|
Galactic Ridge
The galactic ridge is a region of the inner galaxy that is coincident with the galactic plane of the Milky Way. It can be seen from Earth as a band of stars which is interrupted by 'dust lanes'. In these 'dust lanes' the dust in the gaseous galactic disk (or plane) blocks the visible light of the background stars. Due to this, many of the most interesting features of the Milky Way can only be viewed in X-rays. Along with the point X-ray sources which populate the Milky Way, an apparently diffuse X-ray emission concentrated in the galactic plane is also observed. This is known as the galactic ridge X-ray emission (GRXE). These emissions were originally discovered by Diana Worrall and collaborators in 1982, and since then the origins of these emissions have puzzled astrophysicists around the globe. It was initially believed, due to the difficulty of resolving the GRXE into point sources, that the x-ray emissions were truly diffuse in nature and that their origin might be a Galactic p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Plane
The galactic plane is the plane (geometry), plane on which the majority of a disk-shaped galaxy's mass lies. The directions perpendicular to the galactic plane point to the galactic poles. In actual usage, the terms ''galactic plane'' and ''galactic poles'' usually refer specifically to the plane and poles of the Milky Way, in which Planet Earth is located. Some irregular galaxy, galaxies are irregular and do not have any well-defined disk. Even in the case of a barred spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, defining the galactic plane is slightly imprecise and arbitrary since the stars are not perfectly coplanar. In 1959, the International Astronomical Union, IAU defined the position of the Milky Way's north galactic pole as exactly right ascension, RA = , declination, Dec = in the then-used B1950 epoch (astronomy), epoch; in the currently-used J2000 epoch, after precession is taken into account, its position is RA , Dec . This position is in Coma Berenices, near the bright star Arctu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milky Way
The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galaxy, which are so far away that they cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a Galaxy#Isophotal diameter, D25 isophotal diameter estimated at , but only about 1,000 light-years thick at the spiral arms (more at the bulge). Recent simulations suggest that a dark matter area, also containing some visible stars, may extend up to a diameter of almost 2 million light-years (613 kpc). The Milky Way has several List of Milky Way's satellite galaxies, satellite galaxies and is part of the Local Group of galaxies, forming part of the Virgo Supercluster which is itself a component of the Laniakea Supercluster. It is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and at least that number of pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmic Ray
Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own galaxy, and from distant galaxies. Upon impact with Earth's atmosphere, cosmic rays produce showers of secondary particles, some of which reach the surface, although the bulk are deflected off into space by the magnetosphere or the heliosphere. Cosmic rays were discovered by Victor Hess in 1912 in balloon experiments, for which he was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics. Direct measurement of cosmic rays, especially at lower energies, has been possible since the launch of the first satellites in the late 1950s. Particle detectors similar to those used in nuclear and high-energy physics are used on satellites and space probes for research into cosmic rays. Data from the Fermi Space Telescope (2013) have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Dwarf
A white dwarf is a Compact star, stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very density, dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. No nuclear fusion takes place in a white dwarf; what light it radiates is from its residual heat. The nearest known white dwarf is Sirius B, at 8.6 light years, the smaller component of the Sirius binary star. There are currently thought to be eight white dwarfs among the hundred star systems nearest the Sun. The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910. The name ''white dwarf'' was coined by Willem Jacob Luyten in 1922. White dwarfs are thought to be the final stellar evolution, evolutionary state of stars whose mass is not high enough to become a neutron star or black hole. This includes over 97% of the stars in the Milky Way. After the hydrogen-stellar nucleosynthesis, fusing period of a main sequence, main-sequence star of Stellar mass, lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Coordinate System
The galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system in spherical coordinates, with the Sun as its center, the primary direction aligned with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the fundamental plane (spherical coordinates), fundamental plane parallel to an approximation of the galactic plane but offset to its north. It uses the Right-hand rule, right-handed convention, meaning that coordinates are positive toward the north and toward the east in the fundamental plane (spherical coordinates), fundamental plane. Spherical coordinates Galactic longitude Longitude (symbol ) measures the angle, angular distance of an object eastward along the galactic equator from the Galactic Center. Analogous to terrestrial longitude, galactic longitude is usually measured in degrees (°). Galactic latitude Latitude (symbol ) measures the angle of an object northward of the galactic equator (or midplane) as viewed from Earth. Analogous to terrestrial latitude, gala ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Energy Astronomy Observatory 1
HEAO-1 was an X-ray telescope launched in 1977. HEAO-1 surveyed the sky in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (0.2 keV – 10 MeV), providing nearly constant monitoring of X-ray sources near the ecliptic poles and more detailed studies of a number of objects by observations lasting 3–6 hours. It was the first of NASA's three High Energy Astronomy Observatories, launched on August 12, 1977 aboard an Atlas rocket with a Centaur upper stage, operated until 9 January 1979. During that time, it scanned the X-ray sky almost three times HEAO included four X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy instruments, known as A1, A2, A3, and A4, respectively (before launch, HEAO 1 was known as HEAO A). The orbital inclination was about 22.7 degrees. HEAO 1 re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on 15 March 1979. A1: Large-Area Sky Survey instrument The A1, or Large-Area Sky Survey (LASS) instrument, covered the 0.25–25 keV energy range, using seven large proportional counters. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elihu Boldt
Elihu Aaron Boldt (15 July 1931–12 September 2008) was an American astrophysicist, who led an X-ray astronomy group at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for more than 30 years. Elihu Boldt was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on 15 July 1931. His father was a civil engineer who worked on construction of the New York subway and bridges; he died when Elihu was five. His mother was a schoolteacher. Studying on a full scholarship at MIT, and got a BS in 1953, and a PhD in physics in 1958. His thesis was on Lambda-Hyperon, with David Caldwell as an adviser; he also worked on cosmic rays with Bruno Rossi, whom he admired. He worked on the Cosmotron particle accelerator in the Brookhaven Laboratory for his thesis, and published several papers on Lambda decay modes and K meson interactions. There, he started to use cosmic rays as a source of accelerated particles. Boldt became an assistant professor at Rutgers University in 1958, and stayed there for six years. At that time h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in Berlin, it expanded internationally in the 1960s, and through mergers in the 1990s and a sale to venture capitalists it fused with Wolters Kluwer and eventually became part of Springer Nature in 2015. Springer has major offices in Berlin, Heidelberg, Dordrecht, and New York City. History Julius Springer founded Springer-Verlag in Berlin in 1842 and his son Ferdinand Springer grew it from a small firm of 4 employees into Germany's then second-largest academic publisher with 65 staff in 1872.Chronology ". Springer Science+Business Media. In 1964, Springer expanded its business internationally, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
