General astronomy

General astronomy

Contributors in General astronomy

General astronomy

Small rocky and/or icy particles that are swept up by the earth in its orbit about the sun. Also called "shooting stars", they travel across the sky in a very short time, from less than a second to ...

m2

Astronomy; General astronomy

The magnitude value measured (or predicted) for a comet's nuclear condensation. Note that the true comet nucleus is rarely, if ever, directly observed from the earth because of the large amount of ...

m1

Astronomy; General astronomy

Total, integrated magnitude of a comet's head (meaning coma + nuclear condensation). This can be estimated visually, as the comet's "total visual magnitude". The variable m 1 is usually found in ...

orbit

Astronomy; General astronomy

The path of one object about another (used here for an object orbiting the sun).

nuclear magnitude

Astronomy; General astronomy

See definition for m 2 , above.

autoionisation

Astronomy; General astronomy

A phenomenon occurring when a discrete double-excitation state of an atom lies in the ground-state continuum. In the autoionization process one of the excited electrons is ejected, leaving the ion in ...

axion

Astronomy; General astronomy

A hypothetical spin-0 particle with a very small mass of 10-5-10-3 eV. It was postulated in order to provide a natural solution to the "strong CP problem".