A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity,with a higher concentration of stars towards its center. It can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars,all orbiting in a stable,compact formation. Globular clusters are similar in form to dwarf spheroidal galaxies,and though globular clusters were long held to be the more luminous of the two,discoveries of outliers had made the distinction between the two less clear by the early 21st century. Their name is derived from Latin globulus. Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as "globulars".
A planetary nebula is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding,glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives.
In 1944,Walter Baade categorized groups of stars within the Milky Way into stellar populations. In the abstract of the article by Baade,he recognizes that Jan Oort originally conceived this type of classification in 1926.
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline,James Keeler,said,astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies,rather than their positions or motions in space–what they are,rather than where they are",which is studied in celestial mechanics.
In astronomy,metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal currently detectable matter in the universe is either hydrogen or helium,and astronomers use the word "metals" as convenient shorthand for "all elements except hydrogen and helium". This word-use is distinct from the conventional chemical or physical definition of a metal as an electrically conducting solid. Stars and nebulae with relatively high abundances of heavier elements are called "metal-rich" when discussing metallicity,even though many of those elements are called nonmetals in chemistry.
The Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is located near the summit of Mauna Kea mountain on Hawaii's Big Island at an altitude of 4,204 meters,part of the Mauna Kea Observatory. Operational since 1979,the telescope is a Prime Focus/Cassegrain configuration with a usable aperture diameter of 3.58 metres (11.7 ft).
The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST),also known as the Guo Shoujing Telescope after the 13th-century Chinese astronomer,is a meridian reflecting Schmidt telescope,located in Xinglong Station,Hebei Province,China. Undertaken by the Chinese Academy of Sciences,the telescope is planned to conduct a 5-year spectroscopic survey of 10 million Milky Way stars,as well as millions of galaxies. The project's budget is RMB 235 million yuan.
A Pea galaxy,also referred to as a Pea or Green Pea,might be a type of luminous blue compact galaxy that is undergoing very high rates of star formation. Pea galaxies are so-named because of their small size and greenish appearance in the images taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).
Hercules,or Her,is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy situated in the Hercules constellation and discovered in 2006 in data obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The galaxy is located at a distance of about 140 kpc from the Sun and moves away from the Sun with a velocity of about 45 km/s. It is classified as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph). It has a noticeably elongated shape with a half-light radius of about 350 pc. The cause of this elongation is under debate. Some studies have found a gradient of velocities across the galaxy's body and a faint stellar stream associated with the galaxy,suggesting that the elongation may be caused by tidal forces acting from the Milky Way galaxy. However,other studies failed to find a velocity gradient or an associated stellar stream,suggesting that it is not being tidally disrupted.
Catherine Heymans is a British astrophysicist,the Astronomer Royal for Scotland,and a professor at the University of Edinburgh based at the Royal Observatory,Edinburgh.
Alice Eve Shapley is a professor at the University of California,Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She was one of the discoverers of the spiral galaxy BX442. Through her time at University of California,Los Angeles (UCLA) she has taught Nature of the Universe,Black Holes and Cosmic Catastrophes,Cosmology:Our Changing Concepts of the Universe,Galaxies,Scientific Writing,AGNs,Galaxies,*and* Writing,and The Formation and Evolution of Galaxies and the IGM. Shapley has committed herself to over a two decades of research and publication in the interest of physics and astronomy.
The SLUGGS survey is an astronomical survey of 25 nearby early-type galaxies. This survey uses a combination of imaging from Subaru/Suprime-Cam and spectroscopy from Keck/DEIMOS to investigate the chemo-dynamical properties of both the diffuse starlight and the globular cluster systems of the target galaxies. Pilot data for the survey was obtained in 2006 and data acquisition was completed in 2017.
Laura Ferrarese is a researcher in space science at the National Research Council of Canada. Her primary work has been performed using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
Sara Ellison is an Astronomy Professor at University of Victoria. Her work involves observational extragalactic astronomy,galaxy mergers and evolution,galactic chemistry and active galactic nuclei.
Sidney Carne Wolff is an American astrophysicist,researcher,public educator,and author. She is the first woman in the United States to head a major observatory,and she provided significant contributions to the construction of six telescopes. Wolff served as Director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). She is a member of the International Astronomical Union's Division G:Stars and Stellar Physics.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is a collaborative project by a new and enlarged partnership to revitalize the Canada-France-Hawai‘i Telescope (CFHT) observatory through replacing the existing 1970-vintage optical telescope with a modern segmented-mirror telescope and dedicated science instrumentation,while substantially re-using the existing Maunakea summit building and facility. At the highest level the objectives of MSE are to enhance scientific research and education for the partner communities. MSE will use an 11.25 meter aperture telescope and dedicated multiobject fibre spectroscopy instrumentation to perform survey science observations,collecting spectra from more than 4,000 astronomical targets simultaneously.
Claudia Maraston is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth. She designs models for the calculation of spectro-photometric evolution of stellar populations. She is the winner of the 2018 Royal Astronomical Society Eddington Medal.
Robert Michael Rich is an American astrophysicist. He obtained his B.A. at Pomona College in 1979 and earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1986 under thesis supervisor Jeremy Mould. He was a Carnegie Fellow at Carnegie/DTM until 1988,when he became an assistant professor of astronomy at Columbia University;during this period,he was the doctoral advisor to Neil deGrasse Tyson. After two years (1996-1998) as a senior research scientist at Columbia,he joined the University of California,Los Angeles as a research astronomer in 1998. As of 2024,he remains affiliated with UCLA as a researcher emeritus/adjunct professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics.
Louise Olivia Violet Edwards is a Canadian astronomer and associate professor of physics at California Polytechnic State University,and is one of the first Black Canadians to receive a PhD in astronomy. In 2002,she was pictured on a Canadian stamp.
