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Zeta Herculis Moving Group
Zeta Herculis Moving Group is a set of stars that share a common motion through space. The existence of this moving group was first published in 1958 by Olin J. Eggen. Based upon the high velocity motion of the star Zeta Herculis through space, he searched for stars that were following a similar velocity and direction. A total of 22 candidate members were identified. Among the group members he included β Hydri, ρ Persei, η Reticuli, φ1 Lupi, ζ Herculis and ε Octantis. He estimated the group velocity at 74.5 km/s. In 1970, Richard Woolley refined the list to ten stars, including φ2 Pavonis and ζ1/ ζ2 Reticuli as members of this cluster. The parallel motion of the stars in this group implies a common origin, and hence a similar age and composition. The membership of ζ Herculis and HD 158614 came into question because their composition appeared to show they were much younger than other members of the group. The average age was estimated as 8.2 billion yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sky, night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed stars, fixed points of light. The most prominent stars have been categorised into constellations and asterism (astronomy), asterisms, and many of the brightest stars have proper names. Astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. The observable universe contains an estimated to stars. Only about 4,000 of these stars are visible to the naked eye—all within the Milky Way galaxy. A star's life star formation, begins with the gravitational collapse of a gaseous nebula of material largely comprising hydrogen, helium, and traces of heavier elements. Its stellar mass, total mass mainly determines it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metallicity
In astronomy, metallicity is the Abundance of the chemical elements, abundance of Chemical element, elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal currently detectable (i.e. non-Dark matter, dark) matter in the universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''metals'' as convenient shorthand for ''all elements except hydrogen and helium''. This word-use is distinct from the conventional chemical or physical definition of a metal as an electrically conducting element. Stars and nebulae with relatively high abundances of heavier elements are called ''metal-rich'' when discussing metallicity, even though many of those elements are called ''Nonmetal (chemistry), nonmetals'' in chemistry. Metals in early spectroscopy In 1802, William Hyde WollastonMelvyn C. UsselmanWilliam Hyde WollastonEncyclopædia Britannica, retrieved 31 March 2013 noted the appearance of a number of dark features in the solar spectrum. In 1814, Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrus
Hydrus is a small constellation in the deep Southern Celestial Hemisphere, southern sky. It was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman and it first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in late 1597 (or early 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave their Bayer designations in 1756. Its name means "male water snake", as opposed to Hydra (constellation), Hydra, a much larger constellation that represents a female water snake. It remains below the horizon for most Northern Hemisphere observers. The brightest star is the 2.8-apparent magnitude, magnitude Beta Hydri, also the closest reasonably bright star to the pole star#S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hercules (constellation)
Hercules is a constellation named after Hercules, the Roman mythology hero adapted from the Greek mythology, Greek hero Heracles. Hercules was one of the 48 constellations listed by the second-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the IAU designated constellations, 88 modern constellations today. It is the fifth-largest of the modern constellations and is the largest of List of brightest stars, the 50 which have no stars brighter than apparent Magnitude (astronomy), magnitude +2.5. Characteristics Hercules is bordered by Draco (constellation), Draco to the north; Boötes, Corona Borealis, and Serpens, Serpens Caput to the west; Ophiuchus to the south; Aquila (constellation), Aquila to the southwest; and Sagitta, Vulpecula, and Lyra to the east. Covering 1225.1 square degrees and 2.970% of the night sky, it ranks fifth among the 88 constellations in size. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 192 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stellar Classification
In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their stellar spectrum, spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a Prism (optics), prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the Continuum (spectrum), rainbow of colors interspersed with spectral lines. Each line indicates a particular chemical element or molecule, with the line strength indicating the abundance of that element. The strengths of the different spectral lines vary mainly due to the temperature of the photosphere, although in some cases there are true abundance differences. The ''spectral class'' of a star is a short code primarily summarizing the ionization state, giving an objective measure of the photosphere's temperature. Most stars are currently classified under the Morgan–Keenan (MK) system using the letters ''O'', ''B'', ''A'', ''F'', ''G'', ''K'', and ''M'', a sequence from the hottest (''O'' type) to the cool ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light Year
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distance, astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a light-year is the distance that Speed of light, light travels in vacuum in one Julian year (astronomy), Julian year (365.25 days). Despite its inclusion of the word "year", the term should not be misinterpreted as a unit of time. The ''light-year'' is most often used when expressing distances to stars and other distances on a Galaxy, galactic scale, especially in public understanding of science, non-specialist contexts and popular science publications. The unit most commonly used in professional astronomy is the parsec (symbol: pc, about 3.26 light-years). Definitions As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the light-year is the product of the Julian year (astronomy), Julian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stellar Distance
The cosmic distance ladder (also known as the extragalactic distance scale) is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. A ''direct'' distance measurement of an astronomical object is possible only for those objects that are "close enough" (within about a thousand parsecs or 3e16 km) to Earth. The techniques for determining distances to more distant objects are all based on various measured correlations between methods that work at close distances and methods that work at larger distances. Several methods rely on a ''standard 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 distan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apparent Magnitude
Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), extinction of the object's light caused by interstellar dust along the sightline, line of sight to the observer. Unless stated otherwise, the word ''magnitude'' in astronomy usually refers to a celestial object's apparent magnitude. The magnitude scale likely dates to before the ancient Ancient Greek astronomy#Astronomy in the Greco-Roman and Late Antique eras, Roman astronomer Ptolemy, Claudius Ptolemy, whose Star catalogue, star catalog popularized the system by listing stars from First-magnitude star, 1st magnitude (brightest) to 6th magnitude (dimmest). The modern scale was mathematically defined to closely match this historical system by Norman Robert Pogson, Norman Pogson in 1856. The scale is reverse logarithmic scale, logarithmic: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hipparcos Catalogue
''Hipparcos'' was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions and distances of celestial objects on the sky. This permitted the first high-precision measurements of the luminosity, intrinsic brightnesses, proper motions, and parallaxes of stars, enabling better calculations of their distance and tangential velocity. When combined with radial velocity measurements from spectroscopy, astrophysicists were able to finally measure 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, while the enhanced Tycho-2 Catalogue of 2.5 million stars was published in 2000. ''Hipparcos'' follow-up mission, ''Gaia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Draper Catalogue
The ''Henry Draper Catalogue'' (HD) is an astronomical star catalogue published between 1918 and 1924, giving spectroscopic classifications for 225,300 stars; it was later expanded by the ''Henry Draper Extension'' (HDE), published between 1925 and 1936, which gave classifications for 46,850 more stars, and by the ''Henry Draper Extension Charts'' (HDEC), published from 1937 to 1949 in the form of charts, which gave classifications for 86,933 more stars. In all, 359,083 stars were classified as of August 2017. The HD catalogue is named after Henry Draper, an amateur astronomer, and covers the entire sky almost completely down to an apparent photographic magnitude of about 9; the extensions added fainter stars in certain areas of the sky. The construction of the ''Henry Draper Catalogue'' was part of a pioneering effort to classify stellar spectra, and its catalogue numbers are commonly used as a way of identifying stars. History The origin of the ''Henry Draper Catalogue'' d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flamsteed Designation
A Flamsteed designation is a combination of a number and constellation name that uniquely identifies most naked eye stars in the 88 modern constellations, modern constellations visible from southern England. They are named after John Flamsteed, author of the ''Historia Coelestis Britannica'', the first major star catalogue compiled with the aid of a telescope. Flamsteed’s own catalogue did not include what are now known as Flamsteed numbers, but its listing of stars in each constellation provided the basis for later astronomers to add them. Description Flamsteed designations for stars are similar to Bayer designations, except that they use numbers instead of Greek and Roman letters. Each star is assigned a number and the Latin genitive of the constellation it lies in (see 88 modern constellations for a list of constellations and the genitive forms of their names). Flamsteed designations were assigned to 2554 stars. The numbers were originally assigned in order of increasing righ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayer Designation
A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek alphabet, Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive case, genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1564 stars. The brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas ''Uranometria''. Bayer catalogued only a few stars too far south to be seen from Germany, but later astronomers (including Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille and Benjamin Apthorp Gould) supplemented Bayer's catalog with entries for southern constellations. Scheme Bayer assigned a lowercase Greek alphabet, Greek letter (alpha (α), beta (β), gamma (γ), etc.) or a Latin letter (A, b, c, etc.) to each star he catalogued, combined with the Latin name of the star's parent constellation in genitive case, genitive (possessive) form. The constellation name is frequently abbreviated to a standard three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
