VOCABULARY FOR PLANET

Constellation: a group of stars that appears to form a pattern or picture

Sentence: What a constellation of small joys Sunday turned out to be.

Cosmonaut: astronaut of the Soviet or Russian space program.

Sentence: The spacecraft was capable of carrying two cosmonauts

Nebula: a cloud of dust or gas in outer space:

Sentence: In a clear night you might be able to see a nebula without the help of a telescope.

Crescent moon: is the moon when more than half the side you can see is dark

Sentence: The moon was a brightly shining crescent.

Ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun throughout the course of a year

Sentence: The obliquity of ecliptic is the fundamental cause of the seasons.

Penumbra: a part of a shadow in which only some of the light is blocked,

Sentence: A penumbra of snow covered the city during the blizzard

Meteoroid: a piece of rock or other matter in space that has not yet entered the
earth’s atmosphere

Sentence: The ship can also be damaged by collision with random meteoroids.

Observatory: a building from which scientists can watch the planets, the stars, the weather, etc.

Sentence: We’re looking forward to visiting the Greenwich observatory

Telescope: an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer.

Sentence: If you want to look at the planets, you can use a telescope

Axial tilt: Refers to the angle a planet’s rotation axis makes with the plane of its orbit.

Sentence: The angle of Earth’s axial tilt is relatively stable over long periods of time.