Astronomy

Astronomy

The scientific study of planets, stars, black holes, comets and other celestial bodies that make up outer space.

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Astronomy > Moon

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Astronomy; Moon

The line which delimits night (shadowed portion) and day (sunlit portion) on a celestial body. The Moon's phases illustrate this.

super moon

Astronomy; Moon

The largest and brightest full moon of the year, caused by the Moon's oval orbit of the Earth. The point where the moon is at perigee and appears to be 14% larger, as it is 50km ...

Phobos

Astronomy; Moon

One of the two moons of the planet Mars. Of all the known moons in the solar system, the moon Phobos orbits closest to its primary, hovering only a few thousand miles above the ...

Deimos

Astronomy; Moon

The smaller of Mars' two moons. Being only 15 by 12 by 11 km in size, Deimos whirls around Mars every 30 hours.

tidal locking

Astronomy; Moon

Also known as synchronous rotation, tidal locking is when an orbiting satellite's rotational period is the same as it's orbiting period. As a result, one hemisphere is always ...

synchronous orbit

Astronomy; Moon

An orbit in which the orbiting satellite's period is the same as the rotational period of the object being orbited around. An example of such an orbit is Pluto's moon Charon. ...