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Cape Canaveral

(Encyclopedia)Cape Canaveral kənăvˈərəl [key], low, sandy promontory extending E into the Atlantic Ocean from a barrier island, E Fla., separated from Merritt Island by the Banana River, a lagoon; named (1963)...

orbit

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Important points in a planet's orbit as seen from the earth orbit, in astronomy, path in space described by a body revolving about a second body where the motion of the orbiting bodies is domi...

crater

(Encyclopedia)crater, circular, bowl-shaped depression on the earth's surface. (For a discussion of lunar craters, see moon.) Simple craters are bowl-shaped with a raised outer rim. Complex craters have a raised ce...

Ptolemaic system

(Encyclopedia)Ptolemaic system tŏlˌəmāˈĭk [key], historically the most influential of the geocentric cosmological theories, i.e., theories that placed the earth motionless at the center of the universe with a...

calendar

(Encyclopedia)calendar [Lat., from Kalends], system of reckoning time for the practical purpose of recording past events and calculating dates for future plans. The calendar is based on noting ordinary and easily o...

Lively, Dame Penelope

(Encyclopedia)Lively, Dame Penelope, 1933–, English novelist, b. Cairo, Egypt, moved to London at 12 when her parents divorced, grad. Oxford (1954). Her earliest books were children's novels—the first Astercote...

apsis

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Apsis points, or apsides, in the earth's orbit: At perihelion the earth is closest to the sun and at aphelion it is farthest from the sun. apsis (pl. apsides), point in the orbit of a body whe...

Doowop Music

(Encyclopedia) Doowop (also spelled doo-wop or doo wop) music, American popular vocal music style, c. late 1940s-early 1960s. Doowop is a form of vocal harmony mu...

Smothers Brothers

(Encyclopedia) Smothers Brothers, American comedians, musicians, and TV hosts. Tom (b. February 2, 1937,as Thomas Smothers) and Dick (b. November 20, 1939, as ...

Prometheus, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Prometheus prōmēˈthēəs [key], in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn XVI (or S16), Prometheus is an irregularly shaped (nonspherical) body me...