Space Word Search Printable With Clues and an Answer Key

Press New puzzle and this word search about space deals another 16 words, then press Print or save as PDF.

Name Date

Space Word Search

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 16 words found

CONSTELLATIONFH

RCAROCKETOITFGQ

EAYIITELESCOPES

UPHNFBGORBITJQW

ISSPACESUITSIPK

FUOHLXGAAROFIXV

ALNEASDTSLEASYA

TECLIPSETNAILUO

POIMOONLRHISROA

TLDSHERLOHSUURY

DASHSCEINBGNFIN

NUDYHWITACIREOJ

UNIVERSEUZSJENU

ICHZHCMETEORQED

OHSHSUPERNOVATS

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

SunSUN
MoonMOON
OrbitORBIT
EclipseECLIPSE
SupernovaSUPERNOVA
UniverseUNIVERSE
ConstellationCONSTELLATION
OrionORION
MeteorMETEOR
RocketROCKET
AstronautASTRONAUT
LaunchLAUNCH
CapsuleCAPSULE
SpacesuitSPACESUIT
SatelliteSATELLITE
TelescopeTELESCOPE

16 of 24 words from the Space Key Terms list.

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Answer key: Space Word Search

CONSTELLATIONFH

RCAROCKETOITFGQ

EAYIITELESCOPES

UPHNFBGORBITJQW

ISSPACESUITSIPK

FUOHLXGAAROFIXV

ALNEASDTSLEASYA

TECLIPSETNAILUO

POIMOONLRHISROA

TLDSHERLOHSUURY

DASHSCEINBGNFIN

NUDYHWITACIREOJ

UNIVERSEUZSJENU

ICHZHCMETEORQED

OHSHSUPERNOVATS

SUN, MOON, ORBIT, ECLIPSE, SUPERNOVA, UNIVERSE, CONSTELLATION, ORION, METEOR, ROCKET, ASTRONAUT, LAUNCH, CAPSULE, SPACESUIT, SATELLITE, TELESCOPE

Next step Build a puzzle from your own unit vocabulary Scramble the same space words

All 133 words

Moon and Planets 19

Asteroid A rocky body smaller than a planet. Most of the known ones travel between Mars and Jupiter.
Comet An icy body that warms up near the Sun and grows a glowing tail that points away from it.
Crater A bowl-shaped dent left where a rock from space struck the surface. The Moon is covered in them.
Earth Our home, third out from the Sun, and the one world where we know that life exists.
Eclipse When the Moon hides the Sun, or Earth's shadow darkens the Moon.
Gravity The pull between all objects that have mass. It holds the planets in their paths around the Sun.
Jupiter The fifth planet and the largest. Its Great Red Spot is a storm bigger than Earth.
Mars The fourth planet, called the Red Planet because iron oxide colors its dust.
Mercury The smallest planet and the closest to the Sun. One trip around takes 88 Earth days.
Meteorite A piece of rock from space that survives its fall through the air and lands on the ground.
Moon Earth's only natural satellite. Twelve people walked on it between 1969 and 1972.

Show all 133 words (122 more)

Moon and Planets, continued

Neptune The eighth planet and the farthest from the Sun. One trip around takes about 165 Earth years.
Orbit The curved path one body follows around another, such as Earth's yearly trip around the Sun.
Planet A large round body that travels around a star. The word comes from the Greek for wanderers.
Saturn The sixth planet and the second largest. Its bright rings are mostly bits of ice.
Solar The adjective for anything to do with the Sun, from sol, its Latin name.
Tide The daily rise and fall of the sea, driven mainly by the pull of the Moon.
Uranus The seventh planet. It is tipped so far over that it spins almost on its side.
Venus The hottest planet, at about 464 degrees Celsius on the surface, and second out from the Sun.

Stars and Galaxies 21

Andromeda The nearest large galaxy to ours, over 2 million light-years away, visible without a telescope.
Big Bang The theory that the universe began hot and dense and has been expanding ever since.
Binary A pair of stars bound by gravity that circle each other.
Black hole A place where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, not even light.
Cosmos Another name for the universe, from a Greek word for order.
Fusion The process that makes a star shine: hydrogen is squeezed into helium in the core.
Galaxy A vast system of stars, gas and dust bound by gravity. The word comes from the Greek for milky.
Hydrogen The lightest element and the main fuel of stars. Jupiter and Saturn are mostly made of it.
Light-year It measures distance, not time: about 9.46 trillion kilometers, used for the gaps between stars.
Milky Way The galaxy that holds our solar system. From a dark place it shows as a pale band across the sky.
Nebula A cloud of gas and dust in space where new stars can form. The name is Latin for cloud.
Proxima Short name of the nearest star to the Sun, a little over 4 light-years away.
Pulsar A spinning neutron star that sends out radiation in steady pulses. The first was found in 1967.
Quasar The brilliant core of a far-off galaxy. It can shine 100 times brighter than the whole Milky Way.
Red giant What a star like the Sun becomes late in life, when its outer layers swell and cool.
Spiral The shape of the Milky Way: a flat disk with curved arms of stars winding out from a central bar.
Star A huge ball of glowing plasma that its own gravity holds together. The nearest one is the Sun.
Sun The star at the center of our solar system. Its light takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth.
Supernova The explosion of a massive star at the end of its life.
Universe All of space and everything in it. It is about 13.8 billion years old.
White dwarf The Earth-sized core left behind when a star like the Sun runs out of fuel.

Night Sky 24

Aurora Glowing curtains of light near the poles, made when particles from the Sun strike the air.
Betelgeuse A red supergiant star that marks the shoulder of Orion.
Big Dipper Seven bright stars in the Great Bear: four make a bowl and three make a handle.
Cassiopeia A constellation whose five bright stars make a W. It is named after a queen in Greek myth.
Constellation A named pattern of stars in one area of the sky. Astronomers recognize 88 of them.
Crescent The thin curved shape of the Moon when only a sliver of its sunlit side faces us.
Crux The smallest of the 88 constellations. Its name is Latin for cross.
Cygnus The constellation whose Latin name means swan.
Dusk The dim end of the evening, when the first stars come out.
Horizon The line where the sky seems to meet the land or the sea.
Leo The constellation of the lion, one of the 12 in the zodiac.
Lyra A small constellation named for a lyre, a kind of harp. Its brightest star is Vega.
Meteor A streak of light seen when a small rock from space speeds into Earth's atmosphere.
Orion A constellation named for a hunter of Greek myth. Three bright stars in a row make his belt.
Phase One of the shapes the Moon shows over about 29.5 days, from new to full and back again.
Polaris The North Star. It sits almost above Earth's axis, so it barely moves while other stars circle it.
Sirius No other star looks brighter at night. It is also called the Dog Star.
Stargazing Looking up at the night sky for pleasure, with or without a telescope.
Taurus The constellation of the bull, one of the 12 in the zodiac.
Twilight The soft glow in the sky just after sunset or just before sunrise.
Ursa Major The Great Bear, the constellation that holds the Big Dipper.
Vega The brightest star in Lyra and the fifth brightest in the night sky, 25 light-years away.
Zenith The point in the sky straight above your head.
Zodiac The belt of sky along the Sun's yearly path, divided into 12 signs from Aries to Pisces.

Space Travel 28

Airlock A small room with two sealed doors that lets astronauts go outside without losing the cabin air.
Astronaut A person with training to fly aboard a spacecraft. The word comes from the Greek for star sailor.
Booster An extra rocket that gives more push at the start of a flight and then drops away.
Capsule The small crew cabin at the top of a rocket. It is the part that comes home.
Cargo Food, water, tools and experiments sent up to a space station.
Cosmonaut The name for a space traveler in the Russian program.
Countdown Counting backwards to zero before a rocket leaves the pad.
Crew The team of people on board a spacecraft.
Fuel What a rocket engine burns to make thrust.
Lander A spacecraft built to touch down on a moon or planet and stay where it sets down.
Launch The moment a rocket leaves the ground.
Module One section of a spacecraft or station that can be joined to others.
Oxygen The gas people need to breathe. Every crewed spacecraft has to carry its own supply.
Parachute A wide cloth canopy that slows a capsule as it falls back to Earth.
Payload What a rocket carries into space: a satellite, supplies or a crew.
Probe A spacecraft with no crew, sent to study places too far away for people to visit.
Reentry The fiery return of a spacecraft into Earth's atmosphere, when a heat shield protects the crew.
Rocket A vehicle pushed upward by hot gas blasting out of its engines.
Rover A wheeled machine that drives across the surface of the Moon or Mars.
Satellite Anything that circles a larger body. The Moon is a natural one. Others are built to watch weather.
Shuttle A reusable spaceplane that flew 135 missions from 1981 to 2011 and landed on a runway like a glider.
Space station A large crewed base circling Earth. People have lived on one without a break since November 2000.
Spacesuit Sealed clothing that gives an astronaut air and pressure outside the spacecraft.
Spacewalk Work done outside a spacecraft in a spacesuit. The first, in March 1965, lasted about 12 minutes.
Splashdown Landing a returning capsule in the sea, as the Apollo 11 crew did in the Pacific in July 1969.
Tether The safety line that keeps a spacewalking astronaut attached to the spacecraft.
Thrust The push from a rocket engine that drives the vehicle forward.
Weightless How astronauts feel in orbit. Gravity is still there, but they and their craft are falling together.

Telescopes and Observing 21

Astronomer A scientist who studies stars, planets and everything else beyond Earth.
Astronomy The science of stars, planets, galaxies and the universe as a whole.
Binoculars Two small telescopes side by side, one for each eye. A good first tool for the night sky.
Dish The big bowl-shaped part of a radio telescope that collects the waves.
Dome The rounded roof of an observatory. A slit in it opens so the telescope can see out.
Exoplanet A world that travels around some star that is not the Sun.
Eyepiece The small lens you look through at the end of a telescope.
Focus To adjust a telescope until the image is sharp.
Infrared Light with waves too long for our eyes to see. Some space telescopes are built to detect it.
Lens A curved piece of glass that bends light. A refracting telescope uses one to form an image.
Light What most telescopes collect. It travels about 300,000 kilometers every second.
Mirror A reflecting telescope uses a curved one to gather light and form an image.
Observatory A building that houses big telescopes, often on a mountain where the air is thin and steady.
Planetarium A theater with a domed ceiling where a projector shows the night sky.
Radio Waves that some telescopes collect with a large dish. The first purpose-built one dates from 1937.
Reflector A telescope that forms its image with mirrors. Newton built the first working one in 1668.
Spectrum The band of colors that light spreads into. Astronomers read it to learn what a star is made of.
Star chart A map of the sky after dark that shows where to find the constellations.
Sunspot A dark patch on the face of our nearest star, cooler than the area around it. Galileo studied them.
Telescope A tool for seeing distant objects. The first were made in the Netherlands in the early 1600s.
Wavelength The distance from one wave crest to the next. It sets the color of light.

Astronomers and Space Firsts 20

Apollo The program that landed 12 people on the Moon between 1969 and 1972.
Armstrong The first human who walked on the Moon, on July 20, 1969.
Copernicus The astronomer whose book of 1543 put the Sun, not Earth, at the center.
Eagle The name of the lunar module that set two astronauts down on the Moon in July 1969.
Ellipse The stretched-circle shape of a planet's path around the Sun.
Gagarin The first person in space. He circled Earth once on April 12, 1961, in a flight of 108 minutes.
Galileo In 1610 he turned a telescope on Jupiter and found its four largest moons.
Glenn The first American to circle Earth. He went around three times on February 20, 1962.
Halley He worked out that one comet keeps coming back. It bears his name and is next due in 2061.
Herschel He discovered Uranus through his telescope in 1781.
Hubble The astronomer whose name was given to the space telescope launched in 1990.
Kepler He showed in 1609 that a planet's path around the Sun is an ellipse, not a circle.
Laika A Moscow dog, the first animal to circle Earth, aboard the second Soviet satellite in November 1957.
Leonov In March 1965 he made the first spacewalk, tied to his craft by a tether.
Newton He explained gravity with one law for the whole universe and built the first reflecting telescope.
Skylab The first United States space station, launched in 1973. It fell back to Earth in 1979.
Sputnik The first artificial satellite. The Soviet Union launched it on October 4, 1957.
Tranquility The name of the lunar sea, a flat dark plain, where the first Moon landing touched down.
Vostok The spacecraft that carried the first person into space in April 1961.
Voyager A probe launched in 1977 that crossed into the space between the stars in 2012.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-09-18 against Wikipedia, among them the articles on the solar system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System), stars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star) and Apollo 11 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11). Some clues were reworded on 2026-09-20, and any fact that changed was checked against Wikipedia the same day. Licence: own work

How it works

This space word search printable starts on 16 terms from a space unit, such as Orbit, Nebula and Rocket. Swap any word in the list under the grid, or draw again from 133 words in 9 lists.

Read the full guide

Which list for which space lesson

The Start from a list row, under the puzzle, has 9 lists. Moon and Planets (19 words) fits the opening lesson, Night Sky (24) a stargazing homework and Space Travel (28) a launch day. Astronomers and Space Firsts (20) runs from Copernicus to Armstrong. Easy Space holds 30 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Sun, Mars and Orbit. Hard Space holds 35 of 9 to 13 letters: press Hard, and the grid grows when a word needs room.

Space word search PDF and paper copies

Print or save as PDF makes 2 pages for Letter or A4: the puzzle under a Name and Date line, then its answer key. Every new grid has a key of its own, so print the pair together.

Black hole, Milky Way and 8 more two-word entries hide without the gap: BLACKHOLE. Key terms are single words.
Constellation fills 13 squares, and the grid grows to hold it while it is in the list.
Two checked facts: astronomers recognize 88 constellations, and the first spacewalk, in March 1965, lasted about 12 minutes.

Questions and answers

Is the space word search free printable for a whole class?

Yes. There is no sign-up and no limit on copies. For one word find across the class, print once and photocopy.

Does it work as an astronomy word search puzzle for older students?

Yes. Start from Hard Space and press Hard: Supernova, Wavelength and Betelgeuse can then run in any of 8 directions, backwards included. Astronomers and Space Firsts adds Copernicus, Kepler and Hubble.

Which list makes an outer space word search for young children?

Easy Space. Its 30 words have 3 to 5 letters, such as Moon, Star and Comet. Take words off the list until 8 are left and, in More options, tick Large print.

What other space word puzzles come from the same list?

Two. Tick Show clues, not words, in More options, and pupils hunt from meanings. Or type the words into the word scramble maker for anagrams of Nebula and Eclipse.

All 133 words

Moon and Planets 19

Moon and Planets, continued

Stars and Galaxies 21

Night Sky 24

Space Travel 28

Telescopes and Observing 21

Astronomers and Space Firsts 20

How it works

Which list for which space lesson

Space word search PDF and paper copies

Questions and answers

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