1.
La Silla Observatory
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La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory. Several other telescopes are located at the site and are maintained by ESO. The observatory is one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and was the first in Chile to be used by ESO. The La Silla telescopes and instruments are located 150 km northeast of La Serena at the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert, following the decision in 1963 to approve Chile as the site for the ESO observatory, scouting parties were sent to various locations to assess their suitability. The site that was decided upon was La Silla in the part of the Atacama desert,600 km north of Santiago de Chile. Besides being government property, it had the benefits of being in a dry, flat and easily accessible area, yet isolated and remote from any artificial light. Originally named the Cinchado, it was renamed La Silla after its saddle-like shape, on October 30,1964, the contracts were signed and an area of 245 square miles was purchased the following year. During 1965, temporary facilities were erected with living quarters, a workshop, the dedication ceremony of the road to the top took place in March 1966, two months after its completion. On 25 March 1969, the ESO site at La Silla was finally inaugurated by President Eduardo Frei Montalva. With a permanent base of dormitories, workshops, hotels and several functioning telescopes, the observatory was fully operational. The ESO1. 5-metre and ESO 1-metre telescopes had been erected in the late 1960s and these three telescopes can be seen in this order from right to left in the background of the adjunct image from June 1968. By 1976, the largest telescope planned, the § ESO3.6 m Telescope and it was subsequently to have a 1. 4m CAT attached. In 1984, the 2. 2m telescope began operations, while in March 1989, a 1-metre telescope owned by Marseille Observatory opened in 1998, followed by a 1. 2-metre telescope from Geneva Observatory in 2000. ESO operates three major optical and near infrared telescopes at the La Silla site, the New Technology Telescope, the 3. 6-m ESO Telescope, and these telescopes are not operated by ESO and hence do not fall under the responsibility of La Silla Science Operations. The telescope hosts HARPS, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, HARPS is a spectrograph with unrivalled precision and is the most successful finder of low-mass exoplanets to date. Since April 2008, HARPS is the instrument available at the 3.6 m telescope. The ESO New Technology Telescope is an Alt-Az,3. 58-metre Richey-Chretien telescope which pioneered the use of active optics, the telescope and its enclosure had a revolutionary design for optimal image quality. NTT saw first light in March 1989, the telescope chamber is ventilated by a system of flaps which optimize the air flow across the NTT minimizing the dome and mirror seeing
2.
R. H. McNaught
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Robert H. McNaught is a Scottish-Australian astronomer at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University. He has collaborated with David J. Asher of the Armagh Observatory, the inner main-belt asteroid 3173 McNaught, discovered by Edward Bowell at Anderson Mesa Station in 1981, was named after him by its discoverer, following a suggestion by David Seargent. He discovered the Great Comet C/2006 P1 on 7 August 2006, the brightest comet in several decades, the SSS was the only active Near Earth Object survey in the Southern Hemisphere. The survey ended in 2013 after funding dried up, McNaught previously worked on the Anglo-Australian Near-Earth Asteroid Survey from 1990–1996. McNaught worked at the University of Astons satellite-tracking camera originally outside Evesham in 1982, thereafter at Herstmonceux and he also carries out extensive observational and computational work on meteors, as well as on occultations by minor planets. On 11 July 2012 it was announced that McNaughts funding from NASA was to be cut, in late 2012, the ANU advised that it could no longer support the program and that funds would not be available from January 2013. In total, McNaught has discovered 82 comets
3.
Eric W. Elst
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Eric Walter Elst is a Belgian astronomer at the Observatory at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Uccle and a prolific discoverer of asteroids. The minor planet 3936 Elst, a stony Vestian asteroid from the regions of the asteroid belt. Eric Elst is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 3866 numbered minor planets made between 1986 and 2009. Notable discoveries include 4486 Mithra, a near-Earth and Apollo asteroid,7968 Elst-Pizarro, Minor planet articles also exist for 12696 Camus,8116 Jeanperrin,22740 Rayleigh,6267 Rozhen and 9951 Tyrannosaurus, among others. List of minor planet discoverers Eric Elst homepage
4.
Minor planet
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A minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is neither a planet nor exclusively classified as a comet. Minor planets can be dwarf planets, asteroids, trojans, centaurs, Kuiper belt objects, as of 2016, the orbits of 709,706 minor planets were archived at the Minor Planet Center,469,275 of which had received permanent numbers. The first minor planet to be discovered was Ceres in 1801, the term minor planet has been used since the 19th century to describe these objects. The term planetoid has also used, especially for larger objects such as those the International Astronomical Union has called dwarf planets since 2006. Historically, the asteroid, minor planet, and planetoid have been more or less synonymous. This terminology has become complicated by the discovery of numerous minor planets beyond the orbit of Jupiter. A Minor planet seen releasing gas may be classified as a comet. Before 2006, the IAU had officially used the term minor planet, during its 2006 meeting, the IAU reclassified minor planets and comets into dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Objects are called dwarf planets if their self-gravity is sufficient to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium, all other minor planets and comets are called small Solar System bodies. The IAU stated that the minor planet may still be used. However, for purposes of numbering and naming, the distinction between minor planet and comet is still used. Hundreds of thousands of planets have been discovered within the Solar System. The Minor Planet Center has documented over 167 million observations and 729,626 minor planets, of these,20,570 have official names. As of March 2017, the lowest-numbered unnamed minor planet is 1974 FV1, as of March 2017, the highest-numbered named minor planet is 458063 Gustavomuler. There are various broad minor-planet populations, Asteroids, traditionally, most have been bodies in the inner Solar System. Near-Earth asteroids, those whose orbits take them inside the orbit of Mars. Further subclassification of these, based on distance, is used, Apohele asteroids orbit inside of Earths perihelion distance. Aten asteroids, those that have semi-major axes of less than Earths, Apollo asteroids are those asteroids with a semimajor axis greater than Earths, while having a perihelion distance of 1.017 AU or less. Like Aten asteroids, Apollo asteroids are Earth-crossers, amor asteroids are those near-Earth asteroids that approach the orbit of Earth from beyond, but do not cross it
5.
Main-belt comet
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Main-belt comets are bodies orbiting within the asteroid belt that have shown comet-like activity during part of their orbit. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory defines a main-belt asteroid as an asteroid with an axis of more than 2 AU but less than 3.2 AU. The first main-belt comet discovered is 7968 Elst–Pizarro and it was discovered in 1979 and was found to have a tail by Eric Elst and Guido Pizarro in 1996 and given the cometary designation 133P/Elst-Pizarro. Although quite a few comets have semimajor axes well within Jupiters orbit, main-belt comets differ in having small eccentricities. The first three identified main-belt comets all orbit within the part of the asteroid belt. It is not known how an outer Solar System body like the other comets could have made its way into a low-eccentricity orbit typical of the asteroid belt, some main-belt comets display a cometary dust tail only for a part of their orbit near perihelion. Activity in 133P/Elst–Pizarro is recurrent, having been observed at each of the last three perihelia, the activity persists for a month or several out of each 5-6 year orbit, and is presumably due to ice being uncovered by minor impacts in the last 100 to 1000 years. These impacts are suspected to excavate these subsurface pockets of volatile material helping to expose them to solar radiation, observations of Scheila indicated that large amounts of dust were kicked up by the impact of another asteroid of approximately 35 meters in diameter. In October 2013, observations of P/2013 R3, taken with the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias on the island of La Palma showed that this comet was breaking apart. The brightest A fragment was also detected at the position in CCD images obtained at the 1.52 m telescope of the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Granada on October 12. NASA reported on a series of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope between October 29,2013 and January 14,2014 that show the separation of the four main bodies. The Yarkovsky–OKeefe–Radzievskii–Paddack effect, caused by sunlight, increased the rate until the centrifugal force caused the rubble pile to separate. The term main-belt comet is a based on orbit and the presence of an extended morphology. It does not imply that these objects are comets or that the material surrounding their nuclei was ejected by the sublimation of volatiles, identified members of this morphology class include, Centaur Extinct comet Henry Hsiehs Main-Belt Comets page has extensive details on Main-belt comets David Jewitt. J. Licandro New images obtained with the GTC
6.
Asteroid belt
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The asteroid belt is the circumstellar disc in the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets, the asteroid belt is also termed the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids. About half the mass of the belt is contained in the four largest asteroids, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, the total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon, or 22% that of Pluto, and roughly twice that of Plutos moon Charon. Ceres, the belts only dwarf planet, is about 950 km in diameter, whereas Vesta, Pallas. The remaining bodies range down to the size of a dust particle, the asteroid material is so thinly distributed that numerous unmanned spacecraft have traversed it without incident. Nonetheless, collisions between large asteroids do occur, and these can form a family whose members have similar orbital characteristics. Individual asteroids within the belt are categorized by their spectra. The asteroid belt formed from the solar nebula as a group of planetesimals. Planetesimals are the precursors of the protoplanets. Between Mars and Jupiter, however, gravitational perturbations from Jupiter imbued the protoplanets with too much energy for them to accrete into a planet. Collisions became too violent, and instead of fusing together, the planetesimals, as a result,99. 9% of the asteroid belts original mass was lost in the first 100 million years of the Solar Systems history. Some fragments eventually found their way into the inner Solar System, Asteroid orbits continue to be appreciably perturbed whenever their period of revolution about the Sun forms an orbital resonance with Jupiter. At these orbital distances, a Kirkwood gap occurs as they are swept into other orbits. Classes of small Solar System bodies in other regions are the objects, the centaurs, the Kuiper belt objects, the scattered disc objects, the sednoids. On 22 January 2014, ESA scientists reported the detection, for the first definitive time, of water vapor on Ceres, the detection was made by using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. The finding was unexpected because comets, not asteroids, are considered to sprout jets. According to one of the scientists, The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids. This pattern, now known as the Titius–Bode law, predicted the semi-major axes of the six planets of the provided one allowed for a gap between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
7.
Asteroid
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Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids and these terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disc of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered and found to have volatile-based surfaces that resemble those of comets, in this article, the term asteroid refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System including those co-orbital with Jupiter. There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the remnants of planetesimals. The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter. However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects, individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups, C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are identified with carbon-rich, metallic. The size of asteroids varies greatly, some reaching as much as 1000 km across, asteroids are differentiated from comets and meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition, while asteroids are composed of mineral and rock, comets are composed of dust. In addition, asteroids formed closer to the sun, preventing the development of the aforementioned cometary ice, the difference between asteroids and meteoroids is mainly one of size, meteoroids have a diameter of less than one meter, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Finally, meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials, only one asteroid,4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the eye for a short time. As of March 2016, the Minor Planet Center had data on more than 1.3 million objects in the inner and outer Solar System, the United Nations declared June 30 as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, the first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, and was originally considered to be a new planet. In the early half of the nineteenth century, the terms asteroid. Asteroid discovery methods have improved over the past two centuries. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, the expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers
8.
Perihelion and aphelion
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The perihelion is the point in the orbit of a celestial body where it is nearest to its orbital focus, generally a star. It is the opposite of aphelion, which is the point in the orbit where the body is farthest from its focus. The word perihelion stems from the Ancient Greek words peri, meaning around or surrounding, aphelion derives from the preposition apo, meaning away, off, apart. According to Keplers first law of motion, all planets, comets. Hence, a body has a closest and a farthest point from its parent object, that is, a perihelion. Each extreme is known as an apsis, orbital eccentricity measures the flatness of the orbit. Because of the distance at aphelion, only 93. 55% of the solar radiation from the Sun falls on a given area of land as does at perihelion. However, this fluctuation does not account for the seasons, as it is summer in the northern hemisphere when it is winter in the southern hemisphere and vice versa. Instead, seasons result from the tilt of Earths axis, which is 23.4 degrees away from perpendicular to the plane of Earths orbit around the sun. Winter falls on the hemisphere where sunlight strikes least directly, and summer falls where sunlight strikes most directly, in the northern hemisphere, summer occurs at the same time as aphelion. Despite this, there are larger land masses in the northern hemisphere, consequently, summers are 2.3 °C warmer in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere under similar conditions. Apsis Ellipse Solstice Dates and times of Earths perihelion and aphelion, 2000–2025 from the United States Naval Observatory
9.
Astronomical unit
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The astronomical unit is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun. However, that varies as Earth orbits the Sun, from a maximum to a minimum. Originally conceived as the average of Earths aphelion and perihelion, it is now defined as exactly 149597870700 metres, the astronomical unit is used primarily as a convenient yardstick for measuring distances within the Solar System or around other stars. However, it is also a component in the definition of another unit of astronomical length. A variety of symbols and abbreviations have been in use for the astronomical unit. In a 1976 resolution, the International Astronomical Union used the symbol A for the astronomical unit, in 2006, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures recommended ua as the symbol for the unit. In 2012, the IAU, noting that various symbols are presently in use for the astronomical unit, in the 2014 revision of the SI Brochure, the BIPM used the unit symbol au. In ISO 80000-3, the symbol of the unit is ua. Earths orbit around the Sun is an ellipse, the semi-major axis of this ellipse is defined to be half of the straight line segment that joins the aphelion and perihelion. The centre of the sun lies on this line segment. In addition, it mapped out exactly the largest straight-line distance that Earth traverses over the course of a year, knowing Earths shift and a stars shift enabled the stars distance to be calculated. But all measurements are subject to some degree of error or uncertainty, improvements in precision have always been a key to improving astronomical understanding. Improving measurements were continually checked and cross-checked by means of our understanding of the laws of celestial mechanics, the expected positions and distances of objects at an established time are calculated from these laws, and assembled into a collection of data called an ephemeris. NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides one of several ephemeris computation services, in 1976, in order to establish a yet more precise measure for the astronomical unit, the IAU formally adopted a new definition. Equivalently, by definition, one AU is the radius of an unperturbed circular Newtonian orbit about the sun of a particle having infinitesimal mass. As with all measurements, these rely on measuring the time taken for photons to be reflected from an object. However, for precision the calculations require adjustment for such as the motions of the probe. In addition, the measurement of the time itself must be translated to a scale that accounts for relativistic time dilation
10.
Orders of magnitude (length)
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The following are examples of orders of magnitude for different lengths. To help compare different orders of magnitude, the following list describes various lengths between 1. 6×10−35 meters and 101010122 meters,100 pm –1 Ångström 120 pm – radius of a gold atom 150 pm – Length of a typical covalent bond. 280 pm – Average size of the water molecule 298 pm – radius of a caesium atom, light travels 1 metre in 1⁄299,792,458, or 3. 3356409519815E-9 of a second. 25 metres – wavelength of the broadcast radio shortwave band at 12 MHz 29 metres – height of the lighthouse at Savudrija, Slovenia. 31 metres – wavelength of the broadcast radio shortwave band at 9.7 MHz 34 metres – height of the Split Point Lighthouse in Aireys Inlet, Victoria, Australia. 1 kilometre is equal to,1,000 metres 0.621371 miles 1,093.61 yards 3,280.84 feet 39,370.1 inches 100,000 centimetres 1,000,000 millimetres Side of a square of area 1 km2. Radius of a circle of area π km2,1.637 km – deepest dive of Lake Baikal in Russia, the worlds largest fresh water lake. 2.228 km – height of Mount Kosciuszko, highest point in Australia Most of Manhattan is from 3 to 4 km wide, farsang, a modern unit of measure commonly used in Iran and Turkey. Usage of farsang before 1926 may be for a precise unit derived from parasang. It is the altitude at which the FAI defines spaceflight to begin, to help compare orders of magnitude, this page lists lengths between 100 and 1,000 kilometres. 7.9 Gm – Diameter of Gamma Orionis 9, the newly improved measurement was 30% lower than the previous 2007 estimate. The size was revised in 2012 through improved measurement techniques and its faintness gives us an idea how our Sun would appear when viewed from even so close a distance as this. 350 Pm –37 light years – Distance to Arcturus 373.1 Pm –39.44 light years - Distance to TRAPPIST-1, a star recently discovered to have 7 planets around it. 400 Pm –42 light years – Distance to Capella 620 Pm –65 light years – Distance to Aldebaran This list includes distances between 1 and 10 exametres. 13 Em –1,300 light years – Distance to the Orion Nebula 14 Em –1,500 light years – Approximate thickness of the plane of the Milky Way galaxy at the Suns location 30.8568 Em –3,261. At this scale, expansion of the universe becomes significant, Distance of these objects are derived from their measured redshifts, which depends on the cosmological models used. At this scale, expansion of the universe becomes significant, Distance of these objects are derived from their measured redshifts, which depends on the cosmological models used. 590 Ym –62 billion light years – Cosmological event horizon, displays orders of magnitude in successively larger rooms Powers of Ten Travel across the Universe
11.
Semi-major and semi-minor axes
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In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter, a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the widest points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis is one half of the axis, and thus runs from the centre, through a focus. Essentially, it is the radius of an orbit at the two most distant points. For the special case of a circle, the axis is the radius. One can think of the axis as an ellipses long radius. The semi-major axis of a hyperbola is, depending on the convention, thus it is the distance from the center to either vertex of the hyperbola. A parabola can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of ellipses where one focus is fixed as the other is allowed to move arbitrarily far away in one direction. Thus a and b tend to infinity, a faster than b, the semi-minor axis is a line segment associated with most conic sections that is at right angles with the semi-major axis and has one end at the center of the conic section. It is one of the axes of symmetry for the curve, in an ellipse, the one, in a hyperbola. The semi-major axis is the value of the maximum and minimum distances r max and r min of the ellipse from a focus — that is. In astronomy these extreme points are called apsis, the semi-minor axis of an ellipse is the geometric mean of these distances, b = r max r min. The eccentricity of an ellipse is defined as e =1 − b 2 a 2 so r min = a, r max = a. Now consider the equation in polar coordinates, with one focus at the origin, the mean value of r = ℓ / and r = ℓ /, for θ = π and θ =0 is a = ℓ1 − e 2. In an ellipse, the axis is the geometric mean of the distance from the center to either focus. The semi-minor axis of an ellipse runs from the center of the ellipse to the edge of the ellipse, the semi-minor axis is half of the minor axis. The minor axis is the longest line segment perpendicular to the axis that connects two points on the ellipses edge. The semi-minor axis b is related to the axis a through the eccentricity e. A parabola can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of ellipses where one focus is fixed as the other is allowed to move arbitrarily far away in one direction
12.
Orbital eccentricity
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The orbital eccentricity of an astronomical object is a parameter that determines the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. A value of 0 is an orbit, values between 0 and 1 form an elliptical orbit,1 is a parabolic escape orbit. The term derives its name from the parameters of conic sections and it is normally used for the isolated two-body problem, but extensions exist for objects following a rosette orbit through the galaxy. In a two-body problem with inverse-square-law force, every orbit is a Kepler orbit, the eccentricity of this Kepler orbit is a non-negative number that defines its shape. The limit case between an ellipse and a hyperbola, when e equals 1, is parabola, radial trajectories are classified as elliptic, parabolic, or hyperbolic based on the energy of the orbit, not the eccentricity. Radial orbits have zero angular momentum and hence eccentricity equal to one, keeping the energy constant and reducing the angular momentum, elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic orbits each tend to the corresponding type of radial trajectory while e tends to 1. For a repulsive force only the trajectory, including the radial version, is applicable. For elliptical orbits, a simple proof shows that arcsin yields the projection angle of a circle to an ellipse of eccentricity e. For example, to view the eccentricity of the planet Mercury, next, tilt any circular object by that angle and the apparent ellipse projected to your eye will be of that same eccentricity. From Medieval Latin eccentricus, derived from Greek ἔκκεντρος ekkentros out of the center, from ἐκ- ek-, eccentric first appeared in English in 1551, with the definition a circle in which the earth, sun. Five years later, in 1556, a form of the word was added. The eccentricity of an orbit can be calculated from the state vectors as the magnitude of the eccentricity vector, e = | e | where. For elliptical orbits it can also be calculated from the periapsis and apoapsis since rp = a and ra = a, where a is the semimajor axis. E = r a − r p r a + r p =1 −2 r a r p +1 where, rp is the radius at periapsis. For Earths annual orbit path, ra/rp ratio = longest_radius / shortest_radius ≈1.034 relative to center point of path, the eccentricity of the Earths orbit is currently about 0.0167, the Earths orbit is nearly circular. Venus and Neptune have even lower eccentricity, over hundreds of thousands of years, the eccentricity of the Earths orbit varies from nearly 0.0034 to almost 0.058 as a result of gravitational attractions among the planets. The table lists the values for all planets and dwarf planets, Mercury has the greatest orbital eccentricity of any planet in the Solar System. Such eccentricity is sufficient for Mercury to receive twice as much solar irradiation at perihelion compared to aphelion, before its demotion from planet status in 2006, Pluto was considered to be the planet with the most eccentric orbit
13.
Second
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The second is the base unit of time in the International System of Units. It is qualitatively defined as the division of the hour by sixty. SI definition of second is the duration of 9192631770 periods of the corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. Seconds may be measured using a mechanical, electrical or an atomic clock, SI prefixes are combined with the word second to denote subdivisions of the second, e. g. the millisecond, the microsecond, and the nanosecond. Though SI prefixes may also be used to form multiples of the such as kilosecond. The second is also the unit of time in other systems of measurement, the centimetre–gram–second, metre–kilogram–second, metre–tonne–second. Absolute zero implies no movement, and therefore zero external radiation effects, the second thus defined is consistent with the ephemeris second, which was based on astronomical measurements. The realization of the second is described briefly in a special publication from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. 1 international second is equal to, 1⁄60 minute 1⁄3,600 hour 1⁄86,400 day 1⁄31,557,600 Julian year 1⁄, more generally, = 1⁄, the Hellenistic astronomers Hipparchus and Ptolemy subdivided the day into sixty parts. They also used an hour, simple fractions of an hour. No sexagesimal unit of the day was used as an independent unit of time. The modern second is subdivided using decimals - although the third remains in some languages. The earliest clocks to display seconds appeared during the last half of the 16th century, the second became accurately measurable with the development of mechanical clocks keeping mean time, as opposed to the apparent time displayed by sundials. The earliest spring-driven timepiece with a hand which marked seconds is an unsigned clock depicting Orpheus in the Fremersdorf collection. During the 3rd quarter of the 16th century, Taqi al-Din built a clock with marks every 1/5 minute, in 1579, Jost Bürgi built a clock for William of Hesse that marked seconds. In 1581, Tycho Brahe redesigned clocks that displayed minutes at his observatory so they also displayed seconds, however, they were not yet accurate enough for seconds. In 1587, Tycho complained that his four clocks disagreed by plus or minus four seconds, in 1670, London clockmaker William Clement added this seconds pendulum to the original pendulum clock of Christiaan Huygens. From 1670 to 1680, Clement made many improvements to his clock and this clock used an anchor escapement mechanism with a seconds pendulum to display seconds in a small subdial
14.
Mean anomaly
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In celestial mechanics, the mean anomaly is an angle used in calculating the position of a body in an elliptical orbit in the classical two-body problem. Define T as the time required for a body to complete one orbit. In time T, the radius vector sweeps out 2π radians or 360°. The average rate of sweep, n, is then n =2 π T or n =360 ∘ T, define τ as the time at which the body is at the pericenter. From the above definitions, a new quantity, M, the mean anomaly can be defined M = n, because the rate of increase, n, is a constant average, the mean anomaly increases uniformly from 0 to 2π radians or 0° to 360° during each orbit. It is equal to 0 when the body is at the pericenter, π radians at the apocenter, if the mean anomaly is known at any given instant, it can be calculated at any later instant by simply adding n δt where δt represents the time difference. Mean anomaly does not measure an angle between any physical objects and it is simply a convenient uniform measure of how far around its orbit a body has progressed since pericenter. The mean anomaly is one of three parameters that define a position along an orbit, the other two being the eccentric anomaly and the true anomaly. Define l as the longitude, the angular distance of the body from the same reference direction. Thus mean anomaly is also M = l − ϖ, mean angular motion can also be expressed, n = μ a 3, where μ is a gravitational parameter which varies with the masses of the objects, and a is the semi-major axis of the orbit. Mean anomaly can then be expanded, M = μ a 3, and here mean anomaly represents uniform angular motion on a circle of radius a
15.
Degree (angle)
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A degree, usually denoted by °, is a measurement of a plane angle, defined so that a full rotation is 360 degrees. It is not an SI unit, as the SI unit of measure is the radian. Because a full rotation equals 2π radians, one degree is equivalent to π/180 radians, the original motivation for choosing the degree as a unit of rotations and angles is unknown. One theory states that it is related to the fact that 360 is approximately the number of days in a year. Ancient astronomers noticed that the sun, which follows through the path over the course of the year. Some ancient calendars, such as the Persian calendar, used 360 days for a year, the use of a calendar with 360 days may be related to the use of sexagesimal numbers. The earliest trigonometry, used by the Babylonian astronomers and their Greek successors, was based on chords of a circle, a chord of length equal to the radius made a natural base quantity. One sixtieth of this, using their standard sexagesimal divisions, was a degree, Aristarchus of Samos and Hipparchus seem to have been among the first Greek scientists to exploit Babylonian astronomical knowledge and techniques systematically. Timocharis, Aristarchus, Aristillus, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were the first Greeks known to divide the circle in 360 degrees of 60 arc minutes, eratosthenes used a simpler sexagesimal system dividing a circle into 60 parts. Furthermore, it is divisible by every number from 1 to 10 except 7 and this property has many useful applications, such as dividing the world into 24 time zones, each of which is nominally 15° of longitude, to correlate with the established 24-hour day convention. Finally, it may be the case more than one of these factors has come into play. For many practical purposes, a degree is a small enough angle that whole degrees provide sufficient precision. When this is not the case, as in astronomy or for geographic coordinates, degree measurements may be written using decimal degrees, with the symbol behind the decimals. Alternatively, the sexagesimal unit subdivisions can be used. One degree is divided into 60 minutes, and one minute into 60 seconds, use of degrees-minutes-seconds is also called DMS notation. These subdivisions, also called the arcminute and arcsecond, are represented by a single and double prime. For example,40. 1875° = 40° 11′ 15″, or, using quotation mark characters, additional precision can be provided using decimals for the arcseconds component. The older system of thirds, fourths, etc. which continues the sexagesimal unit subdivision, was used by al-Kashi and other ancient astronomers, but is rarely used today
16.
Orbital inclination
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Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an objects orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth directly above the equator, the plane of the orbit is the same as the Earths equatorial plane. The general case is that the orbit is tilted, it spends half an orbit over the northern hemisphere. If the orbit swung between 20° north latitude and 20° south latitude, then its orbital inclination would be 20°, the inclination is one of the six orbital elements describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit. It is the angle between the plane and the plane of reference, normally stated in degrees. For a satellite orbiting a planet, the plane of reference is usually the plane containing the planets equator, for planets in the Solar System, the plane of reference is usually the ecliptic, the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun. This reference plane is most practical for Earth-based observers, therefore, Earths inclination is, by definition, zero. Inclination could instead be measured with respect to another plane, such as the Suns equator or the invariable plane, the inclination of orbits of natural or artificial satellites is measured relative to the equatorial plane of the body they orbit, if they orbit sufficiently closely. The equatorial plane is the perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the central body. An inclination of 30° could also be described using an angle of 150°, the convention is that the normal orbit is prograde, an orbit in the same direction as the planet rotates. Inclinations greater than 90° describe retrograde orbits, thus, An inclination of 0° means the orbiting body has a prograde orbit in the planets equatorial plane. An inclination greater than 0° and less than 90° also describe prograde orbits, an inclination of 63. 4° is often called a critical inclination, when describing artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, because they have zero apogee drift. An inclination of exactly 90° is an orbit, in which the spacecraft passes over the north and south poles of the planet. An inclination greater than 90° and less than 180° is a retrograde orbit, an inclination of exactly 180° is a retrograde equatorial orbit. For gas giants, the orbits of moons tend to be aligned with the giant planets equator, the inclination of exoplanets or members of multiple stars is the angle of the plane of the orbit relative to the plane perpendicular to the line-of-sight from Earth to the object. An inclination of 0° is an orbit, meaning the plane of its orbit is parallel to the sky. An inclination of 90° is an orbit, meaning the plane of its orbit is perpendicular to the sky
17.
Longitude of the ascending node
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The longitude of the ascending node is one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in space. It is the angle from a direction, called the origin of longitude, to the direction of the ascending node. The ascending node is the point where the orbit of the passes through the plane of reference. Commonly used reference planes and origins of longitude include, For a geocentric orbit, Earths equatorial plane as the plane. In this case, the longitude is called the right ascension of the ascending node. The angle is measured eastwards from the First Point of Aries to the node, for a heliocentric orbit, the ecliptic as the reference plane, and the First Point of Aries as the origin of longitude. The angle is measured counterclockwise from the First Point of Aries to the node, the angle is measured eastwards from north to the node. pp.40,72,137, chap. In the case of a star known only from visual observations, it is not possible to tell which node is ascending. In this case the orbital parameter which is recorded is the longitude of the node, Ω, here, n=<nx, ny, nz> is a vector pointing towards the ascending node. The reference plane is assumed to be the xy-plane, and the origin of longitude is taken to be the positive x-axis, K is the unit vector, which is the normal vector to the xy reference plane. For non-inclined orbits, Ω is undefined, for computation it is then, by convention, set equal to zero, that is, the ascending node is placed in the reference direction, which is equivalent to letting n point towards the positive x-axis. Kepler orbits Equinox Orbital node perturbation of the plane can cause revolution of the ascending node
18.
Argument of periapsis
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The argument of periapsis, symbolized as ω, is one of the orbital elements of an orbiting body. Parametrically, ω is the angle from the ascending node to its periapsis. For specific types of orbits, words such as perihelion, perigee, periastron, an argument of periapsis of 0° means that the orbiting body will be at its closest approach to the central body at the same moment that it crosses the plane of reference from South to North. An argument of periapsis of 90° means that the body will reach periapsis at its northmost distance from the plane of reference. Adding the argument of periapsis to the longitude of the ascending node gives the longitude of the periapsis, however, especially in discussions of binary stars and exoplanets, the terms longitude of periapsis or longitude of periastron are often used synonymously with argument of periapsis. In the case of equatorial orbits, the argument is strictly undefined, where, ex and ey are the x- and y-components of the eccentricity vector e. In the case of circular orbits it is assumed that the periapsis is placed at the ascending node. Kepler orbit Orbital mechanics Orbital node
19.
Minimum orbit intersection distance
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Minimum orbit intersection distance is a measure used in astronomy to assess potential close approaches and collision risks between astronomical objects. It is defined as the distance between the closest points of the orbits of two bodies. Of greatest interest is the risk of a collision with Earth, Earth MOID is often listed on comet and asteroid databases such as the JPL Small-Body Database. MOID values are defined with respect to other bodies as well, Jupiter MOID, Venus MOID. An object is classified as a hazardous object – that is, posing a possible risk to Earth – if, among other conditions. A low MOID does not mean that a collision is inevitable as the planets frequently perturb the orbit of small bodies. It is also necessary that the two bodies reach that point in their orbits at the time before the smaller body is perturbed into a different orbit with a different MOID value. Two Objects gravitationally locked in orbital resonance may never approach one another, numerical integrations become increasingly divergent as trajectories are projected further forward in time, especially beyond times where the smaller body is repeatedly perturbed by other planets. MOID has the convenience that it is obtained directly from the elements of the body. The only object that has ever been rated at 4 on the Torino Scale and this is not the smallest Earth MOID in the catalogues, many bodies with a small Earth MOID are not classed as PHOs because the objects are less than roughly 140 meters in diameter. Earth MOID values are more practical for asteroids less than 140 meters in diameter as those asteroids are very dim. It is even smaller at the more precise JPL Small Body Database
20.
Spitzer Space Telescope
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The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, is an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. It is the fourth and final of the NASA Great Observatories program, the planned mission period was to be 2.5 years with a pre-launch expectation that the mission could extend to five or slightly more years until the onboard liquid helium supply was exhausted. This occurred on 15 May 2009, without liquid helium to cool the telescope to the very low temperatures needed to operate, most of the instruments are no longer usable. All Spitzer data, from both the primary and warm phases, are archived at the Infrared Science Archive, in keeping with NASA tradition, the telescope was renamed after its successful demonstration of operation, on 18 December 2003. Unlike most telescopes that are named after famous deceased astronomers by a board of scientists, the contest led to the telescope being named in honor of astronomer Lyman Spitzer, who had promoted the concept of space telescopes in the 1940s. Spitzer wrote a 1946 report for RAND Corporation describing the advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory, the US$720 million Spitzer was launched on 25 August 2003 at 05,35,39 UTC from Cape Canaveral SLC-17B aboard a Delta II 7920H rocket. It follows a heliocentric instead of orbit, trailing and drifting away from Earths orbit at approximately 0.1 astronomical unit per year. The primary mirror is 85 centimeters in diameter, f/12, made of beryllium and was cooled to 5.5 K, by the early 1970s, astronomers began to consider the possibility of placing an infrared telescope above the obscuring effects of Earths atmosphere. Anticipating the major results from an upcoming Explorer satellite and from the Shuttle mission, long-duration spaceflights of infrared telescopes cooled to cryogenic temperatures. Earlier infrared observations had been made by both space-based and ground-based observatories, ground-based observatories have the drawback that at infrared wavelengths or frequencies, both the Earths atmosphere and the telescope itself will radiate strongly. Additionally, the atmosphere is opaque at most infrared wavelengths and this necessitates lengthy exposure times and greatly decreases the ability to detect faint objects. It could be compared to trying to observe the stars at noon, previous space observatories were launched during the 1980s and 1990s and great advances in astronomical technology have been made since then. Most of the early concepts envisioned repeated flights aboard the NASA Space Shuttle and this approach was developed in an era when the Shuttle program was expected to support weekly flights of up to 30 days duration. A May 1983 NASA proposal described SIRTF as a Shuttle-attached mission, several flights were anticipated with a probable transition into a more extended mode of operation, possibly in association with a future space platform or space station. SIRTF would be a 1-meter class, cryogenically cooled, multi-user facility consisting of a telescope, the first flight was expected to occur about 1990, with the succeeding flights anticipated beginning approximately one year later. By September 1983 NASA was considering the possibility of a long duration SIRTF mission, Spitzer is the only one of the Great Observatories not launched by the Space Shuttle, as was originally intended. However, after the 1986 Challenger disaster, the Centaur LH2–LOX upper stage, the mission underwent a series of redesigns during the 1990s, primarily due to budget considerations. This resulted in a smaller but still fully capable mission that could use the smaller Delta II expendable launch vehicle
21.
Density
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The density, or more precisely, the volumetric mass density, of a substance is its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ, although the Latin letter D can also be used. Mathematically, density is defined as mass divided by volume, ρ = m V, where ρ is the density, m is the mass, and V is the volume. In some cases, density is defined as its weight per unit volume. For a pure substance the density has the numerical value as its mass concentration. Different materials usually have different densities, and density may be relevant to buoyancy, purity, osmium and iridium are the densest known elements at standard conditions for temperature and pressure but certain chemical compounds may be denser. Thus a relative density less than one means that the floats in water. The density of a material varies with temperature and pressure and this variation is typically small for solids and liquids but much greater for gases. Increasing the pressure on an object decreases the volume of the object, increasing the temperature of a substance decreases its density by increasing its volume. In most materials, heating the bottom of a results in convection of the heat from the bottom to the top. This causes it to rise relative to more dense unheated material, the reciprocal of the density of a substance is occasionally called its specific volume, a term sometimes used in thermodynamics. Density is a property in that increasing the amount of a substance does not increase its density. Archimedes knew that the irregularly shaped wreath could be crushed into a cube whose volume could be calculated easily and compared with the mass, upon this discovery, he leapt from his bath and ran naked through the streets shouting, Eureka. As a result, the term eureka entered common parlance and is used today to indicate a moment of enlightenment, the story first appeared in written form in Vitruvius books of architecture, two centuries after it supposedly took place. Some scholars have doubted the accuracy of this tale, saying among other things that the method would have required precise measurements that would have been difficult to make at the time, from the equation for density, mass density has units of mass divided by volume. As there are units of mass and volume covering many different magnitudes there are a large number of units for mass density in use. The SI unit of kilogram per metre and the cgs unit of gram per cubic centimetre are probably the most commonly used units for density.1,000 kg/m3 equals 1 g/cm3. In industry, other larger or smaller units of mass and or volume are often more practical, see below for a list of some of the most common units of density
22.
Hour
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An hour is a unit of time conventionally reckoned as 1⁄24 of a day and scientifically reckoned as 3, 599–3,601 seconds, depending on conditions. The seasonal, temporal, or unequal hour was established in the ancient Near East as 1⁄12 of the night or daytime, such hours varied by season, latitude, and weather. It was subsequently divided into 60 minutes, each of 60 seconds, the modern English word hour is a development of the Anglo-Norman houre and Middle English ure, first attested in the 13th century. It displaced the Old English tide and stound, the Anglo-Norman term was a borrowing of Old French ure, a variant of ore, which derived from Latin hōra and Greek hṓrā. Like Old English tīd and stund, hṓrā was originally a word for any span of time, including seasons. Its Proto-Indo-European root has been reconstructed as *yeh₁-, making hour distantly cognate with year, the time of day is typically expressed in English in terms of hours. Whole hours on a 12-hour clock are expressed using the contracted phrase oclock, Hours on a 24-hour clock are expressed as hundred or hundred hours. Fifteen and thirty minutes past the hour is expressed as a quarter past or after and half past, respectively, fifteen minutes before the hour may be expressed as a quarter to, of, till, or before the hour. Sumerian and Babylonian hours divided the day and night into 24 equal hours, the ancient Egyptians began dividing the night into wnwt at some time before the compilation of the Dynasty V Pyramid Texts in the 24th century BC. By 2150 BC, diagrams of stars inside Egyptian coffin lids—variously known as diagonal calendars or star clocks—attest that there were exactly 12 of these. The coffin diagrams show that the Egyptians took note of the risings of 36 stars or constellations. Each night, the rising of eleven of these decans were noted, the original decans used by the Egyptians would have fallen noticeably out of their proper places over a span of several centuries. By the time of Amenhotep III, the priests at Karnak were using water clocks to determine the hours and these were filled to the brim at sunset and the hour determined by comparing the water level against one of its twelve gauges, one for each month of the year. During the New Kingdom, another system of decans was used, the later division of the day into 12 hours was accomplished by sundials marked with ten equal divisions. The morning and evening periods when the failed to note time were observed as the first and last hours. The Egyptian hours were closely connected both with the priesthood of the gods and with their divine services, by the New Kingdom, each hour was conceived as a specific region of the sky or underworld through which Ras solar bark travelled. Protective deities were assigned to each and were used as the names of the hours, as the protectors and resurrectors of the sun, the goddesses of the night hours were considered to hold power over all lifespans and thus became part of Egyptian funerary rituals. The Egyptian for astronomer, used as a synonym for priest, was wnwty, the earliest forms of wnwt include one or three stars, with the later solar hours including the determinative hieroglyph for sun
23.
Day
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In common usage, it is either an interval equal to 24 hours or daytime, the consecutive period of time during which the Sun is above the horizon. The period of time during which the Earth completes one rotation with respect to the Sun is called a solar day, several definitions of this universal human concept are used according to context, need and convenience. In 1960, the second was redefined in terms of the motion of the Earth. The unit of measurement day, redefined in 1960 as 86400 SI seconds and symbolized d, is not an SI unit, but is accepted for use with SI. The word day may also refer to a day of the week or to a date, as in answer to the question. The life patterns of humans and many species are related to Earths solar day. In recent decades the average length of a day on Earth has been about 86400.002 seconds. A day, understood as the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one rotation with respect to the celestial background or a distant star, is called a stellar day. This period of rotation is about 4 minutes less than 24 hours, mainly due to tidal effects, the Earths rotational period is not constant, resulting in further minor variations for both solar days and stellar days. Other planets and moons have stellar and solar days of different lengths to Earths, besides the day of 24 hours, the word day is used for several different spans of time based on the rotation of the Earth around its axis. An important one is the day, defined as the time it takes for the Sun to return to its culmination point. Because the Earth orbits the Sun elliptically as the Earth spins on an inclined axis, on average over the year this day is equivalent to 24 hours. A day, in the sense of daytime that is distinguished from night-time, is defined as the period during which sunlight directly reaches the ground. The length of daytime averages slightly more than half of the 24-hour day, two effects make daytime on average longer than nights. The Sun is not a point, but has an apparent size of about 32 minutes of arc, additionally, the atmosphere refracts sunlight in such a way that some of it reaches the ground even when the Sun is below the horizon by about 34 minutes of arc. So the first light reaches the ground when the centre of the Sun is still below the horizon by about 50 minutes of arc, the difference in time depends on the angle at which the Sun rises and sets, but can amount to around seven minutes. Ancient custom has a new day start at either the rising or setting of the Sun on the local horizon, the exact moment of, and the interval between, two sunrises or sunsets depends on the geographical position, and the time of year. A more constant day can be defined by the Sun passing through the local meridian, the exact moment is dependent on the geographical longitude, and to a lesser extent on the time of the year
24.
Temperature
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A temperature is an objective comparative measurement of hot or cold. It is measured by a thermometer, several scales and units exist for measuring temperature, the most common being Celsius, Fahrenheit, and, especially in science, Kelvin. Absolute zero is denoted as 0 K on the Kelvin scale, −273.15 °C on the Celsius scale, the kinetic theory offers a valuable but limited account of the behavior of the materials of macroscopic bodies, especially of fluids. Temperature is important in all fields of science including physics, geology, chemistry, atmospheric sciences, medicine. The Celsius scale is used for temperature measurements in most of the world. Because of the 100 degree interval, it is called a centigrade scale.15, the United States commonly uses the Fahrenheit scale, on which water freezes at 32°F and boils at 212°F at sea-level atmospheric pressure. Many scientific measurements use the Kelvin temperature scale, named in honor of the Scottish physicist who first defined it and it is a thermodynamic or absolute temperature scale. Its zero point, 0K, is defined to coincide with the coldest physically-possible temperature and its degrees are defined through thermodynamics. The temperature of zero occurs at 0K = −273. 15°C. For historical reasons, the triple point temperature of water is fixed at 273.16 units of the measurement increment, Temperature is one of the principal quantities in the study of thermodynamics. There is a variety of kinds of temperature scale and it may be convenient to classify them as empirically and theoretically based. Empirical temperature scales are historically older, while theoretically based scales arose in the middle of the nineteenth century, empirically based temperature scales rely directly on measurements of simple physical properties of materials. For example, the length of a column of mercury, confined in a capillary tube, is dependent largely on temperature. Such scales are only within convenient ranges of temperature. For example, above the point of mercury, a mercury-in-glass thermometer is impracticable. A material is of no use as a thermometer near one of its phase-change temperatures, in spite of these restrictions, most generally used practical thermometers are of the empirically based kind. Especially, it was used for calorimetry, which contributed greatly to the discovery of thermodynamics, nevertheless, empirical thermometry has serious drawbacks when judged as a basis for theoretical physics. Theoretically based temperature scales are based directly on theoretical arguments, especially those of thermodynamics, kinetic theory and they rely on theoretical properties of idealized devices and materials
25.
Kelvin
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The kelvin is a unit of measure for temperature based upon an absolute scale. It is one of the seven units in the International System of Units and is assigned the unit symbol K. The kelvin is defined as the fraction 1⁄273.16 of the temperature of the triple point of water. In other words, it is defined such that the point of water is exactly 273.16 K. The Kelvin scale is named after the Belfast-born, Glasgow University engineer and physicist William Lord Kelvin, unlike the degree Fahrenheit and degree Celsius, the kelvin is not referred to or typeset as a degree. The kelvin is the unit of temperature measurement in the physical sciences, but is often used in conjunction with the Celsius degree. The definition implies that absolute zero is equivalent to −273.15 °C, Kelvin calculated that absolute zero was equivalent to −273 °C on the air thermometers of the time. This absolute scale is known today as the Kelvin thermodynamic temperature scale, when spelled out or spoken, the unit is pluralised using the same grammatical rules as for other SI units such as the volt or ohm. When reference is made to the Kelvin scale, the word kelvin—which is normally a noun—functions adjectivally to modify the noun scale and is capitalized, as with most other SI unit symbols there is a space between the numeric value and the kelvin symbol. Before the 13th CGPM in 1967–1968, the unit kelvin was called a degree and it was distinguished from the other scales with either the adjective suffix Kelvin or with absolute and its symbol was °K. The latter term, which was the official name from 1948 until 1954, was ambiguous since it could also be interpreted as referring to the Rankine scale. Before the 13th CGPM, the form was degrees absolute. The 13th CGPM changed the name to simply kelvin. Its measured value was 7002273160280000000♠0.01028 °C with an uncertainty of 60 µK, the use of SI prefixed forms of the degree Celsius to express a temperature interval has not been widely adopted. In 2005 the CIPM embarked on a program to redefine the kelvin using a more experimentally rigorous methodology, the current definition as of 2016 is unsatisfactory for temperatures below 20 K and above 7003130000000000000♠1300 K. In particular, the committee proposed redefining the kelvin such that Boltzmanns constant takes the exact value 6977138065049999999♠1. 3806505×10−23 J/K, from a scientific point of view, this will link temperature to the rest of SI and result in a stable definition that is independent of any particular substance. From a practical point of view, the redefinition will pass unnoticed, the kelvin is often used in the measure of the colour temperature of light sources. Colour temperature is based upon the principle that a black body radiator emits light whose colour depends on the temperature of the radiator, black bodies with temperatures below about 7003400000000000000♠4000 K appear reddish, whereas those above about 7003750000000000000♠7500 K appear bluish
26.
Apparent magnitude
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The apparent magnitude of a celestial object is a number that is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth. The brighter an object appears, the lower its magnitude value, the Sun, at apparent magnitude of −27, is the brightest object in the sky. It is adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere, furthermore, the magnitude scale is logarithmic, a difference of one in magnitude corresponds to a change in brightness by a factor of 5√100, or about 2.512. The measurement of apparent magnitudes or brightnesses of celestial objects is known as photometry, apparent magnitudes are used to quantify the brightness of sources at ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths. An apparent magnitude is measured in a specific passband corresponding to some photometric system such as the UBV system. In standard astronomical notation, an apparent magnitude in the V filter band would be denoted either as mV or often simply as V, the scale used to indicate magnitude originates in the Hellenistic practice of dividing stars visible to the naked eye into six magnitudes. The brightest stars in the sky were said to be of first magnitude, whereas the faintest were of sixth magnitude. Each grade of magnitude was considered twice the brightness of the following grade and this rather crude scale for the brightness of stars was popularized by Ptolemy in his Almagest, and is generally believed to have originated with Hipparchus. This implies that a star of magnitude m is 2.512 times as bright as a star of magnitude m +1 and this figure, the fifth root of 100, became known as Pogsons Ratio. The zero point of Pogsons scale was defined by assigning Polaris a magnitude of exactly 2. However, with the advent of infrared astronomy it was revealed that Vegas radiation includes an Infrared excess presumably due to a disk consisting of dust at warm temperatures. At shorter wavelengths, there is negligible emission from dust at these temperatures, however, in order to properly extend the magnitude scale further into the infrared, this peculiarity of Vega should not affect the definition of the magnitude scale. Therefore, the scale was extrapolated to all wavelengths on the basis of the black body radiation curve for an ideal stellar surface at 11000 K uncontaminated by circumstellar radiation. On this basis the spectral irradiance for the zero magnitude point, with the modern magnitude systems, brightness over a very wide range is specified according to the logarithmic definition detailed below, using this zero reference. In practice such apparent magnitudes do not exceed 30, astronomers have developed other photometric zeropoint systems as alternatives to the Vega system. The AB magnitude zeropoint is defined such that an objects AB, the dimmer an object appears, the higher the numerical value given to its apparent magnitude, with a difference of 5 magnitudes corresponding to a brightness factor of exactly 100. Since an increase of 5 magnitudes corresponds to a decrease in brightness by a factor of exactly 100, each magnitude increase implies a decrease in brightness by the factor 5√100 ≈2.512. Inverting the above formula, a magnitude difference m1 − m2 = Δm implies a brightness factor of F2 F1 =100 Δ m 5 =100.4 Δ m ≈2.512 Δ m
27.
Comet
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A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to evolve gasses, a process called outgassing. This produces an atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects of radiation and the solar wind acting upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei range from a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres across and are composed of collections of ice, dust. The coma may be up to 15 times the Earths diameter, if sufficiently bright, a comet may be seen from the Earth without the aid of a telescope and may subtend an arc of 30° across the sky. Comets have been observed and recorded since ancient times by many cultures, Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and they have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to potentially several millions of years. Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star. Long-period comets are set in motion towards the Sun from the Oort cloud by gravitational perturbations caused by passing stars, hyperbolic comets may pass once through the inner Solar System before being flung to interstellar space. The appearance of a comet is called an apparition, Comets are distinguished from asteroids by the presence of an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere surrounding their central nucleus. This atmosphere has parts termed the coma and the tail, however, extinct comets that have passed close to the Sun many times have lost nearly all of their volatile ices and dust and may come to resemble small asteroids. Asteroids are thought to have a different origin from comets, having formed inside the orbit of Jupiter rather than in the outer Solar System, the discovery of main-belt comets and active centaur minor planets has blurred the distinction between asteroids and comets. As of November 2014 there are 5,253 known comets, however, this represents only a tiny fraction of the total potential comet population, as the reservoir of comet-like bodies in the outer Solar System is estimated to be one trillion. Roughly one comet per year is visible to the eye, though many of those are faint. Particularly bright examples are called Great Comets, the word comet derives from the Old English cometa from the Latin comēta or comētēs. That, in turn, is a latinisation of the Greek κομήτης, Κομήτης was derived from κομᾶν, which was itself derived from κόμη and was used to mean the tail of a comet. The astronomical symbol for comets is ☄, consisting of a disc with three hairlike extensions. The solid, core structure of a comet is known as the nucleus, cometary nuclei are composed of an amalgamation of rock, dust, water ice, and frozen gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia. As such, they are described as dirty snowballs after Fred Whipples model
28.
Mars
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Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, after Mercury. Named after the Roman god of war, it is referred to as the Red Planet because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance. Mars is a planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. The rotational period and seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of Earth, Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and second-highest known mountain in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The smooth Borealis basin in the northern hemisphere covers 40% of the planet, Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Mars trojan, there are ongoing investigations assessing the past habitability potential of Mars, as well as the possibility of extant life. Future astrobiology missions are planned, including the Mars 2020 and ExoMars rovers, liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars due to low atmospheric pressure, which is about 6⁄1000 that of the Earths, except at the lowest elevations for short periods. The two polar ice caps appear to be largely of water. The volume of ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted. On November 22,2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of ice in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior, Mars can easily be seen from Earth with the naked eye, as can its reddish coloring. Its apparent magnitude reaches −2.91, which is surpassed only by Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometers across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earths atmosphere. Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth with an area only slightly less than the total area of Earths dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earths volume and 11% of Earths mass, the red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron oxide, or rust. It can look like butterscotch, other common colors include golden, brown, tan. Like Earth, Mars has differentiated into a metallic core overlaid by less dense materials. Current models of its interior imply a core with a radius of about 1,794 ±65 kilometers, consisting primarily of iron and this iron sulfide core is thought to be twice as rich in lighter elements than Earths. The core is surrounded by a mantle that formed many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet
29.
Jupiter
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Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, the other two giant planets, Uranus and Neptune are ice giants. Jupiter has been known to astronomers since antiquity, the Romans named it after their god Jupiter. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium and it may also have a rocky core of heavier elements, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Because of its rotation, the planets shape is that of an oblate spheroid. The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated into several bands at different latitudes, resulting in turbulence, a prominent result is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have existed since at least the 17th century when it was first seen by telescope. Surrounding Jupiter is a faint planetary ring system and a powerful magnetosphere, Jupiter has at least 67 moons, including the four large Galilean moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these, has a greater than that of the planet Mercury. Jupiter has been explored on several occasions by robotic spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. In late February 2007, Jupiter was visited by the New Horizons probe, the latest probe to visit the planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4,2016. Future targets for exploration in the Jupiter system include the probable ice-covered liquid ocean of its moon Europa, Earth and its neighbor planets may have formed from fragments of planets after collisions with Jupiter destroyed those super-Earths near the Sun. Astronomers have discovered nearly 500 planetary systems with multiple planets, Jupiter moving out of the inner Solar System would have allowed the formation of inner planets, including Earth. Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter and it is the largest of the four giant planets in the Solar System and hence its largest planet. It has a diameter of 142,984 km at its equator, the average density of Jupiter,1.326 g/cm3, is the second highest of the giant planets, but lower than those of the four terrestrial planets. Jupiters upper atmosphere is about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium by percent volume of gas molecules, a helium atom has about four times as much mass as a hydrogen atom, so the composition changes when described as the proportion of mass contributed by different atoms. Thus, Jupiters atmosphere is approximately 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, the atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia, and silicon-based compounds. There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen sulfide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, the outermost layer of the atmosphere contains crystals of frozen ammonia. The interior contains denser materials - by mass it is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium, through infrared and ultraviolet measurements, trace amounts of benzene and other hydrocarbons have also been found
30.
2060 Chiron
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2060 Chiron, also known as 95P/Chiron, is a minor planet in the outer Solar System, orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. Discovered in 1977 by Charles T. Kowal, it was the member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs—bodies orbiting between the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. Besides the four giant planets, Chiron and 10199 Chariklo, also a centaur, are the other bodies in the Solar System known to have rings. Although it was called an asteroid and classified only as a minor planet with the designation 2060 Chiron. Today it is classified as both a planet and a comet, and is accordingly also known by the cometary designation 95P/Chiron. Chiron is named after the centaur Chiron in Greek mythology, michael Brown lists it as possibly a dwarf planet with a measured diameter of 206 km which is near the lower limit for an icy dwarf planet. Chiron was discovered on 1 November 1977 by Charles Kowal from images taken on 18 October at Palomar Observatory and it was given the temporary designation of 1977 UB. It was found near aphelion and at the time of discovery it was the most distant known minor planet, Chiron was even claimed as the tenth planet by the press. Chiron was later found on several images, going back to 1895. It had been at perihelion in 1945 but was not discovered then because there were few searches being made at time. The Lowell Observatorys survey for distant planets would not have gone down faint enough in the 1930s and it was named Chiron in 1979 after Chiron, one of the centaurs, it was suggested that the names of other centaurs be reserved for objects of the same type. Chirons orbit was found to be eccentric, with perihelion just inside the orbit of Saturn. According to the program Solex, Chirons closest approach to Saturn in modern times was around May 720, during this passage Saturns gravity caused Chirons semi-major axis to decrease from 14. 55±0.12 AU to 13.7 AU. It does not come nearly as close to Uranus, Chiron crosses Uranuss orbit where the latter is farther than average from the Sun, Chiron attracted considerable interest because it was the first object discovered in such an orbit, well outside the asteroid belt. Chiron is classified as a centaur, the first of a class of objects orbiting between the outer planets, Chiron is a Saturn–Uranus object because its perihelion lies in Saturns zone of control and its aphelion lies in that of Uranus. Chiron is probably a refugee from the Kuiper belt and will become a short-period comet in about a million years. Chiron came to perihelion in 1996, the visible and near-infrared spectrum of Chiron is neutral, and is similar to that of C-type asteroids and the nucleus of Halleys Comet. The near-infrared spectrum of Chiron shows absence of water ice, the assumed size of an object depends on its absolute magnitude and the albedo
. Bibcode:2009ApJ...694L.111H. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/694/2/L111. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
