1.
Constellation
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A constellation is formally defined as a region of the celestial sphere, with boundaries laid down by the International Astronomical Union. The constellation areas mostly had their origins in Western-traditional patterns of stars from which the constellations take their names, in 1922, the International Astronomical Union officially recognized the 88 modern constellations, which cover the entire sky. They began as the 48 classical Greek constellations laid down by Ptolemy in the Almagest, Constellations in the far southern sky are late 16th- and mid 18th-century constructions. 12 of the 88 constellations compose the zodiac signs, though the positions of the constellations only loosely match the dates assigned to them in astrology. The term constellation can refer to the stars within the boundaries of that constellation. Notable groupings of stars that do not form a constellation are called asterisms, when astronomers say something is “in” a given constellation they mean it is within those official boundaries. Any given point in a coordinate system can unambiguously be assigned to a single constellation. Many astronomical naming systems give the constellation in which an object is found along with a designation in order to convey a rough idea in which part of the sky it is located. For example, the Flamsteed designation for bright stars consists of a number, the word constellation seems to come from the Late Latin term cōnstellātiō, which can be translated as set of stars, and came into use in English during the 14th century. It also denotes 88 named groups of stars in the shape of stellar-patterns, the Ancient Greek word for constellation was ἄστρον. Colloquial usage does not draw a distinction between constellation in the sense of an asterism and constellation in the sense of an area surrounding an asterism. The modern system of constellations used in astronomy employs the latter concept, the term circumpolar constellation is used for any constellation that, from a particular latitude on Earth, never sets below the horizon. From the North Pole or South Pole, all constellations south or north of the equator are circumpolar constellations. In the equatorial or temperate latitudes, the term equatorial constellation has sometimes been used for constellations that lie to the opposite the circumpolar constellations. They generally include all constellations that intersect the celestial equator or part of the zodiac, usually the only thing the stars in a constellation have in common is that they appear near each other in the sky when viewed from the Earth. In galactic space, the stars of a constellation usually lie at a variety of distances, since stars also travel on their own orbits through the Milky Way, the star patterns of the constellations change slowly over time. After tens to hundreds of thousands of years, their familiar outlines will become unrecognisable, the terms chosen for the constellation themselves, together with the appearance of a constellation, may reveal where and when its constellation makers lived. The earliest direct evidence for the constellations comes from inscribed stones and it seems that the bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BC
2.
Cassiopeia (constellation)
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Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. Cassiopeia was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century Greek astronomer Ptolemy and it is easily recognizable due to its distinctive W shape, formed by five bright stars. It is opposite the Big Dipper, in northern locations above 34ºN latitude it is visible year-round and in the tropics it can be seen at its clearest from September to early November. Even in low southern latitudes below 25ºS it can be low in the North. At magnitude 2.2, Alpha Cassiopeiae, or Schedar, is generally the brightest star in Cassiopeia, though is often shaded by Gamma Cassiopeiae, which has brightened to magnitude 1.6 on occasion. The constellation hosts some of the most luminous stars known, including the yellow hypergiants Rho Cassiopeiae and V509 Cassiopeiae, the semiregular variable PZ Cassiopeiae is one of the largest known stars. In 1572, Tycho Brahes supernova flared brightly in Cassiopeia, fourteen star systems have been found to have exoplanets, one of which—HR 8832—is thought to host seven planets. The constellation is named after Cassiopeia, the queen of Aethiopia, Cassiopeia was the wife of King Cepheus of Aethiopia and mother of Princess Andromeda. Cepheus and Cassiopeia were placed next to each other among the stars, Andromeda was then rescued by the hero Perseus, whom she later married. Cassiopeia has been variously portrayed throughout her history as a constellation, in Persia, she was drawn by al-Sufi as a queen holding a staff with a crescent moon in her right hand, wearing a crown, as well as a two-humped camel. In France, she was portrayed as having a marble throne and this depiction is from Augustin Royers 1679 atlas. In the ancient Celtic world Anu was the goddess and considered to be the mother of all the gods. Other references say that she is the earth goddess or the Goddess of fertility. Anu was known, in the Celtic World, by similar names. She still looks down on us from the sky where she appears as Llys Don. In Chinese astronomy, the forming the constellation Cassiopeia are found among three areas, the Purple Forbidden enclosure, the Black Tortoise of the North, and the White Tiger of the West. The Chinese astronomers saw several figures in what is modern-day Cassiopeia, Kappa, Eta, and Mu Cassopeiae formed a constellation called the Bridge of the Kings, when seen along with Alpha and Beta Cassiopeiae, they formed the great chariot Wang-Liang. The charioteers whip was represented by Gamma Cassiopeiae, sometimes called Tsih, in the 1600s, various Biblical figures were depicted in the stars of Cassiopeia
3.
Right ascension
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Right ascension is the angular distance measured eastward along the celestial equator from the vernal equinox to the hour circle of the point in question. When combined with declination, these astronomical coordinates specify the direction of a point on the sphere in the equatorial coordinate system. Right ascension is the equivalent of terrestrial longitude. Both right ascension and longitude measure an angle from a direction on an equator. Right ascension is measured continuously in a circle from that equinox towards the east. Any units of measure could have been chosen for right ascension, but it is customarily measured in hours, minutes. Astronomers have chosen this unit to measure right ascension because they measure a stars location by timing its passage through the highest point in the sky as the Earth rotates. The highest point in the sky, called meridian, is the projection of a line onto the celestial sphere. A full circle, measured in units, contains 24 × 60 × 60 = 86 400s, or 24 × 60 = 1 440m. Because right ascensions are measured in hours, they can be used to time the positions of objects in the sky. For example, if a star with RA = 01h 30m 00s is on the meridian, sidereal hour angle, used in celestial navigation, is similar to right ascension, but increases westward rather than eastward. Usually measured in degrees, it is the complement of right ascension with respect to 24h and it is important not to confuse sidereal hour angle with the astronomical concept of hour angle, which measures angular distance of an object westward from the local meridian. The Earths axis rotates slowly westward about the poles of the ecliptic and this effect, known as precession, causes the coordinates of stationary celestial objects to change continuously, if rather slowly. Therefore, equatorial coordinates are inherently relative to the year of their observation, coordinates from different epochs must be mathematically rotated to match each other, or to match a standard epoch. The right ascension of Polaris is increasing quickly, the North Ecliptic Pole in Draco and the South Ecliptic Pole in Dorado are always at right ascension 18h and 6h respectively. The currently used standard epoch is J2000.0, which is January 1,2000 at 12,00 TT, the prefix J indicates that it is a Julian epoch. Prior to J2000.0, astronomers used the successive Besselian Epochs B1875.0, B1900.0, the concept of right ascension has been known at least as far back as Hipparchus who measured stars in equatorial coordinates in the 2nd century BC. But Hipparchus and his successors made their star catalogs in ecliptic coordinates, the easiest way to do that is to use an equatorial mount, which allows the telescope to be aligned with one of its two pivots parallel to the Earths axis
4.
Declination
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In astronomy, declination is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. Declinations angle is measured north or south of the celestial equator, the root of the word declination means a bending away or a bending down. It comes from the root as the words incline and recline. Declination in astronomy is comparable to geographic latitude, projected onto the celestial sphere, points north of the celestial equator have positive declinations, while those south have negative declinations. Any units of measure can be used for declination, but it is customarily measured in the degrees, minutes. Declinations with magnitudes greater than 90° do not occur, because the poles are the northernmost and southernmost points of the celestial sphere, the Earths axis rotates slowly westward about the poles of the ecliptic, completing one circuit in about 26,000 years. This effect, known as precession, causes the coordinates of stationary celestial objects to change continuously, therefore, equatorial coordinates are inherently relative to the year of their observation, and astronomers specify them with reference to a particular year, known as an epoch. Coordinates from different epochs must be rotated to match each other. The currently used standard epoch is J2000.0, which is January 1,2000 at 12,00 TT, the prefix J indicates that it is a Julian epoch. Prior to J2000.0, astronomers used the successive Besselian Epochs B1875.0, B1900.0, the declinations of Solar System objects change very rapidly compared to those of stars, due to orbital motion and close proximity. This similarly occurs in the Southern Hemisphere for objects with less than −90° − φ. An extreme example is the star which has a declination near to +90°. Circumpolar stars never dip below the horizon, conversely, there are other stars that never rise above the horizon, as seen from any given point on the Earths surface. Generally, if a star whose declination is δ is circumpolar for some observer, then a star whose declination is −δ never rises above the horizon, as seen by the same observer. Likewise, if a star is circumpolar for an observer at latitude φ, neglecting atmospheric refraction, declination is always 0° at east and west points of the horizon. At the north point, it is 90° − |φ|, and at the south point, from the poles, declination is uniform around the entire horizon, approximately 0°. Non-circumpolar stars are visible only during certain days or seasons of the year, the Suns declination varies with the seasons. As seen from arctic or antarctic latitudes, the Sun is circumpolar near the summer solstice, leading to the phenomenon of it being above the horizon at midnight
5.
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
6.
Stellar classification
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In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the rainbow of colors interspersed with absorption lines, each line indicates an ion of a certain chemical element, with the line strength indicating the abundance of that ion. The relative abundance of the different ions varies with the temperature of the photosphere, the spectral class of a star is a short code summarizing the ionization state, giving an objective measure of the photospheres temperature and density. Most stars are classified under the Morgan–Keenan system using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. Each letter class is subdivided using a numeric digit with 0 being hottest and 9 being coolest. The sequence has been expanded with classes for other stars and star-like objects that do not fit in the system, such as class D for white dwarfs. In the MK system, a luminosity class is added to the class using Roman numerals. This is based on the width of absorption lines in the stars spectrum. The full spectral class for the Sun is then G2V, indicating a main-sequence star with a temperature around 5,800 K, the conventional color description takes into account only the peak of the stellar spectrum. This means that the assignment of colors of the spectrum can be misleading. There are no green, indigo, or violet stars, likewise, the brown dwarfs do not literally appear brown. The modern classification system is known as the Morgan–Keenan classification, each star is assigned a spectral class from the older Harvard spectral classification and a luminosity class using Roman numerals as explained below, forming the stars spectral type. The spectral classes O through M, as well as more specialized classes discussed later, are subdivided by Arabic numerals. For example, A0 denotes the hottest stars in the A class, fractional numbers are allowed, for example, the star Mu Normae is classified as O9.7. The Sun is classified as G2, the conventional color descriptions are traditional in astronomy, and represent colors relative to the mean color of an A-class star, which is considered to be white. The apparent color descriptions are what the observer would see if trying to describe the stars under a dark sky without aid to the eye, or with binoculars. However, most stars in the sky, except the brightest ones, red supergiants are cooler and redder than dwarfs of the same spectral type, and stars with particular spectral features such as carbon stars may be far redder than any black body. O-, B-, and A-type stars are called early type
7.
Variable star
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A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth fluctuates. Many, possibly most, stars have at least some variation in luminosity, an ancient Egyptian calendar of lucky and unlucky days composed some 3,200 years ago may be the oldest preserved historical document of the discovery of a variable star, the eclipsing binary Algol. This discovery, combined with supernovae observed in 1572 and 1604, proved that the sky was not eternally invariable as Aristotle. In this way, the discovery of variable stars contributed to the revolution of the sixteenth. The second variable star to be described was the eclipsing variable Algol, by Geminiano Montanari in 1669, chi Cygni was identified in 1686 by G. Kirch, then R Hydrae in 1704 by G. D. Maraldi. By 1786 ten variable stars were known, John Goodricke himself discovered Delta Cephei and Beta Lyrae. Since 1850 the number of variable stars has increased rapidly, especially after 1890 when it became possible to identify variable stars by means of photography. The latest edition of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars lists more than 46,000 variable stars in the Milky Way, as well as 10,000 in other galaxies, and over 10,000 suspected variables. The most common kinds of variability involve changes in brightness, but other types of variability also occur, by combining light curve data with observed spectral changes, astronomers are often able to explain why a particular star is variable. Variable stars are generally analysed using photometry, spectrophotometry and spectroscopy, measurements of their changes in brightness can be plotted to produce light curves. Peak brightnesses in the curve are known as maxima, while troughs are known as minima. By estimating the magnitude and noting the time of observation a visual lightcurve can be constructed. The American Association of Variable Star Observers collects such observations from participants around the world, from the light curve the following data are derived, are the brightness variations periodical, semiperiodical, irregular, or unique. What is the period of the brightness fluctuations, what is the shape of the light curve. From the spectrum the following data are derived, what kind of star is it, what is its temperature, is it a single star, or a binary. does the spectrum change with time. In very few cases it is possible to make pictures of a stellar disk and these may show darker spots on its surface. Combining light curves with spectral data often gives a clue as to the changes occur in a variable star. For example, evidence for a star is found in its shifting spectrum because its surface periodically moves toward and away from us
8.
Astrometry
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Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. The information obtained by astrometric measurements provides information on the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and our galaxy, the history of astrometry is linked to the history of star catalogues, which gave astronomers reference points for objects in the sky so they could track their movements. This can be dated back to Hipparchus, who around 190 BC used the catalogue of his predecessors Timocharis, in doing so, he also developed the brightness scale still in use today. Hipparchus compiled a catalogue with at least 850 stars and their positions, hipparchuss successor, Ptolemy, included a catalogue of 1,022 stars in his work the Almagest, giving their location, coordinates, and brightness. Ibn Yunus observed more than 10,000 entries for the Suns position for years using a large astrolabe with a diameter of nearly 1.4 metres. In the 15th century, the Timurid astronomer Ulugh Beg compiled the Zij-i-Sultani, like the earlier catalogs of Hipparchus and Ptolemy, Ulugh Begs catalogue is estimated to have been precise to within approximately 20 minutes of arc. In the 16th century, Tycho Brahe used improved instruments, including large mural instruments, to measure star positions more accurately than previously, Taqi al-Din measured the right ascension of the stars at the Istanbul observatory of Taqi al-Din using the observational clock he invented. When telescopes became commonplace, setting circles sped measurements James Bradley first tried to measure stellar parallaxes in 1729, the stellar movement proved too insignificant for his telescope, but he instead discovered the aberration of light and the nutation of the Earths axis. His cataloguing of 3222 stars was refined in 1807 by Friedrich Bessel and he made the first measurement of stellar parallax,0.3 arcsec for the binary star 61 Cygni. Being very difficult to measure, only about 60 stellar parallaxes had been obtained by the end of the 19th century, astrographs using astronomical photographic plates sped the process in the early 20th century. Automated plate-measuring machines and more sophisticated technology of the 1960s allowed more efficient compilation of star catalogues. In the 1980s, charge-coupled devices replaced photographic plates and reduced optical uncertainties to one milliarcsecond and this technology made astrometry less expensive, opening the field to an amateur audience. In 1989, the European Space Agencys Hipparcos satellite took astrometry into orbit, operated from 1989 to 1993, Hipparcos measured large and small angles on the sky with much greater precision than any previous optical telescopes. During its 4-year run, the positions, parallaxes, and proper motions of 118,218 stars were determined with a degree of accuracy. A new Tycho catalog drew together a database of 1,058,332 to within 20-30 mas, additional catalogues were compiled for the 23,882 double/multiple stars and 11,597 variable stars also analyzed during the Hipparcos mission. Today, the catalogue most often used is USNO-B1.0, during the past 50 years,7,435 Schmidt camera plates were used to complete several sky surveys that make the data in USNO-B1.0 accurate to within 0.2 arcsec. In observational astronomy, astrometric techniques help identify stellar objects by their unique motions and it is instrumental for keeping time, in that UTC is basically the atomic time synchronized to Earths rotation by means of exact observations. Astrometry is an important step in the distance ladder because it establishes parallax distance estimates for stars in the Milky Way
9.
Radial velocity
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The radial velocity of an object with respect to a given point is the rate of change of the distance between the object and the point. That is, the velocity is the component of the objects velocity that points in the direction of the radius connecting the object. In astronomy, the point is taken to be the observer on Earth. In astronomy, radial velocity is measured to the first order of approximation by Doppler spectroscopy. The quantity obtained by this method may be called the barycentric radial-velocity measure or spectroscopic radial velocity, by contrast, astrometric radial velocity is determined by astrometric observations. A positive radial velocity indicates the distance between the objects is or was increasing, a radial velocity indicates the distance between the source and observer is or was decreasing. In many binary stars, the orbital motion usually causes radial velocity variations of several kilometers per second, as the spectra of these stars vary due to the Doppler effect, they are called spectroscopic binaries. Radial velocity can be used to estimate the ratio of the masses of the stars and it has been suggested that planets with high eccentricities calculated by this method may in fact be two-planet systems of circular or near-circular resonant orbit. When the star moves towards us, its spectrum is blueshifted, by regularly looking at the spectrum of a star—and so, measuring its velocity—it can be determined, if it moves periodically due to the influence of a companion. From the instrumental perspective, velocities are measured relative to the telescopes motion, in the case of spectroscopic measurements corrections of the order of ±20 cm/s with respect to aberration. Proper motion Peculiar velocity Relative velocity The Radial Velocity Equation in the Search for Exoplanets
10.
Proper motion
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The components of proper motion in the equatorial coordinate system are measured in seconds of time for right ascension and seconds of arc in declination. Their combined value is computed as the proper motion, which is expressed in seconds of arc per year or per century. Knowledge of the motion, distance, and radial velocity allow approximate calculations of a stars true motion in space in respect to the Sun. Proper motion is not entirely proper, because it includes a component due to the motion of the Solar System itself, over the course of centuries, stars appear to maintain nearly fixed positions with respect to each other, so that they form the same constellations over historical time. Ursa Major or Crux, for example, looks nearly the same now as they did hundreds of years ago, however, precise long-term observations show that the constellations change shape, albeit very slowly, and that each star has an independent motion. This motion is caused by the movement of the relative to the Sun. The proper motion is a vector and is thus defined by two quantities, its position angle and its magnitude. The first quantity indicates the direction of the motion on the celestial sphere. Proper motion may alternatively be defined by the changes per year in the stars right ascension and declination. The components of motion by convention are arrived at as follows. Suppose in a year an object moves from coordinates to coordinates, then the changes of angle in seconds of arc per year are, The magnitude of the proper motion μ is given by vector addition of its components, where δ is the declination. The factor in cos δ accounts for the fact that the radius from the axis of the sphere to its surface varies as cos δ, becoming, for example, zero at the pole. Thus, the component of velocity parallel to the corresponding to a given angular change in α is smaller the further north the objects location. The change μα, which must be multiplied by cos δ to become a component of the motion, is sometimes called the proper motion in right ascension. Hence, the proper motions in right ascension and declination are made equivalent for straightforward calculations of various other stellar motions. Position angle θ is related to these components by, Motions in equatorial coordinates can be converted to motions in galactic coordinates, for the majority of stars seen in the sky, the observed proper motions are usually small and unremarkable. Such stars are either faint or are significantly distant, have changes of below 10 milliarcseconds per year. A few do have significant motions, and are usually called high-proper motion stars, Motions can also be in almost seemingly random directions
11.
Minute and second of arc
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A minute of arc, arcminute, arc minute, or minute arc is a unit of angular measurement equal to 1/60 of one degree. Since one degree is 1/360 of a turn, one minute of arc is 1/21600 of a turn, a second of arc, arcsecond, or arc second is 1/60 of an arcminute, 1/3600 of a degree, 1/1296000 of a turn, and π/648000 of a radian. To express even smaller angles, standard SI prefixes can be employed, the number of square arcminutes in a complete sphere is 4 π2 =466560000 π ≈148510660 square arcminutes. The standard symbol for marking the arcminute is the prime, though a single quote is used where only ASCII characters are permitted. One arcminute is thus written 1′ and it is also abbreviated as arcmin or amin or, less commonly, the prime with a circumflex over it. The standard symbol for the arcsecond is the prime, though a double quote is commonly used where only ASCII characters are permitted. One arcsecond is thus written 1″ and it is also abbreviated as arcsec or asec. In celestial navigation, seconds of arc are used in calculations. This notation has been carried over into marine GPS receivers, which normally display latitude and longitude in the format by default. An arcsecond is approximately the angle subtended by a U. S. dime coin at a distance of 4 kilometres, a milliarcsecond is about the size of a dime atop the Eiffel Tower as seen from New York City. A microarcsecond is about the size of a period at the end of a sentence in the Apollo mission manuals left on the Moon as seen from Earth, since antiquity the arcminute and arcsecond have been used in astronomy. The principal exception is Right ascension in equatorial coordinates, which is measured in units of hours, minutes. These small angles may also be written in milliarcseconds, or thousandths of an arcsecond, the unit of distance, the parsec, named from the parallax of one arcsecond, was developed for such parallax measurements. It is the distance at which the radius of the Earths orbit would subtend an angle of one arcsecond. The ESA astrometric space probe Gaia is hoped to measure star positions to 20 microarcseconds when it begins producing catalog positions sometime after 2016, there are about 1.3 trillion µas in a turn. Currently the best catalog positions of stars actually measured are in terms of milliarcseconds, apart from the Sun, the star with the largest angular diameter from Earth is R Doradus, a red supergiant with a diameter of 0.05 arcsecond. The dwarf planet Pluto has proven difficult to resolve because its angular diameter is about 0.1 arcsecond, space telescopes are not affected by the Earths atmosphere but are diffraction limited. For example, the Hubble space telescope can reach a size of stars down to about 0. 1″
12.
Year
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A year is the orbital period of the Earth moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earths axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the globe, four seasons are recognized, spring, summer, autumn. In tropical and subtropical regions several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons, but in the seasonal tropics, a calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earths orbital period as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian, or modern, calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar the average length of the year across the complete leap cycle of 400 years is 365.2425 days. The ISO standard ISO 80000-3, Annex C, supports the symbol a to represent a year of either 365 or 366 days, in English, the abbreviations y and yr are commonly used. In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time, it is defined as 365.25 days of exactly 86400 seconds, totalling exactly 31557600 seconds in the Julian astronomical year. The word year is used for periods loosely associated with, but not identical to, the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year. Similarly, year can mean the period of any planet, for example. The term can also be used in reference to any long period or cycle, west Saxon ġēar, Anglian ġēr continues Proto-Germanic *jǣran. Cognates are German Jahr, Old High German jār, Old Norse ár and Gothic jer, all the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European noun *yeh₁rom year, season. Cognates also descended from the same Proto-Indo-European noun are Avestan yārǝ year, Greek ὥρα year, season, period of time, Old Church Slavonic jarŭ, Latin annus is from a PIE noun *h₂et-no-, which also yielded Gothic aþn year. Both *yeh₁-ro- and *h₂et-no- are based on verbal roots expressing movement, *h₁ey- and *h₂et- respectively, the Greek word for year, ἔτος, is cognate with Latin vetus old, from the PIE word *wetos- year, also preserved in this meaning in Sanskrit vat-sa- yearling and vat-sa-ras year. Derived from Latin annus are a number of English words, such as annual, annuity, anniversary, etc. per annum means each year, anno Domini means in the year of the Lord. No astronomical year has an number of days or lunar months. Financial and scientific calculations often use a 365-day calendar to simplify daily rates, in the Julian calendar, the average length of a year is 365.25 days. In a non-leap year, there are 365 days, in a year there are 366 days
13.
Stellar parallax
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Stellar parallax is parallax on an interstellar scale, the apparent shift of position of any nearby star against the background of distant objects. Stellar parallax is so difficult to detect that its existence was the subject of debate in astronomy for thousands of years. It was first observed by Giuseppe Calandrelli who reported parallax in α-Lyrae in his work Osservazione e riflessione sulla parallasse annua dall’alfa della Lira, then in 1838 Friedrich Bessel made the first successful parallax measurement ever, for the star 61 Cygni, using a Fraunhofer heliometer at Königsberg Observatory. Once a stars parallax is known, its distance from Earth can be computed trigonometrically, but the more distant an object is, the smaller its parallax. Even with 21st-century techniques in astrometry, the limits of accurate measurement make distances farther away than about 100 parsecs too approximate to be useful when obtained by this technique. Relatively close on a scale, the applicability of stellar parallax leaves most astronomical distance measurements to be calculated by spectral red-shift or other methods. Stellar parallax measures are given in the units of arcseconds. The distance unit parsec is defined as the length of the leg of a right triangle adjacent to the angle of one arcsecond at one vertex, because stellar parallaxes and distances all involve such skinny right triangles, a convenient trigonometric approximation can be used to convert parallaxes to distance. The distance is simply the reciprocal of the parallax, d =1 / p, for example, Proxima Centauri, whose parallax is 0.7687, is 1 /0.7687 =1.3009 parsecs distant. Stellar parallax is so small that its apparent absence was used as an argument against heliocentrism during the early modern age. James Bradley first tried to measure stellar parallaxes in 1729, the stellar movement proved too insignificant for his telescope, but he instead discovered the aberration of light, the nutation of Earth’s axis, and catalogued 3222 stars. The parsec is defined as the distance for which the annual parallax is 1 arcsecond, annual parallax is normally measured by observing the position of a star at different times of the year as Earth moves through its orbit. Measurement of annual parallax was the first reliable way to determine the distances to the closest stars, the first successful measurements of stellar parallax were made by Friedrich Bessel in 1838 for the star 61 Cygni using a heliometer. Being very difficult to measure, only about 60 stellar parallaxes had been obtained by the end of the 19th century, astrographs using astronomical photographic plates sped the process in the early 20th century. Automated plate-measuring machines and more sophisticated technology of the 1960s allowed more efficient compilation of star catalogues. In the 1980s, charge-coupled devices replaced photographic plates and reduced optical uncertainties to one milliarcsecond, stellar parallax remains the standard for calibrating other measurement methods. The angles involved in these calculations are very small and thus difficult to measure, the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, has a parallax of 0.7687 ±0.0003 arcsec. This angle is approximately that subtended by an object 2 centimeters in diameter located 5.3 kilometers away
14.
Distance (astronomy)
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The cosmic distance ladder is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. A real direct distance measurement of an object is possible only for those objects that are close enough to Earth. The techniques for determining distances to more distant objects are all based on various measured correlations between methods that work at distances and methods that work at larger distances. Several methods rely on a candle, which is an astronomical object that has a known luminosity. The ladder analogy arises because no single technique can measure distances at all ranges encountered in astronomy, instead, one method can be used to measure nearby distances, a second can be used to measure nearby to intermediate distances, and so on. Each rung of the ladder provides information that can be used to determine the distances at the next higher rung, at the base of the ladder are fundamental distance measurements, in which distances are determined directly, with no physical assumptions about the nature of the object in question. The precise measurement of stellar positions is part of the discipline of astrometry, direct distance measurements are based upon the astronomical unit, which is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Historically, observations of transits of Venus were crucial in determining the AU, in the first half of the 20th century, observations of asteroids were also important. Keplers laws provide precise ratios of the sizes of the orbits of objects orbiting the Sun, radar is used to measure the distance between the orbits of the Earth and of a second body. From that measurement and the ratio of the two sizes, the size of Earths orbit is calculated. The Earths orbit is known with a precision of a few meters, the most important fundamental distance measurements come from trigonometric parallax. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the position of stars will appear to shift slightly against the more distant background. These shifts are angles in a triangle, with 2 AU making the base leg of the triangle. The amount of shift is small, measuring 1 arcsecond for an object at the 1 parsec distance of the nearest stars. Astronomers usually express distances in units of parsecs, light-years are used in popular media, because parallax becomes smaller for a greater stellar distance, useful distances can be measured only for stars whose parallax is larger than a few times the precision of the measurement. Parallax measurements typically have an accuracy measured in milliarcseconds, the Hubble telescope WFC3 now has the potential to provide a precision of 20 to 40 microarcseconds, enabling reliable distance measurements up to 5,000 parsecs for small numbers of stars. By the early 2020s, the GAIA space mission will provide similarly accurate distances to all bright stars. Stars have a velocity relative to the Sun that causes proper motion, for a group of stars with the same spectral class and a similar magnitude range, a mean parallax can be derived from statistical analysis of the proper motions relative to their radial velocities
15.
Parsec
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The parsec is a unit of length used to measure large distances to objects outside the Solar System. One parsec is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one arcsecond, a parsec is equal to about 3.26 light-years in length. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is about 1.3 parsecs from the Sun, most of the stars visible to the unaided eye in the nighttime sky are within 500 parsecs of the Sun. The parsec unit was likely first suggested in 1913 by the British astronomer Herbert Hall Turner, named from an abbreviation of the parallax of one arcsecond, it was defined so as to make calculations of astronomical distances quick and easy for astronomers from only their raw observational data. Partly for this reason, it is still the unit preferred in astronomy and astrophysics, though the light-year remains prominent in science texts. This corresponds to the definition of the parsec found in many contemporary astronomical references. Derivation, create a triangle with one leg being from the Earth to the Sun. As that point in space away, the angle between the Sun and Earth decreases. A parsec is the length of that leg when the angle between the Sun and Earth is one arc-second. One of the oldest methods used by astronomers to calculate the distance to a star is to record the difference in angle between two measurements of the position of the star in the sky. The first measurement is taken from the Earth on one side of the Sun, and the second is approximately half a year later. The distance between the two positions of the Earth when the two measurements were taken is twice the distance between the Earth and the Sun. The difference in angle between the two measurements is twice the angle, which is formed by lines from the Sun. Then the distance to the star could be calculated using trigonometry. 5-parsec distance of 61 Cygni, the parallax of a star is defined as half of the angular distance that a star appears to move relative to the celestial sphere as Earth orbits the Sun. Equivalently, it is the angle, from that stars perspective. The star, the Sun and the Earth form the corners of a right triangle in space, the right angle is the corner at the Sun. Therefore, given a measurement of the angle, along with the rules of trigonometry. A parsec is defined as the length of the adjacent to the vertex occupied by a star whose parallax angle is one arcsecond
16.
Solar mass
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The solar mass is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately 1.99 ×1030 kilograms. It is used to indicate the masses of stars, as well as clusters, nebulae. It is equal to the mass of the Sun, about two kilograms, M☉ = ×1030 kg The above mass is about 332946 times the mass of Earth. Because Earth follows an orbit around the Sun, its solar mass can be computed from the equation for the orbital period of a small body orbiting a central mass. The value he obtained differs by only 1% from the modern value, the diurnal parallax of the Sun was accurately measured during the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, yielding a value of 9″. From the value of the parallax, one can determine the distance to the Sun from the geometry of Earth. The first person to estimate the mass of the Sun was Isaac Newton, in his work Principia, he estimated that the ratio of the mass of Earth to the Sun was about 1/28700. Later he determined that his value was based upon a faulty value for the solar parallax and he corrected his estimated ratio to 1/169282 in the third edition of the Principia. The current value for the parallax is smaller still, yielding an estimated mass ratio of 1/332946. As a unit of measurement, the solar mass came into use before the AU, the mass of the Sun has been decreasing since the time it formed. This occurs through two processes in nearly equal amounts, first, in the Suns core, hydrogen is converted into helium through nuclear fusion, in particular the p–p chain, and this reaction converts some mass into energy in the form of gamma ray photons. Most of this energy eventually radiates away from the Sun, second, high-energy protons and electrons in the atmosphere of the Sun are ejected directly into outer space as a solar wind. The original mass of the Sun at the time it reached the main sequence remains uncertain, the early Sun had much higher mass-loss rates than at present, and it may have lost anywhere from 1–7% of its natal mass over the course of its main-sequence lifetime. The Sun gains a small amount of mass through the impact of asteroids. However, as the Sun already contains 99. 86% of the Solar Systems total mass, M☉ G / c2 ≈1.48 km M☉ G / c3 ≈4.93 μs I. -J. A Bright Young Sun Consistent with Helioseismology and Warm Temperatures on Ancient Earth and Mars
17.
Luminosity
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In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of energy emitted by a star, galaxy, or other astronomical object per unit time. It is related to the brightness, which is the luminosity of an object in a spectral region. In SI units luminosity is measured in joules per second or watts, values for luminosity are often given in the terms of the luminosity of the Sun, which has a total power output of 7026384600000000000♠3. 846×1026 W. The symbol for solar luminosity is L⊙. Luminosity can also be given in terms of magnitude, the absolute bolometric magnitude of an object is a logarithmic measure of its total energy emission. In astronomy, luminosity is the amount of energy a body radiates per unit of time. It is most frequently measured in two forms, visual and bolometric, although luminosities at other wavelengths are increasingly being used as instruments become available to measure them, a bolometer is the instrument used to measure radiant energy over a wide band by absorption and measurement of heating. When not qualified, the term luminosity means bolometric luminosity, which is measured either in the SI units, watts, a star also radiates neutrinos, which carry off some energy, contributing to the stars total luminosity. In practice bolometric magnitudes are measured by taking measurements at certain wavelengths, a stars luminosity can be determined from two stellar characteristics, size and effective temperature. The former is represented in terms of solar radii, R⊙, while the latter is represented in kelvins. To determine a stars radius, two metrics are needed, the stars angular diameter and its distance from Earth, often calculated using parallax. However, for most stars the angular diameter or parallax, or both, are far below our ability to measure with any certainty, an alternate way to measure stellar luminosity is to measure the stars apparent brightness and distance. Because luminosity is proportional to temperature to the power, the large variation in stellar temperatures produces an even vaster variation in stellar luminosity. Because the luminosity depends on a power of the stellar mass. The most luminous stars are young stars, no more than a few million years for the most extreme. In the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, the x-axis represents temperature or spectral type while the y-axis represents luminosity or magnitude. The vast majority of stars are found along the sequence with blue Class 0 stars found at the top left of the chart while red Class M stars fall to the bottom right. Certain stars like Deneb and Betelgeuse are found above and to the right of the main sequence, blue and white supergiants are high luminosity stars somewhat cooler than the most luminous main sequence stars. A star like Deneb, for example, has a luminosity around 200,000 L⊙, a type of A2
18.
Solar luminosity
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The solar luminosity, L☉, is a unit of radiant flux conventionally used by astronomers to measure the luminosity of stars. It is defined in terms of the Suns output, one solar luminosity is 3. 828×1026 W. This does not include the solar luminosity, which would add 0.023 L☉. The Sun is a variable star, and its luminosity therefore fluctuates. The major fluctuation is the solar cycle that causes a periodic variation of about ±0. 1%. Other variations over the last 200–300 years are thought to be smaller than this. Solar luminosity is related to solar irradiance, Solar irradiance is responsible for the orbital forcing that causes the Milankovitch cycles, which determine Earthly glacial cycles. The mean irradiance at the top of the Earths atmosphere is known as the solar constant. Solar mass Solar radius Nuclear fusion Triple-alpha process Sackmann, I. -J, a Bright Young Sun Consistent with Helioseismology and Warm Temperatures on Ancient Earth and Mars, Astrophys. J.583, 1024–39, arXiv, astro-ph/0210128, Bibcode, 2003ApJ.583. 1024S, doi,10. 1086/345408 Foukal, P. Fröhlich, spruit, H. Wigley, T. M. L. Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on the Earths climate, Nature,443, 161–66, Bibcode, 2006Natur.443. 161F, doi,10. 1038/nature05072, PMID16971941 Pelletier, variations in Solar Luminosity from Timescales of Minutes to Months, Astrophys. J.463, L41–L45, arXiv, astro-ph/9510026, Bibcode, 1996ApJ. 463L. 41P, doi,10. 1086/310049 Stoykova, D. A. Shopov, ford, D. Georgiev, L. N. et al
19.
Effective temperature
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The effective temperature of a body such as a star or planet is the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation. Effective temperature is used as an estimate of a bodys surface temperature when the bodys emissivity curve is not known. When the stars or planets net emissivity in the relevant wavelength band is less than unity, the net emissivity may be low due to surface or atmospheric properties, including greenhouse effect. Notice that the luminosity of a star is then L =4 π R2 σ T e f f 4. The definition of the radius is obviously not straightforward. More rigorously the effective temperature corresponds to the temperature at the radius that is defined by a value of the Rosseland optical depth within the stellar atmosphere. The effective temperature and the bolometric luminosity are the two fundamental physical parameters needed to place a star on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, both effective temperature and bolometric luminosity depend on the chemical composition of a star. The effective temperature of our Sun is around 5780 kelvin, stars have a decreasing temperature gradient, going from their central core up to the atmosphere. The core temperature of the temperature at the centre of the sun where nuclear reactions take place—is estimated to be 15,000,000 K. The effective temperature of a star indicates the amount of heat that the star radiates per unit of surface area, from the warmest surfaces to the coolest is the sequence of star types known as O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. The effective temperature of a planet can be calculated by equating the power received by the planet with the emitted by a blackbody of temperature T. Take the case of a planet at a distance D from the star and we also allow the planet to reflect some of the incoming radiation by incorporating a parameter called the albedo. An albedo of 1 means that all the radiation is reflected, the effective temperature for Jupiter from this calculation is 112 K and 51 Pegasi b is 1258 K. A better estimate of effective temperature for some planets, such as Jupiter, the actual temperature depends on albedo and atmosphere effects. The actual temperature from spectroscopic analysis for HD209458 b is 1130 K, the internal heating within Jupiter raises the effective temperature to about 152 K. The surface temperature of a planet can be estimated by modifying the effective-temperature calculation to account for emissivity and this area intercepts some of the power which is spread over the surface of a sphere of radius D. We also allow the planet to some of the incoming radiation by incorporating a parameter a called the albedo. An albedo of 1 means that all the radiation is reflected, there is also a factor ε, which is the emissivity and represents atmospheric effects
20.
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
21.
Metallicity
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In astronomy and physical cosmology, the metallicity or Z is the fraction of mass of a star or other kind of astronomical object that is not in hydrogen or helium. Most of the matter in the universe is in the form of hydrogen and helium, so astronomers use the word metals as a convenient short term for all elements except hydrogen. This usage is distinct from the physical definition of a solid metal. In cosmological terms, the universe is chemically evolving, according to the Big Bang Theory, the early universe first consisted of hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of lithium and beryllium, but no heavier elements. It is believed that older generations of stars generally have lower metallicities than those of younger generations and these became commonly known as Population I and Population II stars. A third stellar population was introduced in 1978, known as Population III stars and these extremely metal-poor stars were theorised to have been the first-born stars created in the universe. Measurements have demonstrated the connection between a stars metallicity and gas giant planets, like Jupiter and Saturn, the more metals in a star and thus its planetary system and proplyd, the more likely the system may have gas giant planets and rocky planets. Current models show that the metallicity along with the planetary system temperature and distance from the star are key to planet. Metallicity also affects a stars color temperature, metal poor stars are bluer and metal rich stars are redder. The Sun, with 8 planets and 5 planetesimals, is used as the reference, other stars are noted with a positive or negative value. A star with a =0.0 has the iron abundance as the Sun. A star with =−1.0 has one tenth heavy elements of found in the Sun. At =+1, the element abundance is 10 times the Suns value. The survey of population of stars shows that older stars have less metallicity. Stellar composition, as determined by spectroscopy, is simply defined by the parameters X, Y and Z. Here X is the percentage of hydrogen, Y is the fractional percentage of helium. It is simply defined as, X + Y + Z =1.00 In most stars, nebulae and other sources, hydrogen. The hydrogen mass fraction is generally expressed as X ≡ m H M where M is the mass of the system
22.
Decimal exponent
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Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too big or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form. It is commonly used by scientists, mathematicians and engineers, in part because it can simplify certain arithmetic operations, on scientific calculators it is known as SCI display mode. In scientific notation all numbers are written in the form m × 10n, where the exponent n is an integer, however, the term mantissa may cause confusion because it is the name of the fractional part of the common logarithm. If the number is then a minus sign precedes m. In normalized notation, the exponent is chosen so that the value of the coefficient is at least one. Decimal floating point is an arithmetic system closely related to scientific notation. Any given integer can be written in the form m×10^n in many ways, in normalized scientific notation, the exponent n is chosen so that the absolute value of m remains at least one but less than ten. Thus 350 is written as 3. 5×102 and this form allows easy comparison of numbers, as the exponent n gives the numbers order of magnitude. In normalized notation, the exponent n is negative for a number with absolute value between 0 and 1, the 10 and exponent are often omitted when the exponent is 0. Normalized scientific form is the form of expression of large numbers in many fields, unless an unnormalized form. Normalized scientific notation is often called exponential notation—although the latter term is general and also applies when m is not restricted to the range 1 to 10. Engineering notation differs from normalized scientific notation in that the exponent n is restricted to multiples of 3, consequently, the absolute value of m is in the range 1 ≤ |m| <1000, rather than 1 ≤ |m| <10. Though similar in concept, engineering notation is rarely called scientific notation, engineering notation allows the numbers to explicitly match their corresponding SI prefixes, which facilitates reading and oral communication. A significant figure is a digit in a number that adds to its precision and this includes all nonzero numbers, zeroes between significant digits, and zeroes indicated to be significant. Leading and trailing zeroes are not significant because they exist only to show the scale of the number. Therefore,1,230,400 usually has five significant figures,1,2,3,0, and 4, when a number is converted into normalized scientific notation, it is scaled down to a number between 1 and 10. All of the significant digits remain, but the place holding zeroes are no longer required, thus 1,230,400 would become 1.2304 ×106. However, there is also the possibility that the number may be known to six or more significant figures, thus, an additional advantage of scientific notation is that the number of significant figures is clearer
23.
Projected rotational velocity
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Stellar rotation is the angular motion of a star about its axis. The rate of rotation can be measured from the spectrum of the star, the rotation of a star produces an equatorial bulge due to centrifugal force. As stars are not solid bodies, they can also undergo differential rotation, thus the equator of the star can rotate at a different angular velocity than the higher latitudes. These differences in the rate of rotation within a star may have a significant role in the generation of a magnetic field. The magnetic field of a star interacts with the stellar wind, as the wind moves away from the star its rate of angular velocity slows. The magnetic field of the star interacts with the wind, which applies a drag to the stellar rotation, as a result, angular momentum is transferred from the star to the wind, and over time this gradually slows the stars rate of rotation. Unless a star is being observed from the direction of its pole, the component of movement that is in the direction of the observer is called the radial velocity. For the portion of the surface with a radial velocity component toward the observer, likewise the region that has a component moving away from the observer is shifted to a lower frequency. When the absorption lines of a star are observed, this shift at each end of the causes the line to broaden. However, this broadening must be separated from other effects that can increase the line width. The component of the radial velocity observed through line broadening depends on the inclination of the pole to the line of sight. The derived value is given as v e ⋅ sin i, however, i is not always known, so the result gives a minimum value for the stars rotational velocity. That is, if i is not a right angle, then the velocity is greater than v e ⋅ sin i. This is sometimes referred to as the rotational velocity. For giant stars, the atmospheric microturbulence can result in line broadening that is larger than effects of rotational. However, an approach can be employed that makes use of gravitational microlensing events. These occur when an object passes in front of the more distant star and functions like a lens. The more detailed information gathered by this means allows the effects of microturbulence to be distinguished from rotation, if a star displays magnetic surface activity such as starspots, then these features can be tracked to estimate the rotation rate
24.
Stellar evolution
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Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of time. The table shows the lifetimes of stars as a function of their masses, all stars are born from collapsing clouds of gas and dust, often called nebulae or molecular clouds. Over the course of millions of years, these protostars settle down into a state of equilibrium, nuclear fusion powers a star for most of its life. Initially the energy is generated by the fusion of hydrogen atoms at the core of the main-sequence star, later, as the preponderance of atoms at the core becomes helium, stars like the Sun begin to fuse hydrogen along a spherical shell surrounding the core. This process causes the star to gradually grow in size, passing through the subgiant stage until it reaches the red giant phase. Once a star like the Sun has exhausted its fuel, its core collapses into a dense white dwarf. Stars with around ten or more times the mass of the Sun can explode in a supernova as their inert iron cores collapse into a dense neutron star or black hole. Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a star, as most stellar changes occur too slowly to be detected. Instead, astrophysicists come to understand how stars evolve by observing numerous stars at various points in their lifetime, in June 2015, astronomers reported evidence for Population III stars in the Cosmos Redshift 7 galaxy at z =6.60. Stellar evolution starts with the collapse of a giant molecular cloud. Typical giant molecular clouds are roughly 100 light-years across and contain up to 6,000,000 solar masses, as it collapses, a giant molecular cloud breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. In each of these fragments, the collapsing gas releases gravitational potential energy as heat, as its temperature and pressure increase, a fragment condenses into a rotating sphere of superhot gas known as a protostar. A protostar continues to grow by accretion of gas and dust from the molecular cloud, further development is determined by its mass. Protostars are encompassed in dust, and are more readily visible at infrared wavelengths. Observations from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer have been important for unveiling numerous Galactic protostars. Protostars with masses less than roughly 0.08 M☉ never reach high enough for nuclear fusion of hydrogen to begin. These are known as brown dwarfs, the International Astronomical Union defines brown dwarfs as stars massive enough to fuse deuterium at some point in their lives. Objects smaller than 13 MJ are classified as sub-brown dwarfs, both types, deuterium-burning and not, shine dimly and die away slowly, cooling gradually over hundreds of millions of years
25.
Star catalogue
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A star catalogue or star catalog, is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers, there are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, and this article covers only some of the more frequently quoted ones. Star catalogues were compiled by many different ancient peoples, including the Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Persians, most modern catalogues are available in electronic format and can be freely downloaded from space agencies data center. Completeness and accuracy is described by the weakest apparent magnitude V, from their existing records, it is known that the ancient Egyptians recorded the names of only a few identifiable constellations and a list of thirty-six decans that were used as a star clock. They are better known by their Assyrian-era name Three Stars Each and these star catalogues, written on clay tablets, listed thirty-six stars, twelve for Anu along the celestial equator, twelve for Ea south of that, and twelve for Enlil to the north. In Ancient Greece, the astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus laid down a set of the classical constellations around 370 BC. His catalogue Phaenomena, rewritten by Aratus of Soli between 275 and 250 BC as a poem, became one of the most consulted astronomical texts in antiquity. It contains descriptions of the positions of the stars, the shapes of the constellations, approximately in the 3rd century BC, the Greek astronomers Timocharis of Alexandria and Aristillus created another star catalogue. Hipparchus completed his star catalogue in 129 BC, which he compared to Timocharis and this led him to determine the first value of the precession of the equinoxes. In the 2nd century, Ptolemy of Roman Egypt published a star catalogue as part of his Almagest, ptolemys catalogue was based almost entirely on an earlier one by Hipparchus. It remained the star catalogue in the Western and Arab worlds for over eight centuries. The earliest known inscriptions for Chinese star names were written on oracle bones, sources dating from the Zhou Dynasty which provide star names include the Zuo Zhuan, the Shi Jing, and the Canon of Yao in the Book of Documents. The Lüshi Chunqiu written by the Qin statesman Lü Buwei provides most of the names for the twenty-eight mansions, an earlier lacquerware chest found in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng contains a complete list of the names of the twenty-eight mansions. Star catalogues are traditionally attributed to Shi Shen and Gan De, the Shi Shen astronomy is attributed to Shi Shen, and the Astronomic star observation to Gan De. It was not until the Han Dynasty that astronomers started to observe and record names for all the stars that were apparent in the night sky, not just those around the ecliptic. A star catalogue is featured in one of the chapters of the late 2nd-century-BC history work Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian and contains the schools of Shi Shen and Gan Des work. For his Spiritual Constitution of the Universe of 120 AD, the astronomer Zhang Heng compiled a star catalogue comprising 124 constellations, Chinese constellation names were later adopted by the Koreans and Japanese. A large number of star catalogues were published by Muslim astronomers in the medieval Islamic world and these were mainly Zij treatises, including Arzachels Tables of Toledo, the Maragheh observatorys Zij-i Ilkhani and Ulugh Begs Zij-i-Sultani
26.
Bayer designation
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A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek letter, followed by the genitive form of its parent constellations Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars, most of the brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas Uranometria. Bayer assigned a lower-case Greek letter, such as alpha, beta, gamma, for example, Aldebaran is designated α Tauri, which means Alpha of the constellation Taurus. A single constellation may contain fifty or more stars, but the Greek alphabet has only twenty-four letters, when these ran out, Bayer began using Latin letters, upper case A, followed by lower case b through z, for a total of another 24 letters. Bayer never went beyond z, but later added more designations using both upper and lower case Latin letters, the upper case letters following the lower case ones in general. Examples include s Carinae, d Centauri, G Scorpii, and N Velorum, the last upper-case letter used in this way was Q. Bayer catalogued only a few stars too far south to be seen from Germany, in most constellations, Bayer assigned Greek and Latin letters to stars within a constellation in rough order of apparent brightness, from brightest to dimmest. Since the brightest star in a majority of constellations is designated Alpha, in Bayers day, however, stellar brightness could not be measured precisely. Within each magnitude class, Bayer made no attempt to arrange stars by relative brightness, as a result, the brightest star in each class did not always get listed first in Bayers order. Occasionally the order looks quite arbitrary, of the 88 modern constellations, there are at least 30 in which Alpha is not the brightest star, and four of those lack an alpha star altogether. Orion provides an example of Bayers method. Bayer first designated Betelgeuse and Rigel, the two 1st-magnitude stars, as Alpha and Beta from north to south, with Betelgeuse coming ahead of Rigel, Bayer then repeated the procedure for the stars of the 2nd magnitude, labeling them from gamma through zeta in top-down order. The First to Rise in the East order is used in a number of instances, Castor and Pollux of Gemini may be an example of this, Pollux is brighter than Castor, but the latter rises earlier and was assigned alpha. In this case, Bayer may also have influenced by the traditional order of the mythological names Castor and Pollux. Although the brightest star in Draco is Eltanin, Thuban was assigned alpha by Bayer because, due to precession, sometimes there is no apparent order, as exemplified by the stars in Sagittarius, where Bayers designations appear almost random to the modern eye. Alpha and Beta Sagittarii are perhaps the most anomalously designated stars in the sky, the order of the letters assigned in Sagittarius does correspond to the magnitudes as illustrated on Bayers chart, but the latter do not agree with modern determinations of the magnitudes. Bayer designations added by later astronomers generally were ordered by magnitude, in Libra, for example, the new designations sigma, tau, and upsilon were chosen to avoid conflict with Bayers earlier designations, even though several stars with earlier letters are not as bright. In Cygnus, for example, Bayers fixed stars run through g, Bayer did not intend such labels as catalog designations, but some have survived to refer to astronomical objects, P Cygni for example is still used as a designation for Nova Cyg 1600
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Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star Catalog
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The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Star Catalog is an astrometric star catalogue. It was published by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1966 and contains 258,997 stars, the catalogue was compiled from various previous astrometric catalogues, and contains only stars to about ninth magnitude for which accurate proper motions were known. Names in the SAO catalogue start with the letters SAO, followed by a number, the numbers are assigned following 18 ten-degree bands of declination, with stars sorted by right ascension within each band. SAO158687 is the star that was occulted by Uranus in March 1977, leading to the discovery of rings around Uranus
28.
Fifth Fundamental Catalogue
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The Fourth Fundamental Catalogue was published in 1963, and contained 1,535 stars in various equinoxes from 1950.0 to 1975.0. The Fourth Fundamental Catalogues Supplement was an amendment to FK4 that contains a further 1,987 stars, the Fifth Fundamental Catalogue was a 1988 update of FK4 with new positions for the 1,535 stars. It was superseded by the quasar-based International Celestial Reference Frame, the Fifth Fundamental Catalogue Extension, published in 1991, added 3,117 new stars. The Sixth Fundamental Catalogue is a 2000 update of FK5 correlated with the ICRF through the Hipparcos satellite and it comes in two parts, FK6 and FK6. FK6 contains 878 stars, and FK6 contains 3,272 stars, both are updated and amended versions of FK5, using Hipparcos catalogue data
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Hipparcos
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Hipparcos was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency, launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the measurement of the positions of celestial objects on the sky. This permitted the determination of proper motions and parallaxes of stars, allowing a determination of their distance. When combined with radial velocity measurements from spectroscopy, this pinpointed all six quantities needed to determine the motion of stars, the resulting Hipparcos Catalogue, a high-precision catalogue of more than 118,200 stars, was published in 1997. The lower-precision Tycho Catalogue of more than a million stars was published at the same time, Hipparcos follow-up mission, Gaia, was launched in 2013. Problems were dominated by the effects of the Earths atmosphere, but were compounded by complex optical terms, thermal and gravitational instrument flexures, a formal proposal to make these exacting observations from space was first put forward in 1967. Although originally proposed to the French space agency CNES, it was considered too complex and its acceptance within the European Space Agencys scientific programme, in 1980, was the result of a lengthy process of study and lobbying. The spacecraft carried a single all-reflective, eccentric Schmidt telescope, with an aperture of 29 cm, a special beam-combining mirror superimposed two fields of view,58 degrees apart, into the common focal plane. This complex mirror consisted of two mirrors tilted in opposite directions, each occupying half of the entrance pupil. The telescope used a system of grids, at the surface, composed of 2688 alternate opaque and transparent bands. The apparent angle between two stars in the fields of view, modulo the grid period, was obtained from the phase difference of the two star pulse trains. An additional photomultiplier system viewed a beam splitter in the path and was used as a star mapper. Its purpose was to monitor and determine the attitude, and in the process. These measurements were made in two broad bands approximately corresponding to B and V in the UBV photometric system. The positions of these stars were to be determined to a precision of 0.03 arc-sec. The spacecraft spun around its Z-axis at the rate of 11.25 revolutions/day at an angle of 43° to the Sun, the Z-axis rotated about the sun-satellite line at 6.4 revolutions/year. The spacecraft consisted of two platforms and six panels, all made of aluminum honeycomb. The solar array consisted of three sections, generating around 300 W in total
30.
SIMBAD
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SIMBAD is an astronomical database of objects beyond the Solar System. It is maintained by the Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg, the first on-line interactive version, known as Version 2, was made available in 1981. Version 3, developed in the C language and running on UNIX stations at the Strasbourg Observatory, was released in 1990, fall of 2006 saw the release of Version 4 of the database, now stored in PostgreSQL, and the supporting software, now written entirely in Java. As of 10 February 2017, SIMBAD contains information for 9,099,070 objects under 24,529,080 different names, the minor planet 4692 SIMBAD was named in its honour. Planetary Data System – NASAs database of information on SSSB, maintained by JPL, nASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database – a database of information on objects outside the Milky Way, also maintained by JPL. NASA Exoplanet Archive – an online astronomical exoplanet catalog and data service Bibcode SIMBAD, Strasbourg SIMBAD, Harvard
31.
Celestial coordinate system
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In astronomy, a celestial coordinate system is a system for specifying positions of celestial objects, satellites, planets, stars, galaxies, and so on. Coordinate systems can specify a position in 3-dimensional space, or merely the direction of the object on the celestial sphere, the coordinate systems are implemented in either spherical coordinates or rectangular coordinates. Spherical coordinates, projected on the sphere, are analogous to the geographic coordinate system used on the surface of the Earth. These differ in their choice of fundamental plane, which divides the sphere into two equal hemispheres along a great circle. Rectangular coordinates, in units, are simply the cartesian equivalent of the spherical coordinates, with the same fundamental plane. Each coordinate system is named after its choice of fundamental plane, the following table lists the common coordinate systems in use by the astronomical community. The fundamental plane divides the sphere into two equal hemispheres and defines the baseline for the latitudinal coordinates, similar to the equator in the geographic coordinate system. The poles are located at ±90° from the fundamental plane, the primary direction is the starting point of the longitudinal coordinates. The origin is the distance point, the center of the celestial sphere. The horizontal, or altitude-azimuth, system is based on the position of the observer on Earth, the positioning of a celestial object by the horizontal system varies with time, but is a useful coordinate system for locating and tracking objects for observers on Earth. It is based on the position of relative to an observers ideal horizon. The equatorial coordinate system is centered at Earths center, but fixed relative to the celestial poles, the coordinates are based on the location of stars relative to Earths equator if it were projected out to an infinite distance. The equatorial describes the sky as seen from the solar system, the equatorial system is the normal coordinate system for most professional and many amateur astronomers having an equatorial mount that follows the movement of the sky during the night. Celestial objects are found by adjusting the telescopes or other instruments scales so that they match the equatorial coordinates of the object to observe. There are also subdivisions into mean of date coordinates, which average out or ignore nutation, and true of date, the fundamental plane is the plane of the Earths orbit, called the ecliptic plane. The geocentric ecliptic system was the coordinate system for ancient astronomy and is still useful for computing the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon. The heliocentric ecliptic system describes the orbital movement around the Sun. The system is used for computing the positions of planets and other solar system bodies
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Magnitude (astronomy)
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In astronomy, magnitude is a logarithmic measure of the brightness of an object, measured in a specific wavelength or passband, usually in the visible or near-infrared spectrum. An imprecise but systematic determination of the magnitude of objects was introduced in ancient times by Hipparchus, astronomers use two different definitions of magnitude, apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude. This distance is 10 parsecs for stars and 1 astronomical unit for planets, a minor planets size is typically estimated based on its absolute magnitude in combination with its presumed albedo. The brighter an object appears, the lower the value of its magnitude, with the brightest objects reaching negative values. The Sun has an apparent magnitude of −27, the full moon −13, the brightest planet Venus measures −5, and Sirius, an apparent magnitude can also be assigned to man-made objects in Earth orbit. The brightest satellite flares are ranked at −9, and the International Space Station, ISS, the scale is logarithmic, and defined such that each step of one magnitude changes the brightness by a factor of the fifth root of 100, or approximately 2.512. For example, a magnitude 1 star is exactly a hundred times brighter than a magnitude 6 star, the magnitude system dates back roughly 2000 years to the Greek astronomer Hipparchus who classified stars by their apparent brightness, which they saw as size. To the unaided eye, a prominent star such as Sirius or Arcturus appears larger than a less prominent star such as Mizar. For all the other Stars, which are seen by the Help of a Telescope. Note that the brighter the star, the smaller the magnitude, Bright first magnitude stars are 1st-class stars, the system was a simple delineation of stellar brightness into six distinct groups but made no allowance for the variations in brightness within a group. He concluded that first magnitude stars measured 2 arc minutes in apparent diameter, with second through sixth magnitude stars measuring 1 1⁄2′, 1 1⁄12′, 3⁄4′, 1⁄2′, the development of the telescope showed that these large sizes were illusory—stars appeared much smaller through the telescope. However, early telescopes produced a spurious disk-like image of a star that was larger for brighter stars, early photometric measurements demonstrated that first magnitude stars are about 100 times brighter than sixth magnitude stars. Thus in 1856 Norman Pogson of Oxford proposed that a scale of 5√100 ≈2.512 be adopted between magnitudes, so five magnitude steps corresponded precisely to a factor of 100 in brightness. Every interval of one magnitude equates to a variation in brightness of 5√100 or roughly 2.512 times. Consequently, a first magnitude star is about 2.5 times brighter than a second star,2.52 brighter than a third magnitude star,2.53 brighter than a fourth magnitude star. This is the modern system, which measures the brightness, not the apparent size. Using this logarithmic scale, it is possible for a star to be brighter than “first class”, so Arcturus or Vega are magnitude 0, and Sirius is magnitude −1.46. As mentioned above, the scale appears to work in reverse, the larger the negative value, the brighter
33.
Johann Bayer
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Johann Bayer was a German lawyer and uranographer. He was born in Rain, Lower Bavaria, in 1572, Bayer had several interests outside his work, including archaeology and mathematics. However, he is known for his work in astronomy. He remained unmarried and died in 1625, Bayer is most famous for his star atlas Uranometria Omnium Asterismorum, which was first published in 1603 in Augsburg and dedicated to two prominent local citizens. This was the first atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere and it was based upon the work of Tycho Brahe and may have borrowed from Alessandro Piccolominis 1540 star atlas, De le stelle fisse, although Bayer included an additional 1,000 stars. The Uranometria introduced a new system of star designation which has known as the Bayer designation. Bayers atlas included twelve new constellations invented a few years earlier to fill in the far south of the night sky, the crater Bayer on the Moon is named after him. Julius Schiller Bayer designation Full digital facsimile, Linda Hall Library
34.
Beta
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Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2, in Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive /b/. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/, letters that arose from beta include the Roman letter ⟨B⟩ and the Cyrillic letters ⟨Б⟩ and ⟨В⟩. Like the names of most other Greek letters, the name of beta was adopted from the name of the corresponding letter in Phoenician. In Greek, the name was βῆτα bêta, pronounced in Ancient Greek and it is spelled βήτα in modern monotonic orthography, and pronounced. In US English, the name is pronounced /ˈbeɪtə/, while in British English it is pronounced /ˈbiːtə/, the letter beta was derived from the Phoenician letter beth. The letter Β had the largest number of highly divergent local forms, besides the standard form, there were forms as varied as, and. In the system of Greek numerals, beta has a value of 2, such use is denoted by a number mark, Β′. In computing, the term beta is used as the last testing release in the release life cycle before the release version. Beta versions often have a number of the form 0. n. Typically it is the last version before a version of a software is released to all its actual customers. Beta is used in finance as a measure of investment portfolio risk, Beta in this context is calculated as the covariance of the portfolios returns with its benchmarks returns, divided by the variance of the benchmarks returns. A beta of 1.5 means that for every 1% change in the value of the benchmark, in the International Phonetic Alphabet, Greek minuscule beta denotes a voiced bilabial fricative. The name Beta was used as a name during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season as Hurricane Beta, Beta is often used to denote a variable in mathematics and physics, where it often has specific meanings for certain applications. In physics a stream of unbound energetic electrons is referred to as beta radiation or beta rays. β is sometimes used as a placeholder for a number if α is already used. In spaceflight, beta angle describes the angle between the plane of a spacecraft or other body and the vector from the sun. The term beta refers to advice on how to complete a particular climbing route, boulder problem
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Beta Cassiopeiae
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Beta Cassiopeiae, also named Caph, is a Delta Scuti variable star in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It is a giant star belonging to the spectral class F2, the white star of second magnitude has an absolute magnitude of +1.16 mag. Beta Cassiopeiae is the stars Bayer designation and it also bore the traditional names Caph, Chaph and Kaff, as well as al-Sanam al-Nakah the Camels Hump. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names to catalog, the WGSNs first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN, which included Caph for this star. Originally, the pre-Islamic Arabic term al-Kaff al-Khadib the stained hand referred to the five stars comprising the W of the constellation Cassiopeia, the term was abbreviated and somehow came to signify β Cassiopeiae alone. The old stained hand was part of an asterism called Thuraya stretching from the Pleiades, in Chinese, 王良, meaning Wang Liang, refers to an asterism consisting of β Cassiopeiae, κ Cassiopeiae, η Cassiopeiae, α Cassiopeiae and λ Cassiopeiae. This is a line running due south from Beta Cassiopeiae through Alpha Andromedae to the celestial equator, at a point where the Suns path crosses it each autumn. With a mean apparent magnitude of +2.27, it is one of the five stars which make up the W of Cassiopeia, SN1572, traditionally known as Tychos Star, appeared about 5 degrees to the northwest of Caph in 1572. As a star in the northern hemisphere of the sky, Beta Cassiopeiae is prominent to viewers in the northern hemisphere. The constellation of Cassiopeia does not rise above the horizon to viewers in Tasmania, β Cassiopeiae is a yellow-white hued giant of stellar class F2 III with a surface temperature around 7000 K. More than three times the size of and 28 times brighter than the Sun, Caph has a magnitude of +1.16. It was once an A-type star with about double the Suns mass and it is now in the process of cooling and expanding to become a red giant. Its core is likely to have used up its hydrogen and is shrinking and heating, stars do not spend much time in this state and are relatively uncommon. β Cassiopeiae is a star of the Delta Scuti type. It is a monoperiodic pulsator, with a brightness that ranges from magnitude +2.25 to +2.31 with a period of 2.5 hours. This type of variable includes subgiant or main sequence stars of spectral classes F5–A0 and their pulsations are related to the same helium instability strip on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram as that of classical Cepheids. Delta Scuti stars are located at the intersection of the strip with the main sequence and this star is rotating at about 92% of its critical speed, completing a full rotation every 1.12 days. This is giving the star an oblate shape with an equatorial bulge that is 24% larger than the polar radius
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Passband
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A passband is the range of frequencies or wavelengths that can pass through a filter. For example, a radio receiver contains a filter to select the frequency of the desired radio signal out of all the radio waves picked up by its antenna. The passband of a receiver is the range of frequencies it can receive, a bandpass-filtered signal, is known as a bandpass signal, in contrast to a baseband signal. In telecommunications, optics, and acoustics, a passband is the portion of the spectrum that is transmitted by some filtering device. In other words, it is a band of frequencies which passes through some filter or set of filters, the accompanying figure shows a schematic of a waveform being filtered by a bandpass filter consisting of a highpass and a lowpass filter. Radio receivers generally include a tunable band-pass filter with a passband that is enough to accommodate the bandwidth of the radio signal transmitted by a single station. There are two categories of digital communication transmission methods, baseband and passband. In baseband transmission, line coding is utilized, resulting in a train or pulse amplitude modulated signal. This is typically used over non-filtered wires such as fiber optical cables and short-range copper links, for example, V.29, V.35, IEEE802.3, SONET/SDH. In passband transmission, digital methods are employed so that only a limited frequency range is used in some bandpass filtered channel. Passband transmission is utilized in wireless communication and in bandpass filtered channels such as POTS lines. It also allows for frequency-division multiplexing, the digital bit stream is converted first into an equivalent baseband signal, and then to a RF signal. On the receiver side a demodulator is used to detect the signal, a combined equipment for modulation and demodulation is called a modem. In general, there is a relationship between the width of a filters passband and the time required for the filter to respond to new inputs. This is a consequence of the mathematics of Fourier analysis, the limiting frequencies of a passband are defined as those at which the relative intensity or power decreases to a specified fraction of the maximum intensity or power. This decrease in power is often specified to be the half-power points, the difference between the limiting frequencies is called the bandwidth, and is expressed in hertz. The related term bandpass is an adjective that describes a type of filter or filtering process, it is confused with passband. The two words are both words that follow the English rules of formation, the primary meaning is the latter part of the compound
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NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
00h 40m 30.5s, +56° 32′ 14.5″
. Bibcode:2007A&A...474..653V. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20078357.
