ASTRONOMY TERMS | Intermediate Level Vocabulary

Do you know that only 5% of the universe is actually visible? And according to current estimates, the universe may contain about 50 billion galaxies. These are all parts of astronomy.

The study of celestial bodies outside of our planet’s atmosphere, such as planets, stars, asteroids, and galaxies, as well as their qualities and interconnections, is known as astronomy.

• nova
  – the name “nova” is derived from the New Latin which means “new star,” and it refers to how, when a star undergoes nova, it can become the brightest object in the sky (apart from the sun and the moon).
• ecliptic
  – a fictitious line in the sky which denotes the sun’s course. Along the course of the ecliptic, the moon and planets also move.
• chondrite
  – a stony meteorite with chondrules that is unique to it.
• umbra
  – a specific portion of a shadow when all light from a particular source is blocked.
• quasar
  – an area at the galactic core that emits a tremendous amount of radiation.
• aphelion
  – the point in the orbit of any celestial body farthest from the sun.
• spectroscopy
  – a study of how matter absorbs and emits light and other types of radiation, and how this is related to how these processes differ depending on the wavelength of the radiation.
• occultation
  – full blockage of a celestial object’s light, most often a star, by another celestial object, like a planet or satellite.