- palus
- literally "swamp"; really a small plain
- parsec
- = 206265 AU = 3.26 light year
- patera
- shallow crater; scalloped, complex edge.
- penumbra
- literally, "dim light"; the outer
filamentary region of a sunspot.
- perihelion
- the point in its orbit where a planet is closest
to the Sun. when refering to objects orbiting the
Earth the term perigee is used; the term periapsis
is used for orbits around other bodies. (opposite
of aphelion)
- Perrine, Charles Dillon
1867-1951
- Argentine-American astronomer who discovered
Himalia and Elara.
- perturb
- to cause a planet or satellite to deviate from a
theoretically regular orbital motion .
- photosphere
- the visible surface of the Sun; sunspots and faculae are observed in
the photosphere.
- plage
- bright regions seen in the solar chromosphere.
- Pickering, William Henry
1858-1938
- American astronomer. His photographs of Mars,
among the earliest obtained, provided a basis for
his opposition to Lowell's
observations of supposed canals on Mars.
Discovered Phoebe.
- planitia
- low plain.
- planum
- plateau or high plain.
- Pope, Alexander
1688-1744
- English writer best remembered for his satirical
mock-epic poems The Rape of the Lock and The
Dunciad.
- prominence
- a strand of relatively cool gas in the solar corona which appears
bright when seen at the edge of the Sun against
the blackness of space.
- promontorium
- cape; headland
- Ptolemy 87-150
- (aka Claudius Ptolemaeus) Alexandrian astronomer,
mathematician, and geographer who based his
astronomy on the belief that all heavenly bodies
revolve around the Earth.
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