Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) sidereal period, in astronomy, length of time a body takes to complete an orbit relative to the fixed stars. See sidereal time. ...

(Encyclopedia) Lalande, Joseph Jérôme Lefrançais de läläNdˈ [key], 1732–1807, French astronomer. Under the direction of the French Academy of Science, he went to Berlin in 1751 to make observations on the p...

(Encyclopedia) radial velocity, in astronomy, the speed with which a star moves toward or away from the sun. It is determined from the red or blue shift in the star's spectrum. ...

(Encyclopedia) Russell, Henry Norris, 1877–1957, American astronomer, b. Oyster Bay, N.Y., grad. Princeton, 1897. In 1902 he went to Cambridge, England, to study. He returned to Princeton in 1905, was professor of...

(Encyclopedia) cluster, in astronomy: see star cluster; galaxy. ...

(Encyclopedia) gibbous phase gĭbˈəs [key]: see phase, in astronomy. ...

(Encyclopedia) Hoyle, Sir Fred hoil [key], 1915–2001, British astrophysicist and mathematician, b. Bingley, Yorkshire. During the years of World War II, Hoyle primarily worked on technical problems related to rada...

(Encyclopedia) Oberon ōˈbərŏnˌ [key], in astronomy, one of the moons, or natural satellites, of Uranus. ...

(Encyclopedia) Laurentian University, main campus at Sudbury, Ont., Canada; bilingual, coeducational; founded 1960. Among its faculties are those in astronomy, commerce, computer science, education, engineering, law...

(Encyclopedia) Phobos fōˈbŏs [key], in astronomy, innermost moon, or natural satellite, of Mars. ...