46
mantle
—The central layer of Earth. It contains hot,
liquid rock called magma.
meteor
—The glowing lights we see in the night sky
when a meteoroid is in contact with Earth’s
atmosphere.
meteorite
—A meteoroid that strikes the surface of
a planet or other object in space.
meteoroid
—A small rocky object in space. Many
meteoroids are broken bits of a comet or asteroid.
meteor shower
—An event in which we see a large
number of meteors coming from the same area of
the sky within a short period of time.
moon
—A space object that orbits a planet, asteroid,
or other larger body that is not a star.
orbit
—The path of a body in space as it moves
around a larger object with more gravitational pull.
ring
—A group of small rocky objects that orbit a
planet.
solar system
—The Sun and all the objects that orbit
it.
year
—The amount of time it takes a planet or other
space body to orbit the Sun once.
