Name: Cody Hillis!

Terms to Know for the 3rd Rock from the Sun Project
1.Solar system - the collection of eight planets and their moons in orbit around the sun, together with
smaller bodies in the form of asteroids, meteoroids, and comets.

2.Gravity - the force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical
body having mass.

3.Eclipse - (of a celestial body) obscure the light from or to (another celestial body).
4.Ellipse - a regular oval shape, traced by a point moving in a plane so that the sum of its distances
from two other points (the foci) is constant, or resulting when a cone is cut by an oblique plane that does
not intersect the base.

5.Eccentricity - deviation of a curve or orbit from circularity.

6.Precession - the slow movement of the axis of a spinning body around another axis due to a torque
(such as gravitational influence) acting to change the direction of the first axis. It is seen in the circle
slowly traced out by the pole of a spinning gyroscope.

7.Orbit - he curved path of a celestial object or spacecraft around a star, planet, or moon, especially a
periodic elliptical revolution.

8.Light year - a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year,
which is 9.4607 1012 km (nearly 6 trillion miles).

9.Waxing - (of the moon between new and full) have a progressively larger part of its visible surface
illuminated, increasing its apparent size.

10.Waning - (of the moon) have a progressively smaller part of its visible surface illuminated, so that it
appears to decrease in size.

11.Crescent - the curved sickle shape of the waxing or waning moon.

12.Gibbous - (of the moon) having the observable illuminated part greater than a semicircle and less
than a circle.

13.Celestial object - Relating to the sky or the heavens. Stars and planets are celestial bodies.
Relating to the celestial sphere or to any of the coordinate systems by which the position of an object,
such as a star or planet, is represented on it.

14.Year (for any planet)- the time taken by a planet to make one revolution around the sun.

Name: Cody Hillis!

15.Day (for any planet)- a period of twenty-four hours as a unit of time, reckoned from one midnight to
the next, corresponding to a rotation of the earth on its axis.

16.Rotation - the action of rotating around an axis or center.

17.Revolution - the movement of an object in a circular or elliptical course around another or about an
axis or center.

18.Equinox - the time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when
day and night are of equal length (about September 22 and March 20).

19.Solstice - either of the two times in the year, the summer solstice and the winter solstice, when the
sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon, marked by the longest and shortest days.

20.Planet - a celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit around a star.

21.Dwarf planet - a celestial body resembling a small planet but lacking certain technical criteria that
are required for it to be classed as such.

22.Asteroid - a small rocky body orbiting the sun. Large numbers of these, ranging in size from nearly
600 miles (1,000 km) across (Ceres) to dust particles, are found (as the asteroid belt ) especially between
the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, though some have more eccentric orbits, and a few pass close to the earth
or enter the atmosphere as meteors.

23.Meteor - a small body of matter from outer space that enters the earth's atmosphere, becoming
incandescent as a result of friction and appearing as a streak of light.

24.Meteorite - a meteor that survives its passage through the earth's atmosphere such that part of it
strikes the ground. More than 90 percent of meteorites are of rock, while the remainder consist wholly or
partly of iron and nickel.