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Essential Greek and Latin Roots for Sixth Grade Students: astro, aster (star)

This vocabulary list features words with the Greek roots astro and aster, meaning "star, outer space."
11 words 2507 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. asteroid
    a small celestial body composed of rock and metal
    Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter are countless asteroids, tiny terrestrial planets. Cosmos
  2. astrolabe
    instrument used to calculate positions of celestial bodies
    Monks discovered that the astrolabe, an Arabic invention, was a handy tool for keeping track of time in the evening, helping them keep their prayers on schedule. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
  3. astrology
    divination by the positions of the planets and sun and moon
    The best antidote to astrology in particular and to pseudoscience in general is, as Carl Sagan has written, real science, whose wonders are as amazing but have the added virtue of probably being real. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
  4. astrophysics
    the study of the properties of celestial bodies
    But even just a cursory look into the field of astrophysics can make it seem that below each new forward step is an abyss of unknowns. The Washington Post
  5. astrophysicist
    a scientist who studies the properties of celestial bodies
    In 1965 several astrophysicists at Princeton University were calculating what would have happened right after the big bang. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
  6. astronaut
    a person trained to travel in a spacecraft
    Polyakov was one of 125 cosmonauts and astronauts to visit the space station, which hosted 17 space expeditions. Women in Space
  7. astronomer
    a physicist who studies celestial bodies and the universe
    On earth, astronomers are hindered by electric lights and radio signals that pollute the night sky, but on the back side of the moon astronomers could view the universe without interference. Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story
  8. astronomy
    the branch of physics that studies celestial bodies
    In the 1960s, however, interest in the large-scale problems of astronomy and cosmology was revived by a great increase in the number and range of astronomical observations brought about by the application of modern technology. A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays
  9. astronomical
    relating to the branch of physics studying celestial bodies
    During the peak of ancient astronomy, Greek astronomical tables regularly employed zero; its symbol was the lowercase omicron, o, which looks very much like our modern-day zero, though it’s probably a coincidence. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
  10. astrobiology
    the study of living organism throughout the universe
    By the 1990s the term exobiology was barely adequate to convey the scope of scientists’ questions, and the effort was re-branded as “astrobiology,” a full-on merger of astronomy and biology.Salon
  11. astrobiologist
    an expert on the study of life in the universe
    Cornell University astrobiologists have devised a novel way to determine ocean temperatures of distant worlds based on the thickness of their ice shells, effectively conducting oceanography from space.Science Daily
Created on Mon Jun 16 17:57:32 EDT 2025

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