Key Terms
- conduction
- process by which heat is directly transmitted through a substance when there is a difference of temperature between adjoining regions caused by atomic or molecular collisions
- convection
- movement caused within a gas or liquid by the tendency of hotter, and therefore less dense material, to rise and colder, denser material to sink under the influence of gravity, which consequently results in transfer of heat
- fission
- breaking up of heavier atomic nuclei into lighter ones
- fusion
- building up of heavier atomic nuclei from lighter ones
- helioseismology
- study of pulsations or oscillations of the Sun in order to determine the characteristics of the solar interior
- hydrostatic equilibrium
- balance between the weights of various layers, as in a star or Earth’s atmosphere, and the pressures that support them
- neutrino
- fundamental particle that has no charge and a mass that is tiny relative to an electron; it rarely interacts with ordinary matter and comes in three different types
- positron
- particle with the same mass as an electron, but positively charged
- proton-proton chain
- series of thermonuclear reactions by which nuclei of hydrogen are built up into nuclei of helium
- radiation
- emission of energy as electromagnetic waves or photons also the transmitted energy itself
This book was adapted from the following: Fraknoi, A., Morrison, D., & Wolff, S. C. (2016). Key Terms In Astronomy. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/astronomy/pages/16-key-terms under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
Access the entire book for free at https://openstax.org/books/astronomy/pages/1-introduction
