| A | B |
|---|
| constellations | patterns of stars in the sky |
| electromagnetic radiation | energy that can travel directly through space in the form of waves |
| visible light | light we can see with our eyes |
| wavelength | the distance between the crest of one wave and the crest of the next wave |
| spectrum | the range of wavelengths of electromagnetic waves |
| refracting telescope | a telescope that uses convex lenses to gather a large amount of light |
| convex lens | a piece of transparent glass, curved so that the middle is thicker that the edges |
| reflecting telescope | a telescope that uses a mirror instead of a lens |
| radio telescope | a device used to detect radio waves from objects in space |
| observatory | a building that contains one or more telescopes |
| spectrograph | a tool used to break the light from an object into colors |
| galaxy | a giant structure that contains hundreds of billions of stars |
| universe | all of space and everything in it |
| light-year | the distance light travels in a year |
| parallax | the apparent change in position of an object when you look at it from different places |
| giant stars | very large stars |
| apparent magnitude | how bright a star looks - changes based on distance |
| absolute magnitude | how bright a star really is |
| main sequence | the main set of stars - as the surface temperature increases, the brightness increases |
| nebula | the birthplace of stars |
| protostar | the earliest stage of a star |
| white dwarf | the blue white core of a star left behind after they have become red giants |
| supernova | the explosion of a giant or supergiant star |
| neutron | stars that are smaller and denser than white dwarfes |
| black hole | what the most massive stars become when they die |
| quasars | "something like" stars |
| binary stars | star systems with two stars |
| eclipsing binary | a star pair where one star blocks the light from the other star |
| spiral galaxy | The Milky Way is an example |
| elliptical galaxy | a galaxy that looks like a flattened ball |
| irregular galaxy | galaxy the has no real shape |
| Big Bang | the theory that the universe formed in an enormous explosion |
