Antarctica: A continent mostly covered in ice, which sits in the southernmost part of the world.
anthropologist: A social scientist who studies humankind, often by focusing on its societies and cultures.
app: Short for application, or a computer program designed for a specific task.
archaeology: (also archeology) The study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains. Those remains can range from housing materials and cooking vessels to clothing and footprints. People who work in this field are known as archaeologists.
astronaut: Someone trained to travel into space for research and exploration.
atom: The basic unit of a chemical element. Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. The nucleus is orbited by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.
botanical: Having to do with the field of biology that focuses on plants. The scientist in this field is known as a botanist.
colleague: Someone who works with another; a co-worker or team member.
constituent: An ingredient or building block of some material.
cranial nerves: Any of twelve pairs of nerves that pass through openings in the skull to parts of the head, neck and torso. These nerves relay data between the brain and several such sensing organs as the eyes, nose, ears and tongue.
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.
entanglement: (in quantum physics) A concept in quantum physics that holds that subatomic particles can be linked even if they are not physically near one another. Quantum entanglement can link the properties of things at great distances — perhaps at opposite ends of the universe.
excavation: (v. excavate) A site where someone has systematically removed earth or rock to uncover buried materials of value, such as bones or artifacts.
extended reality (XR): A term that encompasses a series of related “immersive” technologies, such as augmented reality (or AR), virtual reality (or VR) and mixed reality (or MR). All have been developed to blend the digital and real worlds in such a way that users feel they can truly experience some novel, engineered environment — one that does not truly exist (at least in the same space that the user is inhabiting).
extraterrestrial: (ET) Anything of or from regions beyond Earth.
fiction: (adj. fictional) An idea or a story that is made-up, not a depiction of real events.
field: An area of study, as in: Her field of research is biology. Also a term to describe a real-world environment in which some research is conducted, such as at sea, in a forest, on a mountaintop or on a city street. It is the opposite of an artificial setting, such as a research laboratory.
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.
fracking: Short for hydraulic fracturing. It’s a process that involves pumping liquid at high pressure underground to crack open rocks, especially to extract natural gas. Those cracks are then held open by sand that had been added to the fracking fluid.
holography: A process best known for being able to produce what appear to be 3-D images known as holograms.
immersive: (in computing) An adjective for the experience of becoming a part of some computer-generated — and therefore imaginary — environment. This experience is usually produced by wearing a headset that provides three-dimensional displays (or nearly 3D imaging) that change as the user moves. In many cases, the user can choose the avatar (the way they look in the environment) and can seemingly walk through the environment. Often they can also reach out and interact with the environment as if it were real and you were truly a part of it.
International Space Station: An artificial satellite that orbits Earth. Run by the United States and Russia, this station provides a research laboratory from which scientists can conduct experiments in biology, physics and astronomy — and make observations of Earth.
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.
NASA: Short for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Created in 1958, this U.S. agency has become a leader in space research and in stimulating public interest in space exploration. It was through NASA that the United States sent people into orbit and ultimately to the moon. It also has sent research craft to study planets and other celestial objects in our solar system.
natural gas: A mix of gases that developed underground over millions of years (often in association with crude oil). Most natural gas starts out as 50 to 90 percent methane, along with small amounts of heavier hydrocarbons, such as propane and butane.
nerve: A long, delicate fiber that transmits signals across the body of an animal. An animal’s backbone contains many nerves, some of which control the movement of its legs or fins, and some of which convey sensations such as hot, cold or pain.
pandemic: An outbreak of disease that affects a large proportion of the population across much or most of the world.
particle: A minute amount of something.
phenomenon: Something that is surprising or unusual.
physical: (adj.) A term for things that exist in the real world, as opposed to in memories or the imagination. It can also refer to properties of materials that are due to their size and non-chemical interactions (such as when one block slams with force into another). (in biology and medicine) The term can refer to the body, as in a physical exam or physical activity.
physicist: A scientist who studies the nature and properties of matter and energy.
pixelation: (adj. pixelated) A term for the blurry section of some computer graphics image where there are not enough pixels (image elements) to display details clearly when that image has been enlarged too much.
quantum: (pl. quanta) A term that refers to the smallest amount of anything, especially of energy or subatomic mass.
quantum entanglement: A physical phenomenon that occurs when groups of particles (typically pairs) interact in ways such that all the particles have the same quantum state.
recall: To remember.
science fiction: A field of literary or filmed stories that take place against a backdrop of fantasy, usually based on speculations about how science and engineering will direct developments in the distant future. The plots in many of these stories focus on space travel, exaggerated changes attributed to evolution or life in (or on) alien worlds.
sensor: A device that picks up information on physical or chemical conditions — such as temperature, barometric pressure, salinity, humidity, pH, light intensity or radiation — and stores or broadcasts that information. Scientists and engineers often rely on sensors to inform them of conditions that may change over time or that exist far from where a researcher can measure them directly.
software: The mathematical instructions that direct a computer’s hardware, including its processor, to perform certain operations.
subatomic: Anything smaller than an atom, which is the smallest bit of matter that has all the properties of whatever chemical element it is (like hydrogen, iron or calcium).
system: A network of parts that together work to achieve some function. For instance, the blood, vessels and heart are primary components of the human body’s circulatory system. Similarly, trains, platforms, tracks, roadway signals and overpasses are among the potential components of a nation’s railway system. System can even be applied to the processes or ideas that are part of some method or ordered set of procedures for getting a task done.
technology: The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry — or the devices, processes and systems that result from those efforts.
teleportation: The ability to move (transport) matter instantly from one place to another. That matter does not have to travel through physical space to reach its final destination. Right now, scientists can only perform this feat with the information about tiny particles such as photons, in a process called quantum teleportation.
trillion: A number representing a million million — or 1,000,000,000,000 — of something.
tuberculosis: A bacterial disease that causes unusual growths in the lungs or other tissues. Untreated, it can kill. The infection usually spreads when a sick individual coughs (or talks, sings or sneezes), spewing germs into the air.
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).
virtual: Being almost like something. An object or concept that is virtually real would be almost true or real — but not quite. The term often is used to refer to something that has been modeled by (or accomplished by) a computer using numbers, not by using real-world parts. (in computing) Things that are performed in or through digital processing and/or the internet. For instance, a virtual conference may be where people attended by watching it over the internet.
virtual reality: A three-dimensional simulation of the real world that seems very realistic and allows people to interact with it. To do so, people usually wear a special helmet or glasses with sensors.