In this section you will find a small glossary of astronomy terms.

If while reading through this section dedicated to Star Tourism, as well as watching the videos about what we can observe in the sky in the different seasons of the year, you have any doubts about the meaning of any word, you can consult it below.

You will see that they are explained in a simple way so that anyone can understand what they mean.

• Asterism: A group of stars that form a recognizable shape in the sky, but it's not an official constellation. Like the three Marys in the Orion constellation.
• Ecliptic: The apparent path that the Sun follows across the sky throughout the year. Imagine a line drawn by the Sun as it moves.
• Galactic center: The heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It's where a supermassive black hole and the highest concentration of stars are located.
• Equinox: One of the two times of the year when day and night are almost the same length all over the planet. It happens in spring and fall.
• Zenith: The highest point in the sky, right above your head.
• Double stars: Two stars that appear very close to each other in the sky. They might be truly together (binary stars) or just seem to be.
• Constellation: A group of stars that form an imaginary shape in the sky, like Orion or the Big Dipper. They're like "drawings" in the sky.
• Cluster: A group of stars that are together in space. They can be open clusters (with few stars) or globular clusters (with many).
• Perseids/meteor shower: A shower of shooting stars that happens every year in August. They're small pieces of rock that enter the atmosphere and burn up.
• Alpha star: The brightest star in a constellation. For example, Alpha Centauri.
• Galaxy: A huge collection of stars, gas, and dust, like the Milky Way.
• Binary stars: Two stars that orbit around a common center. They're held together by gravity.
• Lenticular galaxy: A type of galaxy that's between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy. It has a disk shape, but no defined spiral arms.
• Meteor showers: When the Earth passes through an area with a lot of comet debris, these pieces enter the atmosphere and look like shooting stars.
• Radiant: The point in the sky where the meteors in a meteor shower seem to come from.
• Dawn: The time of day when it starts to get light, just before the Sun comes up.
• Nebula: A giant cloud of gas and dust in space. They can be places where stars are born or the remains of dead stars.
• Arcsecond: A very small measurement of angle that's used to measure distances in the sky. It's like dividing a degree into 3600 parts.
• Magnitude (stars): A measurement of a star's brightness. The smaller the number, the brighter the star.