Astronomy Glossary

Discovered in October 1983 this unusual asteroid may be an extinct comet. It measures 5.1 Km in diameter and its orbit crosses the orbits of Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury. It was the first asteroid to be discovered by a spacecraft.

Phaethon's most remarkable distinction is that it approaches the Sun closer than any other numbered asteroid.  The surface temperature at its closest (perihelion) could reach approximately 1025 Kelvin. This is why it was named after the Greek myth of Phaëton, son of the sun god Helios.

Phaethon will approach relatively close to the Earth on December 14, 2093, passing within 0.0198 AU (Astronomical Units).

The astronomical unit (AU) is a unit of length approximately equal to the distance from the Earth to the Sun. The currently accepted value of the AU is 149 597 870 691 ± 30 metres (about 150 million kilometres or 93 million miles).

See Phases of the Moon

This refers to the position of an inner planet (Mercury or Venus) when it is at maximum angular separation from the Sun as viewed from Earth i.e. how far from the Sun Mercury or Venus appears in our sky (see diagram 1). Mercury and Venus are particularly easy to see when at greatest elongation. When the planet is at maximum EASTERN elongation the planet is seen in the evening close to sunset. When the planet is at maximum WESTERN elongation, the planet is seen in the morning close to sunrise (see diagram 2).

Diagram 1.

Diagram 2.

An eclipse of the Moon can only occur at FULL MOON and only if the Moon passes through some portion of the Earth's shadow (see diagram 2 under phases of the Moon).

A TOTAL eclipse happens when the entire Moon passes through Earth's umbral shadow (see diagram below).

A partial lunar eclipse occurs when only part of the Moon passes through Earth's umbral shadow.

Image courtesy of Mr Eclipse

Magnitude is a measure of how bright a celestial object looks. Those objects that can be seen with the naked eye are ranked in 6 magnitudes from first to sixth magnitude. First magnitude is the brightest and 6^th magnitude the faintest, which always seems a little odd! Anyway a sixth magnitude object is exactly 100 times less bright than a first magnitude object. This means that the difference between a first and second magnitude object is approximately 2.51 times. To get the difference between a first and second magnitude object all you do is multiply 2.51 x 2.51 = 6.3.This means that a third magnitude object is about 6.3 times less bright than a first magnitude object.

To make things a little more complicated, an object 2.51 times brighter than magnitude 1 becomes magnitude 0. An object 6.3 times brighter than magnitude 1 becomes magnitude -1.

Sirius is the brightest STAR in the sky and has a magnitude of -1.44. The full Moon has a magnitude of -12.7 and the Sun has a magnitude of -26.7.

Meteor Shower

Meteor showers are caused by streams of dust and rock called meteoroids. This debris is usually left behind by comets as they orbit the Sun. When a comet approaches the Sun it will begin to vaporise leaving behind a meteoroid stream also known as a dust trail. As Earth passes through this dust trail every year at the same time, meteoroids will entire the Earth's atmosphere and burn up leaving a bright visible streak called a meteor. If meteors occur only seconds or minutes apart then it is known as a meteor shower and it takes its name from the constellation from which the shower appears to originate (the radiant point). For example the Perseids appears to originate in the constellate Perseus.  

Most meteoroids that cause meteors are the size of a pebble. Their bright streaks become visible between 40 and 75 miles (65-120 km) above the Earth's atmosphere and they disintegrate at altitudes of around 30-60 miles (50-95 km). At speeds of up to 26 miles per second (42 km/s) they are visible for just fractions of a second. Any large meteoroids that survive and reach the surface of Earth are called meteorites.

Meteoroids vary in size from a dust particle to a small boulder. The number of meteoroids appears inversely proportional to their size for instance there are more meteoroids the size of a dust particle than the size of a grain of sand and there are more meteoroids the size of a grain of sand than the size of a pebble etc. Millions of meteors burn up in the Earth's atmosphere every day but most of them are so small that they are invisible. Also many enter the atmosphere during the day.

See Phases of the Moon

Opposition is the time when a celestial body is on the opposite side of the sky to the Sun (see diagram below).

Diagram cortesy of NASA

The Orion Nebula is also known as M42. The M refers to Charles Messier an 18^th century French astronomer and comet hunter. He compiled a list of deep sky fuzzy looking objects so they would not be mistaken for comets. Not all Messier objects were actually discovered by Charles Messier himself.

Nebula (plural nebulae) is Latin for mist and they are vast areas of cloud and dust between the stars. The Orion Nebula is a huge area (twice the apparent size of the full Moon) where new stars are formed. These new stars at the centre of the dust cloud light up the surrounding gas making it visible through a telescope.

The Orion Nebula is in the constellation of Orion, which is a very prominent constellation in the winter sky. It is located in the "sword" of Orion which hangs below the 3 stars that depict his belt (see diagram on right)

One of the new stars at the centre of the Orion Nebula is Theta-1 Orionis. It is easy to understand why it is called the Trapezium because, through the telescope, you should see 4 prominent stars in the shape of a trapezium (see Diagram below).

This false colour mosaic was made by combining several exposures from the Hubble Space Telescope Image credit:  NASA Picture of the day

All of the planets in our Solar System move around the Sun in elliptical orbits. An ellipse is a shape that can be thought of as a "stretched out" circle or an oval as in the diagram below. The Sun is not at the centre of the ellipse, as it would be if the orbit were circular. Instead, the Sun is at one of two points called "foci" (which is the plural form of "focus") that are offset from the centre. This means that each planet moves closer towards and further away from the Sun during the course of each orbit. The point in the orbit where the planet is closest to the Sun is called "perihelion".  The point in the orbit where the planet is furthest away from the Sun is called "aphelion". 

As the Moon orbits the Earth it shows different phases to observers on Earth. The reason for this is explained pictorially in the diagrams below.

The whole of the Moon is only ever half illuminated - the half that faces towards the Sun (diagram 1). However, looking from Earth, we only see a portion of this illuminated face because as the moon orbits the Earth it changes position in space relative to the Sun and Earth. (diagram 2).

Diagram 1: Courtesy of NASA (http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question3.html)

Diagram 2: Courtesy of NASA (http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question3.html)

New Moon is considered as the beginning of the cycle, hence the term New Moon. However, because the moon is between Earth and the Sun the Sun only illuminates the face that we do not see, the ‘Far Side of the Moon'. The face that we normally look at is in total darkness and therefore we cannot see it (see diagram 2 where the white part of the Moon is the only portion lit by the Sun that we can see clearly).

The next phase is a crescent Moon but because more and more of the illuminated face of the Moon will become visible to observers from Earth in the following days it is called a waxing crescent.

The next phase is called First Quarter. The reason why we call this phase of the moon first quarter is because it is ONE QUARTER of the way through the lunar cycle. The lunar cycle is the number of days it takes to go from one New Moon to the next and is 29.53 days. First quarter is often referred to as half moon. This is because only half of the face of the moon that we see is lit by the Sun. Halfway through the lunar cycle is Full Moon when we can see the whole of the illuminated face because it is opposite the Sun with respect to the Earth.

As the illuminated face becomes less the Moon is said to be waning and when it has orbited three quarters of the way around the Earth it is said to be a Last (or Third) Quarter Moon. The next time the moon is a crescent it is a waning crescent and the edge that is illuminated is the opposite edge that is illuminated when it is a waxing crescent. Remembering this becomes easy by saying "if the Light is coming from the Left the Moon is getting Less."

The Moon orbits the Earth in 27.3 days but because of periodic variations in the geometry of the Earth-Moon-Sun system the complete lunar phase (from one New Moon to the next New Moon) takes 29.53 days. Because it takes this amount of time to orbit Earth the Moon rises at different times each night. The New Moon rises as the Sun rises, First Quarter Moon rises around mid-day, the Full Moon rises as the Sun sets and the Last Quarter Moon rises around midnight. At certain times therefore the Moon is up during the day. Because it is big, close to the Earth and very reflective it appears 100,000 times brighter than the brightest star in the night sky, this means that we are able to see it during the day.

The rings of Saturn are made up of icy particles ranging in size from micrometres to metres. Almost entirely water ice, the particles are contaminated with some dust and other chemicals. Reflected sunlight from these particles, contribute a great deal to the brightness of Saturn as viewed from Earth and this brightness appears to change over time. This is due not only to the change in the distance from Earth to Saturn as both planets independently orbit the Sun, it is also due to the changing aspect of the rings (see diagram below), which in turn depends on where Saturn is in its orbit around the Sun. This year the rings are closing up and by September 2009 they will appear edge on to our line of sight. This means that they will be practically invisible since the thickness of the ring system is estimated at only 10 metres deep.  

The orbit of Saturn shown at two/three year intervals between the years 1993 and 2020 AD. The orbit of the Earth is seen close to the centre, marked at various dates by a blue-green globe (the orbits are not shown to scale). The dates in blue are the dates of Saturn's opposition to the Sun, i.e. when the planet is closest to the Earth and appears at its brightest for the year. The images in the grey circles show how the planet appears from the Earth (orientated with Celestial North at the top). The points of Saturn's perihelion (i.e. its closest point to the Sun) and aphelion (its most distant point from the Sun) are also marked. The constellation in which Saturn appears, as seen from the Earth, is shown in green. The First Point of Aries is the 'zero point' from which the longitudes of the planets are measured (diagram based on a graphic by space artist David A Hardy).

Diagram and caption courtesy of: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjpowell/Astro/Saturn-Orbit.htm

It takes 29.457 Earth years for Saturn to orbit the Sun. During this time we see the rings from different angles. Previously the South Pole of Saturn has appeared tilted towards Earth and we have been looking at the underside of the rings. When the rings start to slowly open up again we will begin to see the top side of the rings as the North Pole appears tilted in our direction. By the time Saturn has completed one orbit the ring cycle, from our point of view will start all over again.

Another ring around Saturn has recently been discovered (6th October 2009) using the Spitzer Space Telescope, which revealed an infrared glow thought to come from sun-warmed dust in a tenuous ring. The ring spans from 128 to 207 times the radius of Saturn - or further - and is 2.4 million kilometres deep. It is the largest planetary ring in the solar system but is quite diffuse making it very difficult to detect using visible light. The source of the ring's material seems to be Saturn's outer moon Phoebe, which orbits the planet at an average distance of 215 times the radius of Saturn. If space rock hits Phoebe the impact may generate the debris which has made the ring. 

Spectroscopy is a powerful tool in astronomy. Spectroscopes attached to the reflecting telescopes turned the light from individual stars into spectra - miniature rainbows that can be used like fingerprints. By analysing their patterns, researchers can extract a wealth of information including what stars are made of, how hot they are and how fast they are moving towards or away from Earth.

This is a detailed spectrum of the star Arcturus - a red giant. It was taken from an American Observatory and shows a continuous spectrum displayed over 50 strips. Within each strip the vertical black bars are absorption lines which give information about the chemical composition of the star.