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Mimosa (star)
Mimosa is the second-brightest object in the southern constellation of Crux (after Acrux), and the 20th-brightest star in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation β Crucis, which is Latinised to Beta Crucis and abbreviated Beta Cru or β Cru. Mimosa forms part of the prominent asterism called the Southern Cross. It is a binary star or a possible triple star system. Nomenclature ''β Crucis'' (Latinised to ''Beta Crucis'') is the system's Bayer designation. Although Mimosa is at roughly −60° declination, and therefore not visible north of 30° latitude, in the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans it was visible north of 40° due to the precession of equinoxes, and these civilizations regarded it as part of the constellation of Centaurus. It bore the traditional names ''Mimosa'' and the historical name ''Becrux'' . ''Mimosa'', which is derived from the Latin for 'actor', may come from the flower of the same name. ''Becrux'' is a modern contraction of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crux
Crux () is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism commonly known as the Southern Cross. It lies on the southern end of the Milky Way's visible band. The name ''Crux'' is Latin for cross. Even though it is the smallest of all 88 modern constellations, Crux is among the most easily distinguished as its four main stars each have an apparent visual magnitude brighter than +2.8. It has attained a high level of cultural significance in many Southern Hemisphere states and nations. Blue-white α Crucis (Acrux) is the most southerly member of the constellation and, at magnitude 0.8, the brightest. The three other stars of the cross appear clockwise and in order of lessening magnitude: β Crucis (Mimosa), γ Crucis (Gacrux), and δ Crucis (Imai). ε Crucis (Ginan) also lies within the cross asterism. Many of these brighter stars are members of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, a large but loose group of hot blue-wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centaurus
Centaurus is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. In Greek mythology, Centaurus represents a centaur; a creature that is half human, half horse (another constellation named after a centaur is one from the zodiac: Sagittarius). Notable stars include Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the Solar System, its neighbour in the sky Beta Centauri, and V766 Centauri, one of the largest stars yet discovered. The constellation also contains Omega Centauri, the brightest globular cluster as visible from Earth and the largest identified in the Milky Way, possibly a remnant of a dwarf galaxy. Notable features Stars Centaurus contains several very bright stars. Its alpha and beta stars are used as "pointer stars" to help observers find the constellation Crux. Centaurus has 281 stars abov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectroscopic Binary
A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in which case they are called ''visual binaries''. Many visual binaries have long orbital periods of several centuries or millennia and therefore have orbits which are uncertain or poorly known. They may also be detected by indirect techniques, such as spectroscopy (''spectroscopic binaries'') or astrometry (''astrometric binaries''). If a binary star happens to orbit in a plane along our line of sight, its components will eclipse and transit each other; these pairs are called ''eclipsing binaries'', or, together with other binaries that change brightness as they orbit, ''photometric binaries''. If components in binary star systems are close enough they can gravitationally distort their mutual outer stellar atmospheres. In some cases, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wulff-Dieter Heintz
Wulff-Dieter Heintz (3 June 1930 – 10 June 2006) was a German astronomer who worked the latter part of his career in the United States. He was Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Swarthmore College. He specialised in the characterisation of binary stars using astrometry. Life Wulff-Dieter Heintz was born in Würzburg, Germany on 3 June 1930. He earned his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Munich in 1953. He did research at thUniversity Observatory Munich'sSouthern Station on Mount Stromlo in Australia. Peter van de Kamp invited him to the Sproul Observatory to be a visiting professor in 1969. He subsequently joined the staff and became observatory director upon the retirement of van de Kamp in 1972. He remained a German citizen. He was an avid and expert chess player and authored a book on the game in German. The Barnard's Star affair Peter van de Kamp, Wulff's predecessor at Swarthmore, made claims since the 1960s of a planetary system around Barnard's Star. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29% of Earth's surface is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth's surface layer is formed of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates the magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of the Earth, deflecting destructive solar winds. The atmosphere of the Earth consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide (CO2) trap a part of the energy from the Sun close to the surface. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere and forms clouds that cover most of the planet. More s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallax
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects show a larger parallax than farther objects when observed from different positions, so parallax can be used to determine distances. To measure large distances, such as the distance of a planet or a star from Earth, astronomers use the principle of parallax. Here, the term ''parallax'' is the semi-angle of inclination between two sight-lines to the star, as observed when Earth is on opposite sides of the Sun in its orbit. These distances form the lowest rung of what is called "the cosmic distance ladder", the first in a succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects, serving as a basis for other distance measurements in astronomy forming the higher rungs of the ladder. Parallax also affects optic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deep Crux Wide Field With Fog
Deep or The Deep may refer to: Places United States * Deep Creek (Appomattox River tributary), Virginia * Deep Creek (Great Salt Lake), Idaho and Utah * Deep Creek (Mahantango Creek tributary), Pennsylvania * Deep Creek (Mojave River tributary), California * Deep Creek (Pine Creek tributary), Pennsylvania * Deep Creek (Soque River tributary), Georgia * Deep Creek (Texas), a tributary of the Colorado River * Deep Creek (Washington), a tributary of the Spokane River * Deep River (Indiana), a tributary of the Little Calumet River * Deep River (Iowa), a minor tributary of the English River * Deep River (North Carolina) * Deep River (Washington), a minor tributary of the Columbia River * Deep Voll Brook, New Jersey, also known as Deep Brook Elsewhere * Deep Creek (Bahamas) * Deep Creek (Melbourne, Victoria), Australia, a tributary of the Maribyrnong River * Deep River (Western Australia) People * Deep (given name) * Deep (rapper), Punjabi rapper from Houston, Texas * Ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta Crucis
Delta Crucis or δ Crucis, also identified as Imai (), is a star in the southern constellation of Crux, and is the faintest of the four bright stars that form the prominent asterism known as the Southern Cross. This star has an apparent magnitude of 2.8, and its proper name was adopted by the International Astronomical Union on 10 August 2018. Imai is a massive, hot and rapidly rotating star that is in the process of evolving into a giant, and is located at a distance of about from the Sun. Nomenclature ''δ Crucis'' ( Latinised to ''Delta Crucis'') is the star's Bayer designation. The International Astronomical Union Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) approved the name ''Imai'' for this star on 10 August 2018 and it is in the list of IAU-approved star names. ''Imai'' is the name selected for the star designated Delta Crucis by the Mursi people of modern-day Ethiopia. The star Imai has some significance as when it "ceases to appear in the evening sky at dusk (around ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamma Crucis
Gacrux it is the third-brightest star in the southern constellation of Crux, the Southern Cross. It has the Bayer designation Gamma Crucis, which is Latinised from γ Crucis and abbreviated Gamma Cru or γ Cru. With an apparent visual magnitude of +1.63, it is the 26th brightest star in the night sky. A line from the two "Pointers", Alpha Centauri through Beta Centauri, leads to within 1° north of this star. Using parallax measurements made during the Hipparcos mission, it is located at a distance of from the Sun. It is the nearest red giant star to the Sun. Nomenclature ''γ Crucis'' (Latinised to ''Gamma Crucis'') is the star's Bayer designation. Since Gacrux is at roughly −60° declination. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but oddly in the era lacked a traditional name, and was visible north of 40° latitude due to the precession of equinoxes. The astronomer Ptolemy counted it as part of the constellation of Centaurus. The historical name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Constellations
Traditional Chinese astronomy has a system of dividing the celestial sphere into asterisms or constellations, known as "officials" ( Chinese ''xīng guān''). The Chinese asterisms are generally smaller than the constellations of Hellenistic tradition. The Song dynasty (13th-century) Suzhou planisphere shows a total of 283 asterisms, comprising a total of 1,565 individual stars. The asterisms are divided into four groups, the Twenty-Eight Mansions (, ''Èrshíbā Xiù'') along the ecliptic, and the Three Enclosures of the northern sky. The southern sky was added as a fifth group in the late Ming Dynasty based on European star charts, comprising an additional 23 asterisms. The Three Enclosures (, ''Sān Yuán'') include the Purple Forbidden Enclosure, which is centered on the north celestial pole and includes those stars which could be seen year-round,Needham, J.Astronomy in Ancient and Medieval China. ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London''. Ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Language
Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the world's population) speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be variants of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered separate languages in a family. Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin (with about 800 million speakers, or 66%), followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min), Wu (74 million, e.g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IAU Working Group On Star Names
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) established a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) in May 2016 to catalog and standardize proper names for stars for the international astronomical community. It operates under Division C – Education, Outreach and Heritage. The IAU states that it is keen to make a distinction between the terms ''name'' and ''designation''. To the IAU, ''name'' refers to the (usually colloquial) term used for a star in everyday conversation, while ''designation'' is solely alphanumerical, and used almost exclusively in official catalogues and for professional astronomy. (The WGSN notes that transliterated Bayer designations (e.g., Tau Ceti) are considered a special historical case and are treated as designations.) Terms of reference The terms of reference for the WGSN for the period 2016–2018 were approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its meeting on 6 May 2016. In summary, these are to: * establish IAU guidelines for the proposal and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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