Gravitational Equilibrium : A state of balance in which the force of gravity pulling inward is precisely counteracted by pressure pushing outward.

Corona (solar): The tenuous uppermost layer of the Suns atmosphere; most of the Suns X rays are emitted from this region, in which the temperature is about 1 million K. Sunspots: Blotches on the surface of the Sun that appear darker than surrounding regions. Photosphere : The visible surface of the Sun, where the temperature averages just under 6000 K. core (of a planet):The dense central region of a planet that has undergone differentiation. nuclear fusion: The process in which two (or more) smaller nuclei slam together and make one larger nucleus. nuclear fission: The process in which a larger nucleus splits into two (or more) smaller particles. luminosity: The total power output of an object, usually measured in watts or in units of solar luminosities (LSun 5 3.8 x 1026 watts). Solar Flares: Huge and sudden releases of energy on the solar surface, probably caused when energy stored in magnetic fields is suddenly released. parallax: The apparent shifting of an object against the background, due to viewing it from different positions inverse square law: A law followed by any quantity that decreases with the square of the distance between two objects. spectral type :A way of classifying a star by the lines that appear in its spectrum; it is related to surface temperature. The basic spectral types are designated by a letter (OBAFGKM, with O for the hottest stars and M for the coolest) and are subdivided with numbers from 0 through 9. main-sequence stars (luminosity class V) :Stars whose temperature and luminosity place them on the main sequence of the H-R diagram. Mainsequence stars are all releasing energy by fusing hydrogen into helium in their cores. Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram: A graph plotting individual stars as points, with stellar luminosity on the vertical axis and spectral type (or surface temperature) on the horizontal axis.

open cluster: A cluster of up to several thousand stars; open clusters are found only in the disks of galaxies and often contain young stars. globular cluster: A spherically shaped cluster of up to a million or more stars; globular clusters are found primarily in the halos of galaxies and contain only very old stars. main-sequence turnoff point: The point on a clusters H-R diagram where its stars turn off from the main sequence; the age of the cluster is equal to the main-sequence lifetime of stars at the main-sequence turnoff point. Brown dwarf: An object too small to become an ordinary star because electron degeneracy pressure halts its gravitational collapse before fusion becomes self-sustaining; brown dwarfs have mass less than 0.08MSun. thermal pressure: The ordinary pressure in a gas arising from motions of particles that can be attributed to the objects temperature. degeneracy pressure: A type of pressure unrelated to an objects temperature, which arises when electrons (electron degeneracy pressure) or neutrons (neutron degeneracy pressure) are packed so tightly that the exclusion and uncertainty principles come into play. exclusion principle: The law of quantum mechanics that states that two fermions cannot occupy the same quantum state at the same time. Planetary nebula: the glowing cloud of gas ejected from a low mass star ath the end of its life proton proton chain: chain of reaction by whic low mass stars (including sun) fuse hyro, into helium triple alpha process: ??? CNO cycle: The cycle of reactions by which intermediate- and high-mass stars fuse hydrogen into helium. Neutron star: The compact corpse of a high-mass star left over after a supernova; it typically contains a mass comparable to the mass of the Sun in a volume just a few kilometers in radius. event horizon: The boundary that marks the point of no return between a black hole and the outside universe; events that occur within the event horizon can have no influence on our observable universe. Swerchild diagram : a measure of the size of the event horizon of a black hole.

Drake equation: An equation that lays out the factors that play a role in determining the number of communicating civilizations in our galaxy.

habitable zone:The region around a star in which planets could potentially have surface temperatures at which liquid water could exist.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid): The molecule that represents the genetic material of life on Earth.

MICROFOSSILS: the tiny remains of bacteria, protists, fungi, animals, and plants. Microfossils are a heterogeneous bunch of fossil remains studied as a single discipline because rock samples must be processed in certain ways to remove them and microscopes must be used to study them.

stromatolites: Rocks thought to be fossils made by ancient microbes.

extremophiles:Living organisms that are adapted to conditions that are extreme by human standards, such as very high or low temperature or a high level of salinity or radiation.

Eukaraya: Eukarya (or Eukaryota) is one in the three-domain system of biological classification introduced by Carl Woese in 1990. The other two are Archaea and Bacteria.

Archaea: The Archaea constitute a domain of single-celled microorganisms. These microbes have no cell nucleus or any other membrane-bound organelles within their cells.

BACTERIA Bacteria (/bktri/ ( listen); singular: bacterium) constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and

are present in most habitats on the planet, growing in soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, Cosmic background radiation is electromagnetic radiation from the sky with no discernable source. Nucleosynthesis is the process that creates new atomic nuclei from preexisting nucleons, primarily protons and neutrons.

inflation (of the universe): A sudden and dramatic expansion of the universe thought to have occurred at the end of the GUT era.

Big Bang:The name given to the event thought to mark the birth of the universe.

Hubbles law:Mathematical expression of the idea that more distant galaxies move away from us faster: v 5 H0 x d, where v is a galaxys speed away from us, d is its distance, and H0 is Hubbles constant.

dark energy: Name sometimes given to energy that could be causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. See cosmological constant.

gravitational lensing: The magnification or distortion (into arcs, rings, or multiple images) of an image caused by light bending through a gravitational field, as predicted by Einsteins general theory of relativity.

lookback time: The amount of time since the light we see from a distant object was emitted. If an object has a lookback time of 400 million years, we are seeing it as it looked 400 million years ago.

worldline: A line that represents an object on a spacetime diagram.

spacetime diagram:A graph that plots a spatial dimension on one axis and time on another axis.

accretion disk:A rapidly rotating disk of material that gradually falls inward as it orbits a starlike object (e.g., white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole).

active galactic nuclei: The unusually luminous centers of some galaxies, thought to be powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes. Quasars are the brightest type of active galactic nuclei; radio galaxies also contain active galactic nuclei.

quasar: The brightest type of active galactic nucleus.

irregular galaxies: Galaxies that look neither spiral nor elliptical.

elliptical galaxies:Galaxies that appear rounded in shape, often longer in one direction, like a football. They have no disks and contain very little cool gas and dust compared to spiral galaxies, though they often contain very hot, ionized gas.

spiral galaxies:Galaxies that look like flat white disks with yellowish bulges at their centers. The disks are filled with cool gas and dust, interspersed with hotter ionized gas, and usually display beautiful spiral arms.

nebula: A cloud of gas in space, usually one that is glowing.

reflection (of light):The process by which matter changes the direction of light.

ionization:The process of stripping an electron from an atom.

interstellar medium:The gas and dust that fills the space between stars in a

galaxy.

spiral arms:the bright, prominent arms, usually in a spiral pattern, found in most spiral galaxies.

bar: The standard unit of pressure, approximately equal to Earths atmospheric pressure at sea level.

halo: (of a galaxy) The spherical region surrounding the disk of a spiral galaxy.

bulge (of a spiral galaxy): The central portion of a spiral galaxy that is roughly spherical (or football shaped) and bulges above and below the plane of the galactic disk.

disk (of a galaxy)

The portion of a spiral galaxy that looks like a disk and contains an interstellar medium with cool gas and dust; stars of many ages are found in the disk.

galaxy: A huge collection of anywhere from a few hundred million to more than a trillion stars, all bound together by gravity.

length contraction: The effect in which you observe lengths to be shortened in reference frames moving relative to you.

time dilation: The effect in which you observe time running more slowly in reference frames moving relative to you.