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dwarf planet

(Encyclopedia)dwarf planet, a nonluminous body of rock or gas that orbits the sun and has a rounded shape due to its gravity. Unlike a planet, a dwarf planet is not capable of clearing its orbit of smaller objects ...

planet

(Encyclopedia)planet [Gr.,=wanderer], a large nonluminous body of rock, gas, or ice that orbits the sun or another star, has a rounded shape due to gravity, and has cleared its orbit of smaller objects. The term, o...

neptunium

(Encyclopedia)neptunium nĕpto͞oˈnēəm [key], radioactive chemical element; symbol Np; at. no. 93; mass number of most stable isotope 237; m.p. about 640℃; b.p. 3,902℃ (estimated); sp. gr. 20.25 at 20℃; va...

Tombaugh, Clyde William

(Encyclopedia)Tombaugh, Clyde William tŏmˈbô [key], 1906–97, American astronomer, b. Streator, Ill. Although lacking formal training or a college degree, he was hired in 1929 as an assistant by the Lowell Obse...

Low, Frank James

(Encyclopedia)Low, Frank James, 1933–2009, American astronomer and physicist, b. Mobile, Ala., grad. Yale (B.S. 1955), Rice Univ. (M.A. 1957, Ph.D 1959). Low, who worked at Texas Instruments and the National Radi...

Möbius, Augustus Ferdinand

(Encyclopedia)Möbius, Augustus Ferdinand mōˈbēəs, Ger. möˈbēəs [key],(1790–1868), German mathematician and astronomer, b. Schulpforta, Saxony. A professor of astronomy at the Univ. of Leipzig, he made im...

astrometry

(Encyclopedia)astrometry: see astronomy.

Ganesa

(Encyclopedia)Ganesa gənāˈsə [key], b. 1507, d. after 1564, Indian astronomer. As a boy of 13 in a village N of Mumbai, Ganesa wrote a treatise on astronomy, the Grahalaghava, which has often been reprinted and...

Burnham, Sherburne Wesley

(Encyclopedia)Burnham, Sherburne Wesley, 1838–1921, American astronomer, b. Thetford, Vt. After serving as observer at Dearborn Observatory, Chicago (1877–81, 1882–84), and as astronomer at Lick Observatory (...

Reber, Gröte

(Encyclopedia)Reber, Gröte, 1911–2002, American radio engineer, b. Chicago, Ill. After graduating from the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1933, Reber worked for seve...