Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) blue shift or blueshift, in astronomy, the systematic displacement of individual lines in the spectrum of a celestial object toward the blue, or shorter wavelength, end of the visible spectrum. The am...

(Encyclopedia) Pleasure Ridge Park, uninc. town (1990 pop. 25,131), Jefferson co., N Ky. It is a residential suburb of Louisville.

(Encyclopedia) Glen Ridge, borough (2020 pop. 7,802), Essex co., NE N.J., a residential suburb of New York City; inc. 1895. Originally part of Bloomfield Township, the...

(Encyclopedia) blue jay, common name for a familiar bird (Cyanocitta cristata) of central and E North America, allied to the crow, the raven, and the magpie, belonging to the family Corvidae. Almost a foot (30 cm) l...

(Encyclopedia) Mid-Atlantic Ridge: see Atlantic Ocean. ...

(Encyclopedia) mid-ocean ridge: see plate tectonics. ...

(Encyclopedia) blue whale, a baleen whale, Balaenoptera musculus. Also called the sulphur-bottom whale and Sibbald's rorqual, it is the largest animal that has ever lived. Blue whales have been known to reach a leng...

(Encyclopedia) Blue Nile, Arab. Bahr el Azraq, river, c.1,000 mi (1,600 km) long, the chief headstream of the Nile, rising in Lake Tana, NW Ethiopia, at an altitude of c.6,000 ft (1,800 m). It flows generally S from...

(Encyclopedia) Kittatinny Mountain kĭtətĭnˈē [key], ridge of the Appalachian system, extending across NW N.J. from Shawangunk Mt., SE N.Y., to Blue Mt., S central Pa.; rises to High Point (1,803 ft/550 m), the ...

(Encyclopedia) blue laws, legislation regulating public and private conduct, especially laws relating to Sabbath observance. The term was originally applied to the 17th-century laws of the theocratic New Haven colon...