Astronomers and Stars Flashcards
Almagest, a treatise in 13 books
Ptolemy
a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer
Copernicus
a Danish nobleman, astronomer, and writer known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations
Brahe, Tycho
a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer
Kepler, Johannes
an Italian polymath
Galileo
an English mathematician, astronomer, theologian, author and physicist who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time, and a key figure in the scientific revolution
Newton, Isaac
an American astronomer
Hubble, Edwin
a constellation that is the most conspicuous of the northern constellations, is situated near the north pole of the heavens
Ursa major
a constellation that includes the north pole of the heavens
Ursa minor
prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world
Orion
a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere
Canis major
a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty
Cassiopeia
a very large star of high luminosity and low surface temperature
Red Giant
a small very dense star that is typically the size of a planet
White dwarf (star)
any star that is fusing hydrogen in its core and has a stable balance of outward pressure from core nuclear fusion and gravitational forces pushing inward
Main-sequence star
a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its mass
Supernova
a region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can escape
Black Hole
the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions, through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera
Parallax
a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year, which is 9.4607 × 1012 km (nearly 6 trillion miles)
Light-Year
A star located at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper, in the constellation Ursa Minor, approximately 408 light years from Earth, and almost at the north celestial pole. Also called North Star
Polaris (star)
