Earth's Vocabulary
Earth: The third planet from the sun; the planet we live on.
Temperature: A measure of how hot or cold something is.
Layer: A single thickness of a material covering a surface or forming a section of an object.
Center: The middle point of something.
Satellite: A celestial body orbiting a planet or a human-made object placed in orbit around the Earth, moon, or another planet.
General Academic Vocabulary
Sphere: A round solid figure, or its surface, with every point on its surface equidistant from its center.
Radiation: The emission of energy as electromagnetic waves or as moving subatomic particles, especially high-energy particles that cause ionization.
Core: The dense, central part of a planet, star, or other astronomical body.
Photosynthesis: The process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy, which is later released to fuel the organisms' activities.
Atmosphere: The envelope of gases surrounding the Earth or another planet.
Superheat: To heat a liquid to a temperature above its boiling point without it boiling.
Surface: The outermost or uppermost layer of a body of water or land.
Discipline-Specific Vocabulary (Solar Physics)
Plasma: A state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized, meaning they are charged. The sun is primarily made of plasma.
Radiative Zone: A layer of the sun's interior where energy is transferred from the core toward the exterior by photons.
Photosphere: The visible surface of the sun. It is a layer of gas about 500 kilometers thick from which most of the sun's light is emitted.
Chromosphere: The second of the three main layers in the sun's atmosphere, situated between the photosphere and the corona. It appears as a reddish glow.
Convection Zone: The outermost layer of the solar interior. It is where energy is transported by convection currents, similar to boiling water.
Nuclear Fusion: A nuclear reaction in which atomic nuclei of low atomic number fuse to form a new nucleus with a higher atomic number and energy is released. This process powers the sun.
Solar Flare: A sudden, localized explosion of plasma on the sun's surface, releasing massive amounts of energy and radiation.
Solar Wind: A stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the sun, called the corona.
Sunspots: Temporary phenomena on the sun's photosphere that appear as spots darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by intense magnetic activity.
