Science Dictionary
Do you know what a meteor is, or what scientists mean when they are talking about cryogenics? Our collection of science terms explains the meaning of some of the most common scientific ideas.
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Quasar
Quasar, or Quasi-stellar Object (QSO), a starlike object displaying an unusually large red shift.
Magellanic Clouds
Magellanic Clouds, three irregularly shaped galaxies that lie some 150,000 to 200,000 light-years from earth.
Nostradamus
Nostradamus, the Latin name of Michel de Notredame (1503-1566), a French astrologer and physician.
Cassini, Giovanni Domenico
Cassini, Giovanni Domenico (Jean Dominique) (1625-1712), an Italian astronomer. As a skilled observer using the most accurate telescopes available at the time, Cassini made many important discoveries about the planets of the solar system.
Flammarion, (Nicolas) Camille
Flammarion, (Nicolas) Camille (1842-1925), a French astronomer. He was the author of many popular books on astronomy, including The Atmosphere (1871), Popular Astronomy (1879), and Astronomy for Amateurs (1904).
Clark, Alvan
Clark, Alvan (1804-1887), a United States maker of astronomical lenses. Five times his firm, Alvan Clark & Sons, made the then-largest telescope lens in the world.
Cannon, Annie Jump
Cannon, Annie Jump (1863-1941), a United States astronomer. She had a long, distinguished career at Harvard Observatory, 18961940, and was one of the foremost women scientists of her time.
Antony Hewish
Hewish, Antony (1924-) is a British astronomer and astrophysicist, a scientist who studies the physical nature, origin, and development of the solar system, galaxies, and the universe.
Eddington, Sir Arthur Stanley
Eddington, Sir Arthur Stanley (1882--1944), a British astronomer. As chief assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, 1906--13, he began his studies of the motion, internal structure, and evolution of stars.
Hall, Asaph
Hall, Asaph (18291907), a United States astronomer. In 1877 Hall discovered the two satellites of Mars, naming them Deimos and Phobos.
Lovell, Sir Bernard
Lovell, Sir (Alfred Charles) Bernard (1913-), an English astronomer. In 1946 Lovell demonstrated the validity of using the techniques of radio astronomy to study meteors.
Carolyn Shoemaker
Shoemaker, Carolyn (1929-) is an American astronomer. She has discovered more comets than any other living astronomer.
Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin
Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia Helena (1900-1979) was a British-born astronomer who became an authority on variable stars (stars that change in brightness) and the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Young, Charles Augustus
Young, Charles Augustus (1834-1908) was a United States astronomer noted for his spectroscopic studies of the sun.
Abbot, Charles Greeley
Abbot, Charles Greeley (1872-1973) was a United States astrophysicist and authority on solar radiation.
Mason, Charles
Mason, Charles (1730-1787), an English astronomer and surveyor. In addition to surveying the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, Jeremiah Dixon and he fixed the precise measure of a degree of latitude in America.
Charles Messier
Messier, Charles (1730-1817), a French astronomer, discovered or independently codiscovered some 20 comets, earning him the nickname the “ferret of comets” by King Louis XV.
Clyde William Tombaugh
Tombaugh, Clyde William (1906-1997) was an American astronomer who discovered the dwarf planet Pluto.
David H. Levy
Levy, David H. (1948) is an amateur astronomer who helped discover the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.
Rittenhouse, David
Rittenhouse, David (1732-1796) was a United States astronomer and mathematician. Next to Benjamin Franklin, he was the most respected American man of science of his time.
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