The scientific study of matter in outer space, including the dimensions, distribution, composition, energy, and evolution of celestial bodies and phenomena.

ASTEROID
A small celestial body, usually composed of rock and metal.

ASTEROID BELT
A group of asteroids found in orbit of a planetary system, such as sector 001.

ASTEROID FIELD
A group of asteroids, found in open space, as opposed to a planetary system.

BINARY PULSAR
A rare pairing of two spinning neutron stars circling a common center of gravity.

BLACK HOLE
Stellar phenomenon caused by the collapse of a neutron star. Also known as a black star.

BROWN DWARF
A small, gaseous celestial object, similar to a J Class planet. It may be a star that was not large enough to ignite a nuclear reaction.

COCHRANE DISTORTION
A fluctuation in the phase of the subspace field of a starship's warp engines.

COSMIC STRING FRAGMENT
A filament that is almost infinitely long at the same time that it is almost infinitely dense.

DARK MATTER NEBULA
A cloud of interstellar gas or dust that emits little or no detectable light or energy.

DISTORTION FIELD
A field surrounding some planets that prevent transporters or shuttlecraft from penetrating them.

EMISSION NEBULA
A dust cloud containing electromagnetic radiation, that prevents cloaking devices from working.

EVENT HORIZON
The gravitational border around a quantum singularity (black hole).

GALACTIC BARRIER
A powerful energy field at the perimeter of the Milky Way Galaxy that was first discovered by the SS Valiant.

GRAVIMETRIC FLUCTUATION
A spatial distortion, similar in appearance to a wormhole, that is often detected near a temporal rift.

INVERSION NEBULA
An interstellar gas cloud consisting of unstable strands of plasma. They can be very beautiful but are very unstable and burn themselves out quickly.

ION STORM
A disruption of highly charged particles. The intense bombardment is similar to a weather storm.

MAGNETIC STORM
Similar to an ion storm, this spatial disruption is characterized by more intense electromagnetic waves.

MICRO-WORMHOLE
A wormhole with a very small and narrow passageway.

NEUTRON STAR
A sun that has been gravitationally condensed to a very dense, hard material.

OORT CLOUD
A large gaseous region in a distant orbit around the Solar system. Many comets originate in the Oort cloud.

PLASMA FIELDS
Energetic plasma disruptions that are difficult to navigate through. The Badlands are an example of a plasma field.

PLASMA STREAMER
A gas current that flows between the two stars of a binary pair.

PROTOMATTER NEBULA
An interstellar dust cloud containing naturally occurring protomatter.

PROTONEBULA
An interstellar gas cloud that has just formed.

PROTOSTAR
A newly formed star, in it's earliest stage.

QUANTUM FILAMENT
An elongated subatomic particle, which is hundreds of meters long but has almost no mass. They are highly energetic, but very difficult to detect.

QUANTUM SINGULARITY
An extremely small black hole. Romulans use an artificial quantum singularity to power a warbird.

QUASAR
A collapsed star that generates bursts of radiation and energy.

RED DWARF
A small, cool star, near the end of it's life. A red dwarf is cooler than a white dwarf.

ROGUE COMET
A ball of ice that is not in a fixed orbit of any solar system.

STELLAR CORE FRAGMENT
An extremely dense and heavy (usually composed of neutronium) that has been released from an exploding star.

SUBSPACE
A spatial continuum which has significantly different properties from normal space. Starship engines use subspace as part of the warp drive.

SUPERNOVA
A violent stellar explosion that occurs at the end of a stars life. Many new, more complex elements are created.

TYKEN'S RIFT
A rupture in the spatial fabric, that drains all energy from a ship's systems. The only way to escape it is to create an explosion that will generate a massive amount of energy to temporarily disrupt the effect.

WHITE DWARF
A small, dense star, near the end of it's life. After this stage, the star will either become a neutron star or a black hole. A white drawf is hotter than a red dwarf.

WORMHOLE
A distortion in the time-space continum that can act as a shortcut between two points in space. The only known stable wormhole is found in the Bajoran sector.