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Spectral Index
In astronomy, the spectral index of a source is a measure of the dependence of radiative flux density (that is, radiative flux per unit of frequency) on frequency. Given frequency \nu and radiative flux density S_\nu, the spectral index \alpha is given implicitly by :S_\nu\propto\nu^\alpha. Note that if flux does not follow a power law in frequency, the spectral index itself is a function of frequency. Rearranging the above, we see that the spectral index is given by :\alpha \! \left( \nu \right) = \frac. Clearly the power law can only apply over a certain range of frequency because otherwise the integral over all frequencies would be infinite. Spectral index is also sometimes defined in terms of wavelength \lambda. In this case, the spectral index \alpha is given implicitly by :S_\lambda\propto\lambda^\alpha, and at a given frequency, spectral index may be calculated by taking the derivative :\alpha \! \left( \lambda \right) =\frac. The spectral index using the S_\nu, which we may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest include planets, natural satellite, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxy, galaxies, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history made methodical observations of the night sky. These include the Babylonian astronomy, Babylonians, Greek astronomy, Greeks, Indian astronomy, Indians, Egyptian astronomy, Egyptians, Chinese astronomy, Chinese, Maya civilization, Maya, and many anc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is equal to one event per second. The period is the interval of time between events, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency. For example, if a heart beats at a frequency of 120 times a minute (2 hertz), the period, —the interval at which the beats repeat—is half a second (60 seconds divided by 120 beats). Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio signals (sound), radio waves, and light. Definitions and units For cyclical phenomena such as oscillations, waves, or for examples of simple harmonic motion, the term ''frequency'' is defined as the number of cycles or vibrations per unit of time. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiative Flux
Radiative flux, also known as radiative flux density or radiation flux (or sometimes power flux density), is the amount of Power (physics), power radiated through a given area, in the form of photons or other elementary particles, typically measured in W/m2. It is used in astronomy to determine the Apparent magnitude, magnitude and Stellar classification, spectral class of a star and in meteorology to determine the intensity of the convection in the planetary boundary layer. Radiative flux also acts as a generalization of heat flux, which is equal to the radiative flux when restricted to the infrared spectrum. When radiative flux is incident on a surface, it is often called irradiance. Flux emitted from a surface may be called radiant exitance or radiant emittance. The ratio of irradiance reflected to the irradiance received by a surface is called albedo. Shortwave radiation flux Shortwave flux is a result of specular and diffuse reflection of incident shortwave radiation by the un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Law
In statistics, a power law is a Function (mathematics), functional relationship between two quantities, where a Relative change and difference, relative change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in the other quantity, independent of the initial size of those quantities: one quantity varies as a Exponentiation, power of another. For instance, considering the area of a square in terms of the length of its side, if the length is doubled, the area is multiplied by a factor of four. Empirical examples The distributions of a wide variety of physical, biological, and man-made phenomena approximately follow a power law over a wide range of magnitudes: these include the sizes of craters on the moon and of solar flares, the foraging pattern of various species, the sizes of activity patterns of neuronal populations, the frequencies of words in most languages, frequencies of family names, the species richness in clades of organisms, the sizes of power outages, volcanic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a characteristic of both traveling waves and standing waves, as well as other spatial wave patterns. The inverse of the wavelength is called the spatial frequency. Wavelength is commonly designated by the Greek letter ''lambda'' (λ). The term ''wavelength'' is also sometimes applied to modulated waves, and to the sinusoidal envelopes of modulated waves or waves formed by interference of several sinusoids. Assuming a sinusoidal wave moving at a fixed wave speed, wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency of the wave: waves with higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies have longer wavelengths. Wavelength depends on the medium (for example, vacuum, air, or water) that a wav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermal Emission
Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation generated by the thermal motion of particles in matter. Thermal radiation is generated when heat from the movement of charges in the material (electrons and protons in common forms of matter) is converted to electromagnetic radiation. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation. At room temperature, most of the emission is in the infrared (IR) spectrum. Particle motion results in charge-acceleration or dipole oscillation which produces electromagnetic radiation. Infrared radiation emitted by animals (detectable with an infrared camera) and cosmic microwave background radiation are examples of thermal radiation. If a radiation object meets the physical characteristics of a black body in thermodynamic equilibrium, the radiation is called blackbody radiation. Planck's law describes the spectrum of blackbody radiation, which depends solely on the object's temperature. Wien's displacement law ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synchrotron Emission
Synchrotron radiation (also known as magnetobremsstrahlung radiation) is the electromagnetic radiation emitted when relativistic charged particles are subject to an acceleration perpendicular to their velocity (). It is produced artificially in some types of particle accelerators, or naturally by fast electrons moving through magnetic fields. The radiation produced in this way has a characteristic polarization and the frequencies generated can range over a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Synchrotron radiation is similar to bremsstrahlung radiation, which is emitted by a charged particle when the acceleration is parallel to the direction of motion. The general term for radiation emitted by particles in a magnetic field is ''gyromagnetic radiation'', for which synchrotron radiation is the ultra-relativistic special case. Radiation emitted by charged particles moving non-relativistically in a magnetic field is called cyclotron emission. For particles in the mildly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rayleigh–Jeans Law
In physics, the Rayleigh–Jeans law is an approximation to the spectral radiance of electromagnetic radiation as a function of wavelength from a black body at a given temperature through classical arguments. For wavelength λ, it is: B_ (T) = \frac, where B_ is the spectral radiance, the power emitted per unit emitting area, per steradian, per unit wavelength; c is the speed of light; k_ is the Boltzmann constant; and T is the temperature in kelvin. For frequency \nu, the expression is instead B_(T) = \frac. The Rayleigh–Jeans law agrees with experimental results at large wavelengths (low frequencies) but strongly disagrees at short wavelengths (high frequencies). This inconsistency between observations and the predictions of classical physics is commonly known as the ultraviolet catastrophe. Its resolution in 1900 with the derivation by Max Planck of Planck's law, which gives the correct radiation at all frequencies, was a foundational aspect of the development of quantum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermal Radiation
Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation generated by the thermal motion of particles in matter. Thermal radiation is generated when heat from the movement of charges in the material (electrons and protons in common forms of matter) is converted to electromagnetic radiation. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation. At room temperature, most of the emission is in the infrared (IR) spectrum. Particle motion results in charge-acceleration or dipole oscillation which produces electromagnetic radiation. Infrared radiation emitted by animals (detectable with an infrared camera) and cosmic microwave background radiation are examples of thermal radiation. If a radiation object meets the physical characteristics of a black body in thermodynamic equilibrium, the radiation is called blackbody radiation. Planck's law describes the spectrum of blackbody radiation, which depends solely on the object's temperature. Wien's displacement law de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wien's Displacement Law
Wien's displacement law states that the black-body radiation curve for different temperatures will peak at different wavelengths that are inversely proportional to the temperature. The shift of that peak is a direct consequence of the Planck radiation law, which describes the spectral brightness or intensity of black-body radiation as a function of wavelength at any given temperature. However, it had been discovered by Wilhelm Wien several years before Max Planck developed that more general equation, and describes the entire shift of the spectrum of black-body radiation toward shorter wavelengths as temperature increases. Formally, Wien's displacement law states that the spectral radiance of black-body radiation per unit wavelength, peaks at the wavelength ''λ''peak given by: :\lambda_\text = \frac where ''T'' is the absolute temperature. ''b'' is a constant of proportionality called ''Wien's displacement constant'', equal to or . This is an inverse relationship between wave ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfram Research
Wolfram Research, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational company that creates computational technology. Wolfram's flagship product is the technical computing program Wolfram Mathematica, first released on June 23, 1988. Other products include WolframAlpha, Wolfram SystemModeler, Wolfram Workbench, gridMathematica, Wolfram Finance Platform, webMathematica, the Wolfram Cloud, and the Wolfram Programming Lab. Wolfram Research founder Stephen Wolfram is the CEO. The company is headquartered in Champaign, Illinois, United States. History The company launched Wolfram Alpha, an answer engine on May 16, 2009. It brings a new approach to knowledge generation and acquisition that involves large amounts of curated computable data in addition to semantic indexing of text. Wolfram Research acquired MathCore Engineering AB on March 30, 2011. On July 21, 2011, Wolfram Research launched the Computable Document Format (CDF). CDF is an electronic document format designed to allow easy authorin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Astronomy
Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observations have identified a number of different sources of radio emission. These include stars and galaxies, as well as entirely new classes of objects, such as radio galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and masers. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, regarded as evidence for the Big Bang theory, was made through radio astronomy. Radio astronomy is conducted using large radio antennas referred to as radio telescopes, that are either used singularly, or with multiple linked telescopes utilizing the techniques of radio interferometry and aperture synthesis. The use of interferometry allows radio astronomy to achieve high angular resolution, as the resolving power of an interferometer is set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
