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Young, Charles Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Young, Charles Augustus, 1834–1908, American astronomer, b. Hanover, N.H., grad. Dartmouth, 1853. He discovered the reversing layer of the solar atmosphere and proved the gaseous nature of the sun's...

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

(Encyclopedia)National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), federal observatory for radio astronomy, founded in 1956 and operated under contract with the National Science Foundation by Associated Universities, Inc.,...

halo, in meteorology

(Encyclopedia)halo, in meteorology, short-lived circles or arcs, and less commonly spikes and crosses, of colored or whitish light surrounding the moon or sun or in clouds as seen from above. A halo occurs when the...

phoenix, in mythology

(Encyclopedia)phoenix, fabulous bird that periodically regenerated itself, used in literature as a symbol of death and resurrection. According to legend, the phoenix lived in Arabia; when it reached the end of its ...

opposition

(Encyclopedia)opposition, in astronomy, alignment of two celestial bodies on opposite sides of the sky as viewed from earth. Opposition of the moon or planets is often determined in reference to the sun. Only the s...

quadrature

(Encyclopedia)quadrature, in astronomy, arrangement of two celestial bodies at right angles to each other as viewed from a reference point. If the reference point is the earth and the sun is one of the bodies, a pl...

atlas, in geography

(Encyclopedia)atlas, in geography, collection of maps or charts. It usually includes data on various features of a country, e.g., its topography, natural resources, climate, and population, as well as its agricultu...

radial velocity

(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. ...

Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich

(Encyclopedia)Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich yôsˈĭf səmo͞oēlˈəvĭch shklŏfˈskē [key], 1916–85, Soviet astronomer. He was head of the department of radio-astronomy at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute,...

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