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Europa, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Europa yo͝orōˈpə [key], in astronomy, one of the 39 known moons, or natural satellites, of Jupiter. Magnetic-field data collected by the space probe Galileo in 2002 strongly indicated a liquid-wat...

Burbidge, Margaret

(Encyclopedia)Burbidge, Margaret, 1925–2020, Anglo-American astronomer, b. England as Eleanor Margaret Peachey. Burbidge; her husband, Geoffrey Burbidge; William Fowler; and Sir Fred Hoyle showed (1956) how heavi...

Lowell Observatory

(Encyclopedia)Lowell Observatory, astronomical observatory located in Flagstaff, Ariz.; it was founded in 1894 by Percival Lowell, the American astronomer who popularized the idea that Mars might support intelligen...

quasar

(Encyclopedia)quasar kwāˈsär [key], one of a class of blue celestial objects having the appearance of stars when viewed through a telescope and currently believed to be the most distant and most luminous objects...

red shift

(Encyclopedia)red shift or redshift, in astronomy, the systematic displacement of individual lines in the spectrum of a celestial object toward the red, or longer wavelength, end of the visible spectrum. The effect...

Fomalhaut

(Encyclopedia)Fomalhaut fōˈməlhôtˌ [key], brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus (southern fish); Bayer designation Alpha Piscis Austrini; 1992 position R.A. 22h57.3m, Dec. −29°39′. A white,...

Calypso, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Calypso, in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn XIV (or S14), Calypso is a small, irregularly shaped (nonspherical) body measuring about 21 mi (34...

Giacconi, Riccardo

(Encyclopedia)Giacconi, Riccardo, 1931–2018, Italian-American astrophysicist, b. Milan, Italy, Ph.D. Univ. of Milan 1954. He was a researcher at American Science and Engineering Corporation (1959–73), professor...

Doppler effect

(Encyclopedia)Doppler effect, change in the wavelength (or frequency) of energy in the form of waves, e.g., sound or light, as a result of motion of either the source or the receiver of the waves; the effect is nam...

Arrokoth

(Encyclopedia)Arrokoth, trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper Belt (see comet). First observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014 and later nicknamed Ultima Thule (until its official naming in late 2019), it beca...