Ascension and Ascent denote the act of moving upward or the movement upward.
Ascension may occur where there is no implication of effort or difficulty in rising, and where there is usually the suggestion of movement activated by some property in the thing which ascends.
- a balloon ascension
In religious use ascension refers specifically to the translation of the risen Jesus into heaven.
Ascent, on the other hand, is preferred when there is any implication of effort or of a human agent or operator.
- during their ascent of the mountain
- the scientists effected an ascent to the stratosphere
- her rapid ascent in the social scale
- make an ascent of three miles in an airplane