- Industry: Astronomy
- Number of terms: 6727
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Planetary Science Research Discoveries (PSRD) is an educational site sharing the latest research by NASA-sponsored scientists on meteorites, asteroids, planets, moons, and other materials in our Solar System. The website is supported by the Cosmochemistry Program of NASA's Science Mission ...
The region around Earth dominated by Earth's magnetic field. In this region, the Earth's magnetic field lines guide the motions of charged particles (ions and electrons).
Industry:Astronomy
Mountain formed from the eruption of igneous matter through a source vent.
Industry:Astronomy
Opaque mineral found in basalt; nearly pure iron-titanium oxide (FeTiO<sub>3</sub>. )
Industry:Astronomy
United States federal agency. "NASA is an investment in America's future. As explorers, pioneers, and innovators, we boldly expand frontiers in air and space to inspire and serve America and to benefit the quality of life on Earth. " -from the NASA Strategic Plan.
Industry:Astronomy
An internal property of a fluid that offers resistance to flow. If a fluid has a high viscosity, then it strongly resists flow. An example of a low viscosity fluid is water.
Industry:Astronomy
Distance that light can travel in 1 year. Light travels at a speed of 300,000 km / sec, so this distance is equal to 9. 46 x 10<sup>12</sup> kilometers.
Industry:Astronomy
The fundamental unit of temperature. It is not calibrated in terms of the freezing and boiling points of water, but in terms of energy itself. The number 0 K is assigned to the lowest possible temperature, called absolute zero. The sizes of the "degree" are the same as on the Celsius scale. On the Kelvin scale, the freezing point of water is 273 K and the boiling point is 373 K.
Industry:Astronomy
The brightest of the known asteroids. Also called 4 Vesta because it was the fourth asteroid to be discovered (by Olbers in 1807).
Industry:Astronomy
A mostly solid layer of Earth lying beneath the crust and above the core; consisting mostly of iron, magnesium, silicon, and oxygen. On other planets and moons, the mantle is the layer between the crust and core. Mantles contain information about a planet's total composition, a key parameter in understanding planet formation and how the planets vary in composition with distance from the Sun. A second definition of mantle is a smooth blanket of surface material (generally fine-grained, sometimes layered) that was deposited by some process such as wind or water and that now obscures the underlying land.
Industry:Astronomy
The process describing when one lithospheric plate collides with and is overridden by, or descends under, an adjacent plate.
Industry:Astronomy
