astronomers and stars Flashcards
Ptolemy
Ptolemy was a Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises.
Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center.
Brahe, Tycho
Tycho was a Danish astronomer, known for his comprehensive and unprecedentedly accurate astronomical observations.
Kepler, Johannes
Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music.
Galileo
Galileo was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath.
Newton, Isaac
was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his time as a natural philosopher.
Hubble, Edwin
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extra galactic astronomy and observational cosmology.
Ursa major
Ursa Major is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory.
Ursa Minor
Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation located in the far northern sky.
Orion
Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world.
Canis major
Canis Major is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere.
Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky named after the vain queen Cassiopeia, mother of Andromeda, in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivaled beauty.
Red giant
a dying star in the final stages of stellar evolution.
White dwarf
what stars like the Sun become after they have exhausted their nuclear fuel.
Main-sequence star
any star that has a hot, dense core which fuses hydrogen into helium to produce energy.
Supernova
a powerful and luminous explosion of a star.
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape its event horizon.
Parallax
the observed displacement of an object caused by the change of the observer’s point of view.
Light-year
the distance light travels in one Earth year.
Polaris
Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor.
