Questions tagged [terminology]
Questions regarding specific terms, names, or naming conventions.
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Is there a word or short phrase that denotes the apparently moving part of the lunar limb?
Between new moon and full moon, the moon's disc as viewed from the earth is bounded by a semicircular arc on its right and an arc on its left that moves to the right until at full moon it forms the ...
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Why is it called "The LOFAR 'superterp'"? What is a terp, and what's so super about this one?
Wikipedia's Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) includes the image below with the caption:
The LOFAR core ("superterp") near Exloo, Netherlands. The bridges give an idea of the scale.
Question: ...
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14,000 square degrees
The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys says it produces a model of “the 14,000 square degrees of extragalactic sky visible from the northern hemisphere”. But I thought the whole celestial sphere (like any ...
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Is it still called an orbital resonance if the ratio is irrational?
Previously, I asked At what point are orbital resonances no longer "ordered" but "chaotic?", and received an answer from @CarlWitthoft:
Perhaps if the calculated fraction had an ...
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At what point are orbital resonances no longer "ordered" but "chaotic?"
Orbital resonances are typically in small valued integer ratios, like 2:1, 3:2, or 4:7. However, there are some resonances whose ratios have large reduced values, including the 73:69 Naiad:Thalassa ...
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Orbital terminology for satellites relative to one another
Basic question, but I'm trying to describe a planetary system and coming up short on vocabulary. Do either of the following exist?:
A word for the closest pass between two satellites orbiting the
...
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How does one think about optical depth in the context of gravitational microlensing? Is it measured or deduced from observations? Used for planning?
This excellent answer to Which studies prior to 2018 "claimed to find evidence of extragalactic planets in the Andromeda galaxy"? Which instrument was used? introduces the technique of "...
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How do I say the luminosity class aloud?
I have need to say the spectral type of a star for a poster presentation I'm making, which includes the luminosity class. However, I've been unable to determine the standard way of doing so, and ...
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Envelope Enrichment?
While I was researching about planet formation, I repeatedly came across the term envelope enrichment. What does this mean?
I searched it up and looked at many websites, but no helpful definitions ...
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Are the dispersion directions of the prism and the grating in Hubble WFC3 UVIS G280 perpendicular? Can we call this a "grism"? With cross-disparsion?
Prologue
From Into the UV: A precise transmission spectrum of HAT-P-41b using Hubble's WFC3/UVIS G280 grism:
The UVIS grism, however, comes with several quirks that make it difficult to observe with ...
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Did a watch company really try to sue radio astronomers for using the word "pulsar"? If so, which astronomers?
After about 48:37 in the really wonderful video Jocelyn Bell Burnell Special Public Lecture: The Discovery of Pulsars (linked below) Dr. Bell Burnell describes the ...
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What's the meaning of virial in Astronomy, and in particular the expression "a virialized cluster of galaxies"?
The virial theorem relates the kinetic energy of a system to the total potential energy of the system:
$
\Delta K = -\frac{1}{2}\Delta V
$
so it has lots of uses in mechanics, thermodynamics and ...
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Milky Way vs Milky Way Galaxy
I saw this question on Quizlet which said:
What is the difference between the Milky Way and the Milky Way Galaxy?
And the answer was:
The Milky Way is a fairly narrow band of faint diffuse light ...
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Why do some call the no-hair conjecture the no-hair theorem?
This excellent answer to Why would a black hole's magnetic hair being short-lived not violate the no-hair conjecture, but long-lived hair would? How long is “long-lived”? has got me thinking because ...
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Why are white dwarfs being classified as compact objects instead of black dwarfs?
Why are white dwarfs being classified as compact objects instead of black dwarfs? As a black dwarf is the end stage of a white dwarf.
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What is the difference between the terms collision and merger? How are they used differently in Astronomy?
We often hear of mergers of two stellar objects but we also sometimes talk about these or much smaller objects like planets or asteroids colliding.
What is the actual differences between Astronomy and ...
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What are the differences between astronomy and cosmology?
Are astronomy and cosmology same? If not, what are the differences? And which one is greater in terms of subject area?
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The sun "burns" hydrogen and even has "campfires" on it, but has anyone calculated a rate of actual chemical burning on the Sun?
Answers to Hydrogen burning vs Hydrogen fusing explain that in astrophysics "burning" generally refers to nuclear fusion or at least nuclear reactions1, and information at
Why didn't we ...
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Hydrogen burning vs Hydrogen fusing
Does the term "Hydrogen burning" mean the same as "Hydrogen fusing" in astronomy? If not, then what is the product of "Hydrogen burning"? Assume the product of "...
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About the formation of ultra diffuse galaxies (UDGs), what are "failed L∗ galaxies"?
Recent studies show that ultra diffuse galaxies or UDGs were formed by tidally disturbed dwarf galaxies and failed L∗ galaxies.
So I've been searching for the failed L∗ galaxies but can't find what it ...
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How is phase defined in a binary orbit with eccentricity?
Are orbital phases of the black spot in the figure measured from some angle or time/period?
Usually, how is phase=0 defined? It is relative to the line of apses perhaps with phase=0 at periastron?
Any ...
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Is the difference between LIGO & Virgo and their "Advanced" versions really generational, or were these just planned incremental upgrades?
I just learned the term "third generation gravitational wave detector" in answers to What would a kHz gravitational wave detector look like? (mountains on millisecond magnetars) How would it ...
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What exactly is "the rotating lighthouse model" in the context of a double pulsar?
The introduction to Testing the rotating lighthouse model with the double pulsar system PSR J0737-3039A/B (open access) says:
The double pulsar system PSR J0737-3039A/B was discovered by Burgay et al....
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Is Sofia a radio telescope proper?
I usually think of SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy as an infrared optical telescope:
SOFIA uses a 2.5 m (8.2 ft) reflector telescope, which has an oversized, 2.7 m (8.9 ft)...
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How can the CMB have a "monopole anisotropy"?
Wikipedia's Cosmic Microwave Background (CMBR) radiation monopole anisotropy (ℓ = 0) says
When ℓ = 0, the ${\displaystyle Y(\theta ,\varphi )}{\displaystyle Y(\theta ,\varphi )}$ term reduced to 1, ...
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What is the mnemonic reason behind b being galactic latitude? (in the Galactic Coordinates frame)
I'm not sure if this is a question that has been posted before, and I'm also not sure if the answer is really mnemonic. If that's the case, I'd like to understand why we assigned $b$ to latitude ...
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How are image credits expressed in Astronomy presentations?
Sorry if this is a stupid question. I'm preparing an astronomy presentation, and I want to make sure I give credits where credits are due. But I see credits appear in different formats, for example:
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What is the antonym of "closest approach"?
The distance from Earth to Mars, during their closest approach, is about 55 million kilometers.
At their furthest apart, that distance would be about 401 million kilometers.
Distance
at closest ...
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Defining a nautical mile
Astronomy is new to me so my question might be stupid: I read that a nautical mile is defined as one minute of latitude along any line of longitude. What if it was the other way round, i.e. one minute ...
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Are there actual asteroids in the Oort cloud?
This answer to At what annual rate are new exoplanets being recognized? How does it compare to new asteroids? shows that the rate of new asteroid discovery is roughly two orders of magnitude higher ...
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Timing based on upper or lower part of sun/moon
When you time an astronomical event, such as the moon/sun rising above the horizon, do you note the time when the the first sliver breeches the horizon or when the bottom of the moon/sun just becomes ...
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How many solar system objects that can really qualify as a KBO are likely to enter Pluto's Hill sphere each day?
A comment below Which celestial body is able to come closest to Pluto? says that
Technically, many, many small Kuiper belt objects enter Pluto's Hill Sphere (or sphere of influence SOI) every day.
...
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How does one go about submitting a name for a newly-discovered lunar crater?
Suppose I discover an uncatalogued crater on the lunar surface, and decide to name it. How would I submit my proposed name to the IAU?
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How does one go about naming a lunar crater? [duplicate]
Suppose I discover an uncatalogued crater on the lunar surface, and decide to name it. How would I submit my proposed name to the IAU?
jw01
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What happened to the 2017 proposal on redefining planethood? Is this information available?
In 2017, Alan Stern et al. submitted a geophysical planet definition to the IAU for review which states
“A planet is a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has ...
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Launch windows for Venus transit; how to convert heliocentric longitudes to date?
Being a bit familiar with celestial mechanics, I know that the Hohmann transfer orbit is the quickest way to transfer between two circular orbits of different radii around a central body in the same ...
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Does "spectral type" and "stellar classification" refer to the same thing?
Should the tags stellar-classification and spectral-type be merged? has been asked in meta two weeks ago. It requires some careful consideration but so far no response has been forthcoming, so I'm ...
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"Periapsis" or "Periastron"?
I was taught from Bate Mueller and White, that the proper terms for the closest and furthest points and distances from a body in orbit around another unspecified body are "periapsis" and &...
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Do our sun and moon have names?
We seem to have named every moon orbiting other planets. Why haven't we named our own moon? And for that matter, why doesn't our sun have a name since we name or number stars?
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Are falling evaporating bodies (FEBs) and exocomets the same thing? How does one know they're falling and evaporating?
Looking for a (short) list of comets with heliocentric escape velocity I stumbled upon Wikipedia's exocoments which like exoplanets, are bound to other stars. I should have been looking for "...
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What exactly is a Hamiltonian telescope? Is this one?
This comment on the current answer to Why is this telescope so short? How hard is it to make such a fast primary? says
In this forum topic Borisov appears to call it an f/1.5 Hamiltonian.
Wikipedia'...
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Does the Honey moon have a precession problem?
In Steven Colbert's interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson after about 03:16 the following is explained:
But wait, all the moons - all the full moons of the year have ...
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What are "non-Keplerian" orbits? What are some familiar examples in our solar system, and can some still be closed?
This excellent answer to Forms of stellar orbits around the galactic center invokes the following concepts:
non-Keplerian orbits
closed orbits
I have a fairly good idea what these mean and so might ...
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Is there an antonym for 'transit', i.e. the transit of a celestial body through the meridian
I'm writing software to calculate the rising, transit, and setting of a body on the celestial sphere for a specific location and date. It seems to me that the opposite of transit, at least in the case ...
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What exactly are "H30α and He30α images"? (ALMA)
I ran across this paper's title η Carinae: high angular resolution continuum, H30α and He30α ALMA images (arXiv) and see that the body of the paper also mentions "H40α, H30α and H29α".
What ...
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Is lithium considered a metal in astronomy?
My lecture notes are conflicting on this issue so I seek definitive clarification. In Astronomy, are metals either
A: the elements which form within stars (i.e., not Big Bang nucleosynthesis, where ...
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Can a pulsar also be a magnetar?
I know this is a simplistic question, but I cannot find a straight answer...
Also, is it possible most or all neutron stars are magnetars and/or pulsars? It's just hard to see all of their properties ...
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What do the words "p-type" and "s-type" mean?
As explained in various sources (such as that answer), a planet in an s-type orbit orbits one of the stars of a binary star system, whereas a planet in a p-type orbit orbits both stars. A synonym for ...
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Clarification of radio spectrum terminology
For a radio spectrum, when is it called thermal emission, synchrotron emission, self-absorbed synchrotron emission and inverted spectrum? They are all power-law and their difference is power-law index?...
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What does "additive fringing from the (multiplicative) twilights" mean?
The question How can I make the fringing pattern visible in my flat (twilight) images for filter i? includes:
I have a bunch of twilight flats that have been preprocessed (dark, bias, overscan etc.)...
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