WORD LISTS

Eclipse Vocabulary

Sat Aug 19 12:12:58 EDT 2017
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
Discover the language of cosmic wonders with this list of vocabulary related to eclipses. From umbra to corona, dive into the terminology that illuminates the mysteries of solar and lunar eclipses. Explore the celestial dance of shadows and light, and eclipse ignorance with this stellar list of words!
alignment
“In a solar eclipse, there’s an alignment of the sun, the moon and the Earth so they’re in a line,” he said. AP News
astronomical
Maskelyne and Mason had become friends eleven years earlier while engaged in a project to measure an astronomical event of great importance: the passage of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun.
astronomy
We’d learned about astronomy: stuff like gravity, sound waves, and space warps.
celestial
He’d wake her in the middle of the night and they’d use the big Deep Space Hunter telescope to look at a comet or other celestial event.
coincide
People around the world have been watching a rare lunar eclipse that coincided with a so-called "supermoon". BBC News
corona
The corona, an aura of plasma that surrounds the sun and stars, is the centerpiece of several works. Los Angeles Times
eclipse
From the size of the Earth’s shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse, he deduced that the Sun had to be much larger than the Earth, as well as very far away.
lunar
But the fact that only a few of the lunar craters have extensive ray systems also reminds us that, even on the Moon, some erosion occurs.'
obscure
"The air,” Audubon wrote later, "was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse.”
occult
“As the Moon begins to occult the Sun more and more, you will need to lengthen the exposure a little bit,” Starr says. The Verge
orbit
As each moon goes around its parent planet in a regular orbit, just as the Earth follows a regular one-year orbit around the Sun, each moon ought to be eclipsed behind Jupiter at regular intervals.
partial
Unlike a total solar eclipse, a partial eclipse does not entirely block the sun's light, so it doesn't get as dark outside as it does during a total eclipse. Time
penumbra
The moon will pass into Earth’s penumbra, or outer shadow. Seattle Times
phenomenon
Like contemporary astrologers, the Olmec, Maya, and Zapotec believed that celestial phenomena like the phases of the moon and Venus affect daily life.
solar
The solar neighborhood, the immediate environs of the Sun in space, includes the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.
total
Unlike a total solar eclipse, a partial eclipse does not entirely block the sun's light, so it doesn't get as dark outside as it does during a total eclipse. Time
totality
Eclipse day began mostly clear but clouds gradually moved in and temperatures dropped, especially as the 12:38 p.m. totality approached. Salon
umbra
The shadow directly under the moon, called the umbra, is a total eclipse. Washington Post

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