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Named Stars
These names of stars that have either been approved by the International Astronomical Union or which have been in somewhat recent use. IAU approval comes mostly from its Working Group on Star Names, which has been publishing a "List of IAU-approved Star Names" since 2016. As of June 2025, the list included a total of 505 proper names of stars. Background Of the roughly 10,000 stars visible to the naked eye, only a few hundred have been given proper names in the history of astronomy. Traditional astronomy tends to group stars into constellations or asterisms and give proper names to those, not to individual stars. Many star names are, in origin, descriptive of the part in the constellation they are found in; thus Phecda, a corruption of Arabic (, 'thigh of the bear'). Only a handful of the brightest stars have individual proper names not depending on their asterism; so Sirius ('the scorcher'), Antares ('rival of Ares', i.e., red-hued like Mars), Canopus (of uncertain origin), ... [...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] |
Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Taurus (constellation), Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light-years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and the nearest Messier object to Earth, being the most obvious star cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. It is also observed to house the reflection nebula NGC 1432, an HII region. Around 2330 BC it marked the vernal point. Due to the brightness of its stars, the Pleiades is viewable from most areas on Earth, even in locations with significant light pollution. The cluster is dominated by OB star, hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be leftover material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Traditional English Pronunciation Of Latin
The traditional English pronunciation of Latin, and Classical Greek words borrowed through Latin, is the way the Latin language was traditionally pronounced by speakers of English until the early 20th century. Although this pronunciation is no longer taught in Latin classes, it is still broadly used in the fields of biology, law, and medicine. In the Middle Ages speakers of English, from Middle English onward, pronounced Latin not as the ancient Romans did, but in the way that had developed among speakers of French. This traditional pronunciation then became closely linked to the pronunciation of English, and as the pronunciation of English changed with time, the English pronunciation of Latin changed as well. Until the beginning of the 19th century all English speakers used this pronunciation, including Roman Catholics for liturgical purposes.Brittain(1955) Following Catholic emancipation in Britain in 1829 and the subsequent Oxford Movement, newly converted Catholics pref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stellar Designation
In astronomy, stars have a variety of different stellar designations and names, including catalogue designations, current and historical proper names, and foreign language names. Only a tiny minority of known stars have proper names; all others have only designations from various catalogues or lists, or no identifier at all. Hipparchus in the 2nd century BC enumerated about 850 naked-eye stars. Johann Bayer in 1603 listed about twice this number. Only in the 19th century did star catalogues list the naked-eye stars exhaustively. The Bright Star Catalogue, which is a star catalogue listing all stars of apparent magnitude 6.5 or brighter, or roughly every star visible to the naked eye from Earth, contains 9,096 stars. The most voluminous modern catalogues list on the order of a billion stars, out of an estimated total of 200 to 400 billion in the Milky Way. Proper names may be historical, often transliterated from Arabic or Chinese names. Such transliterations can vary so t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IAU Constellations
In contemporary astronomy, 88 constellations are recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Each constellation is a region of the sky bordered by arcs of right ascension and declination, together covering the entire celestial sphere. Their boundaries were officially adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1928 and published in 1930. The ancient Mesopotamians and later the Greeks established most of the northern constellations in international use today, listed by the Roman-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy. The constellations along the ecliptic are called the zodiac. When explorers mapped the stars of the southern skies, European astronomers proposed new constellations for that region, as well as ones to fill gaps between the traditional constellations. Because of their Roman and European origins, every constellation has a Latin name. In 1922, the International Astronomical Union adopted three-letter abbreviations for 89 constellations, the modern list of 88 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington Double Star Catalog
The Washington Double Star Catalog, or WDS, is a catalog of double stars, maintained at the United States Naval Observatory. The catalog contains positions, magnitudes, proper motions and spectral types and has entries for (as of January 2024) 157,012 pairs of double stars. The catalog also includes multiple stars. In general, a multiple star with ''n'' components will be represented by entries in the catalog for ''n''−1 pairs of stars. History The database used to construct the WDS originated at Lick Observatory, where it was used to construct the Index Catalog of Visual Double Stars, published in 1963. In 1965, under the initiative of Charles Worley, it was transferred to the Naval Observatory. The catalog has since been augmented by many measurements, mainly from the Hipparcos and Tycho catalogues and results from speckle interferometry, as well as other sources. A unique 1–3 letter discovery code is used to identify the observer who reported the information. For example ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiple-star System
A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. It may sometimes be used to refer to a single star. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a ''star cluster'' or ''galaxy'', although, broadly speaking, they are also star systems. Star systems are not to be confused with planetary systems, which include planets and similar bodies (such as comets). Terminology A star system of two stars is known as a ''binary star'', ''binary star system'' or ''physical double star''. Systems with four or more components are rare, and are much less commonly found than those with 2 or 3. Multiple-star systems are called ''triple'', ''ternary'', or ''trinary'' if they contain three stars; ''quadruple'' or ''quaternary'' if they contain four stars; ''quintuple'' or ''quintenary'' with five stars; ''sextuple'' or ''sextenary'' with six stars; ''septuple'' or ''septenary'' with seven stars; and ''octuple' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HAT-P-21
HAT-P-21, also named Mazaalai, is a G-type main-sequence star about 927 light-years away. The star has amount of metals similar to solar abundance. The survey in 2015 has failed to detect any stellar companions. The star is rotating rapidly, being spun up by the tides of giant planet on close orbit. Naming In 2019, the star HAT-P-21 received the proper name ''Mazaalai'' while its planet HAT-P-21b received the name ''Bambaruush'' in the international NameExoWorlds contest. These names refer to the Mongolian name for the endangered Gobi bear subspecies, and the Mongolian term for 'bear cub', respectively. Mazaalai was also the name of Mongolia's first satellite. Some IAU publications have misspelled the star's name as ''Mazalaai'', but the latest IAU Catalog of Star Names lists ''Mazaalai''. Planetary system In 2010 a transiting hot super-Jovian planet on moderately eccentric orbit was detected. Its equilibrium temperature is 1283 K. The transit-timing variation survey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. In 2016, it was recognized that the first possible evidence of an exoplanet had been noted in 1917. In collaboration with ground-based and other space-based observatories the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to give more insight into exoplanet traits, such as their composition, environmental conditions, and potential for life. There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone. In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NameExoWorlds
NameExoWorlds (also known as IAU NameExoWorlds) were various projects managed by the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.) to encourage names to be submitted for astronomical objects, notably exoplanets. The accepted names would later be considered for official adoption by the organization. Projects The first such project (NameExoWorlds I), in 2015, regarded the naming of stars and exoplanets. 573,242 votes were submitted by members by the time the contest closed on October 31, 2015, and the names of 31 exoplanets and 14 stars were selected from these. Many of the names chosen were based on world history, mythology and literature. In June 2019, another such project (NameExoWorlds II), in celebration of the organization's hundredth anniversary, in a project officially called IAU100 NameExoWorlds, welcomed countries of the world to submit names for exoplanets and their host stars. A star with an exoplanet was assigned to each country, and members of the public submitted nam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stars Named After People
Over the past few centuries, a small number of stars have been named after individual people. It is common in astronomy for objects to be given names, in accordance with accepted astronomical naming conventions. Most stars have not been given proper names, relying instead on alphanumeric designations in star catalogues. However, a few hundred had either long-standing traditional names (usually from the Arabic) or historic names from frequent usage. In addition, many stars have catalogue designations that contain the name of their compiler or discoverer. This includes Gliese, Wolf, Ross, Bradley, Piazzi, Lacaille, Struve, Groombridge, Lalande, Krueger, Mayer, Weisse, Gould, Luyten and others. For example, Wolf 359 was discovered and catalogued by Max Wolf. Some binary stars are named after their discoverers, such as Delorme 1 and Luhman 16. Various private organizations claim to name stars in honor of people in exchange for a fee, but these names are used only within their own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epsilon Carinae
Epsilon Carinae (ε Carinae, abbreviated Epsilon Car, ε Car), officially named Avior , is a binary star in the southern constellation of Carina (constellation), Carina. At apparent magnitude +1.86 it is list of brightest stars, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, but is not visible from most of the northern hemisphere. The False Cross is an asterism (astronomy), asterism formed of Delta Velorum, Kappa Velorum, Iota Carinae and ε Carinae. It is so called because it is sometimes mistaken for the Crux, Southern Cross, causing errors in astronavigation. Epsilon Carinae is located roughly from the Sun. Measurements during the Hipparcos mission give the pair an angular separation of 0.46 Minute and second of arc, arcseconds with a difference in magnitude of 2.0. At their estimated distance, this angle is equivalent to a physical separation of 87 astronomical units. The primary component has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.01, which by itself would still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
