Across
- 2. the angle between the Earth at one time of year, and the Earth six months later, as measured from a nearby star.
- 4. graph in which the absolute magnitudes (intrinsic brightness) of stars are plotted against their spectral types (temperatures).
- 5. an invisible force that pulls objects toward each other.
- 6. any of certain groupings of stars that were imagined—at least by those who named them—to form conspicuous configurations of objects or creatures in the sky.
- 7. very bright, distant and active supermassive black hole that is millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun.
- 8. a dimensionless quantity representing the amount of matter in a particle or object.
- 12. two light nuclei merge to form a single heavier nucleus.
- 15. rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.
- 16. objects in space that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids.
- 17. the colossal explosion of a star.
- 19. formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses.
- 21. a cloud of gas and dust in space believed to develop into a star.
- 23. typically has a rotating disc with spiral 'arms' that curve out from a dense central region.
- 24. they travel in a straight line unless there is a force that makes them stop or change.
- 25. the apparent magnitude an object would have if it were located at a distance of 10 parsecs.
Down
- 1. electromagnetic radiation that propagates energy and travels through space in the form of waves.
- 3. one in which two stars orbit around a common center of mass, that is they are gravitationally bound to each other.
- 9. brightest star in the night sky.
- 10. a dying star in the final stages of stellar evolution.
- 11. how bright an object appears in the sky from Earth.
- 13. gaseous cloud from which, in the so-called nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system, the Sun and planets formed by condensation.
- 14. cosmic snowballs of frozen gasses, rock, and dust that orbit the Sun.
- 18. rotating neutron stars are observed to have pulses of radiation at very regular intervals that typically range from milliseconds to seconds.
- 20. the stellar core left behind after a dying star has exhausted its nuclear fuel and expelled its outer layers to form a planetary nebula.
- 22. a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out.