Solar System Vocabulary

3rd Grade

Asteroid

• Rocks that revolve around the Sun. They can be different sizes and shapes. Most asteroids are located in an area between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter called the asteroid belt.

Apparent

The way the sun looks as it crosses the sky during the day is not the real path of the sun– this is how it apparently looks to us here on Earth.

Comet

Comets are balls of ice and rock that are seen moving across the sky. A comet’s body has two parts, a head and a tail.

Crater

A large bowl shaped hole caused by meteors striking the Earth or Moon’s

surface.

Kuiper Belt

The region past Neptune’s Orbit. Many comets are located there.

Meteor

A fast streak of light that shoots across the night sky.

Meteorite

When a meteoroid moving away from the asteroid belt hits Earth’s surface, it

Orbit

The circular path of an object as it revolves around another object.

Planet

Planets revolve a star, like our sun. A planet is large enough to clear the neighborhood around its orbit. The Earth is the 3rd planet from the sun in our solar system..

Planetoid

In our solar system, eight planets orbit the Sun. But there are other round bodies orbiting the Sun. These bodies are like planets but much smaller. They are called planetoids. The largest asteroids or dwarf planets are called planetoids. Pluto is a dwarf planet.

Rotate

An object that turns around its center or axis is rotating. The Earth rotates around its axis. A bicycle rotates around the wheel’s axis.

Satellite

A natural satellite is a celestial body that orbits another body. The moon is a natural satellite.

An artificial, or man made, object which has been placed in orbit around the Earth.

Space

When you leave the Earth’s atmosphere, (the air around the Earth), you enter a place where there is no air and no life. This is where Earth, the moon , the sun, the planets and the starts are all located. This is what

we call space.