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Glossary term: Ionization

Description: Ionization is the process of subtracting electrons from or adding electrons to previously neutral atoms, thereby changing a gas of neutral atoms (or molecules) to one made up of charged ions, i.e. a plasma.

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Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher

The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".

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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons


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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons


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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons


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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons

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