Across
- 1. Gamma Ray Observatory Space observatory in service from 1991 to 2000 that was designed to identify the sources of celestial gamma rays. It was named after physicist Arthur Holly Compton. Its mission was to determine whether gamma-ray bursts were in the Milky Way Galaxy or in remote galaxies. The satellite found that the bursts were scattered evenly across the sky, which showed that they came from outside the Milky Way Galaxy and were very powerful objects.
- 3. Bang The explosion of dense matter that, according to current cosmological theories, marked the origin of the universe
- 4. the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth and occurring about March 21 (vernal equinox or spring equinox) and September 22 (autumnal equinox)
- 6. The point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is furthest from the sun.
- 7. telescope A telescope that uses a converging lens to collect light.
- 9. The curved path of a celestial object or spacecraft around a star, planet, or moon, esp. a periodic elliptical revolution.
- 11. A long distance or great amount.
- 13. Cause (an object made of concentric tubular parts) to slide into itself, so that it becomes smaller.
- 16. A group or cluster of related things.
- 19. -Unit A unit of measurement equal to 149.6 million kilometers, the mean distance from the center of the earth to the center of the sun.
- 20. X-ray Observatory Chandra is one of the Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (1991-2000), and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Chandra has been described as being as revolutionary to astronomy as Galileo's first telescope.
- 23. The throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it.
- 24. An ellipse is a smooth closed curve which is symmetric about its horizontal and vertical axes. The distance between antipodal points on the ellipse, or pairs of points whose midpoint is at the center of the ellipse, is maximum along the major axis or transverse diameter, and a minimum along the perpendicular minor axis or conjugate diameter.
- 26. -The branch of science that deals with celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole.
- 28. telescopes (optical telescope) an astronomical telescope designed to collect and record light from cosmic sources.
Down
- 2. The point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is closest to the sun.
- 5. Equator The projection into space of the earth's equator; an imaginary circle equidistant from the celestial poles.
- 8. A forcible overthrow of a government or social order for a new system.
- 10. Webb Space Telescope The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is a planned space telescope optimized for observations in the infrared, and a scientific successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The main technical features are a large and very cold 6.5-meter (21 ft) diameter mirror, an observing position far from Earth, orbiting the Earth-Sun L2 point, and four specialized instruments. The combination of these features will give JWST unprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength visible to the mid-infrared, enabling its two main scientific goals - studying the birth and evolution of galaxies, and the formation of stars and planets.
- 12. A system of millions or billions of stars, together with gas and dust, held together by gravitational attraction.
- 14. beyond the violet in the spectrum, corresponding to light having wavelengths shorter than 4000 angstrom units.
- 15. Spectrum The range of wavelengths or frequencies over which electromagnetic radiation extends.
- 17. The action of rotating around an axis or center: "in the same direction as the earth's rotation".
- 18. Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is an infrared space observatory launched in 2003. It is the fourth and final of the NASA Great Observatories program
- 21. Space Telescope The first permanent astronomical observatory above the Earth's atmosphere, HST was designed to provide much more detailed views of the universe than can be obtained from the ground. Since its launch in 1990, it has served as one of the major tools by which astronomers have learned about the universe.
- 22. Telescope A telescope in which a mirror is used to collect and focus light.
- 25. the branch of philosophy dealing with the origin and general structure of the universe, with its parts, elements, and laws, and especially with such of its characteristics as space, time, causality, and freedom.
- 26. Equinox The equinox in autumn, on about September 22 in the northern hemisphere and March 20 in the southern hemisphere.
- 27. Way Galaxy The Milky Way Galaxy has a number of satellite galaxies, as shown in the table "Satellite Galaxies of the Milky Way," (also see individual entries for these galaxies) and is the second largest (after the Andromeda Galaxy), but possibly most massive, member of the Local Group.