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Exoplanets: Glossary
A
- analyze
- study or investigate
- astronomers
- a scientist who studies planets, comets and other space bodies
- atmosphere
- the air or gases that surround a planet
B
- bacteria
- a one celled living organism
C
- carbon dioxide
- a gas given off by animals and taken in by plant
- compressed
- to squeeze together
D
- Doppler shift
- change in the frequency of a wave
- decompression
- to separate out from a compressed version - spread apart
- demoted
- to categorize something on a lower level
- detected
- to find or see
- determine
- to find or see or understand
- dwarf planets
- a space body too small to be called a planet
E
- enhance
- make better
- exoplanets
- planets that exist orbiting stars other than our own sun
- extrasolar planets
- planets that exist orbiting stars other than our own sun
G
- galaxy
- a large system of stars
- gaseous
- to contain or be made of gas
- gravitational
- related to gravity
H
- habitable zone
- the distance from a star most likely to have conditions right for life on a planet
I
- inaccurate
- not quite true
L
- light-year
- distance light travels in one Earth year or 9,500,000,000,000 kilometers (about 93 million miles)
O
- orbiting
- the curved path of a planet around its sun
P
- phenomenon
- unusual wonders of space
R
- radial velocity
- the speed of an object as it moves toward or away from an observer
- repurpose
- use for a different purpose than originally intended
- rogue
- a lonely, nonconforming planet
S
- satellite
- a body that orbits another body
- spectroscopy
- the study of light passing through matter
T
- technology
- the science of useful tools
- transiting
- the passage of a planet across its sun
U
- universe
- all of time, space and its contents
V
- venture
- project
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