Scientists Say: Spacetime

astronaut: Someone trained to travel into space for research and exploration.

black hole: A region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation (including light) can escape.

cosmos: (adj. cosmic) A term that refers to the universe and everything within it.

dimension: Descriptive features of something that can be measured, such as length, width or time.

engineer: A person who uses science and math to solve problems. As a verb, to engineer means to design a device, material or process that will solve some problem or unmet need.

fabric: Any flexible material that is woven, knitted or can be fused into a sheet by heat or compression and drying.

force: Some outside influence that can change the motion of an object, hold objects close to one another, or produce motion or stress in a stationary object.

gravity: The force that attracts anything with mass, or bulk, toward any other thing with mass. The more mass that something has, the greater its gravity.

interstellar: Between stars.

literally: An adjective indicating that the phrase it modifies is precisely true. For instance, to say: “It’s so cold that I’m literally dying,” means that this person actually expects to soon be dead, the result of getting too cold.

mass: A number that shows how much an object resists speeding up and slowing down — basically a measure of how much matter that object is made from.

model: A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes. Or an individual that is meant to display how something would work in or look on others.

orbit: The curved path of a celestial object or spacecraft around a galaxy, star, planet or moon. One complete circuit around a celestial body.

phenomena: Events or developments that are surprising or unusual.

physicist: A scientist who studies the nature and properties of matter and energy.

planet: A large celestial object that orbits a star but unlike a star does not generate any visible light.

satellite: A moon orbiting a planet or a vehicle or other manufactured object that orbits some celestial body in space.

spacetime: A term made essential by Einstein’s theory of relativity, it describes a designation for some spot given in terms of its three-dimensional coordinates in space, along with a fourth coordinate corresponding to time.

time dilation: A difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers who are either moving relative to each other or are differently situated from a gravitational mass (or masses), such as a black hole.

universe: The entire cosmos: All things that exist throughout space and time. It has been expanding since its formation during an event known as the Big Bang, some 13.8 billion years ago (give or take a few hundred million years).

wave: A disturbance or variation that travels through space and matter in a regular, oscillating fashion.