorite - A meteor that has survived its passage through the atmosphere and strikes ground.
meteors - A brilliant streak across the sky caused by objects like dust or rocks burning up as they come into the Earth's atmosphere.
Milky Way - A broad band of light that looks like a trail of spilled milk in the night sky. Created by the millions of faint stars that form part of our galaxy.
moon - A small world that orbits some of the major planets.
NASA - Short for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, it is the organization that runs all of the United States missions into space.
nebula - a cloud of dust and gas in space.
Neptune - The eighth planet from the sun and sometimes the ninth.
orbit - The path of an object that is moving around another object in space.
Pluto - Ninth planet from the sun and sometimes eighth.
Protostar-The early stage of forming a star.
revolution - To go around in an orbit.
rotation - a planet's spin on its own axis.
satellites - Objects that orbit a planet. These can be natural, such as moons, or artificial, such as communication satellites.
Saturn - Sixth planet from the sun.
solar system - The sun and everything that orbits it, including the planets, their moons, asteroids, and comets.
space lab - A space lab is a laboratory where the astronauts work in space. The shuttle carries the lab within its cargo bay.
space probe - An unmanned spacecraft which collects information about objects in space and sends it back to scientists on Earth.
space shuttle - a spacecraft which carries people and materials into space. It is launched like a rocket, but lands like a plane and can be used again.
star - A ball of gas which produces its own light and heat from central nuclear reactions.
star clusters - There are two types of star clusters, open clusters and globular clusters.
sun - A medium size star that lies in the middle of our Solar System.
telescope - A devise that uses lenses or mirrors to enlarge images of distant objects. Astronomers use telescopes to study planets and stars.
universe - Everything which is known or thought to exist in space.
Uranus - Seventh planet from the sun.
Venus - Second planet from the sun.
volcano - A hole in a planet's crust through which liquid rock pours onto the surface in an eruption.
waning - when the moon goes from a full moon to a new moon (the opposite of waxing).
waxing - when the moon goes from a new moon to a full moon.
zodiac - band around the sky where the planets move.