Astronomers and Stars Vocabulary

Claudius Ptolemy was a Greco-Egyptian writer, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology.

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe.

A Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations.

Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars.

Galileo Galilei, was an Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician who played a major role in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance.

Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution.

Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer who played a crucial role in establishing the field of extragalactic astronomy and is generally regarded as one of the most important observational cosmologists of the 20th century.

One of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy, it remains one of the 88 modern constellations.

Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation in the northern sky.

Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky. It was named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology.

A constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere. In the second century, it was included in Ptolemy’s 48 constellations, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations.

Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty.

A red giant star is a dying star in the last stages of stellar evolution. In only a few billion years, our own sun will turn into a red giant star, expand and engulf the inner planets, possibly even Earth.

A small very dense star that is typically the size of a planet.

A main sequence star is any star that is fusing hydrogen in its core and has a stable balance of outward pressure from core nuclear fusion and gravitational forces pushing inward.

An astronomical event that occurs during the last stellar evolutionary stages of a massive star’s life, whose dramatic and catastrophic destruction is marked by one final titanic explosion.

A region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—including particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it.

A displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.

A unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year.

The brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor.