An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
English-French-Persian

A prominent circumpolar → constellation in the northern sky. Its brightest stars form a distinctive, turning W shape. Abbreviation Cas, genitive form Cassiopeiae.

L. Cassiopea, from Gk. Kassiepeia, Andromeda's mother and king Cepheus of Ethiopia's wife, who boasted about her beauty to the degree that she considered herself more beautiful than the sea-nymphs. The consequences were awful for her daughter → Andromeda.

A → yellow hypergiant in the constellation Cassiopeia, classified as F8-G2 Ia0pe. Rho Cas is about 11,650 light-years away from Earth, yet can still be seen by the naked eye, as it is 550,000 times as luminous as the Sun. It is in fact one of the most luminous stars in our Galaxy. ρ Cas is also one of the only seven currently known yellow hypergiants in the Milky Way. It is variable and fluctuates around magnitude 5 but dimmed to 6th magnitude on 1946. Its last eruption happened in 2000-2001, during which the star ejected about 10 percent of a solar mass, dimmed by more than a full magnitude, and changed its spectral type from late F to early M. During this outburst, the star surface cooled from 7,000 to 4,000 K.

Rho, a Gk. letter of alphabet used in → Bayer designation; Cassiopeiae, genitive of → Cassiopeia.

The brightest star in the constellation → Cassiopeia. It is a supergiant K0 III star with a visual magnitude of 2.23 at a distance of 230 light-years. It has a large luminosity, 855 times that of our Sun, and a notable size, 48 times that of the Sun. Its effective temperature is 4530 K. Name variants: Schedar, Shedar, and Schedir. Also known as HR 168 and HD 3712.

From Ar. as-sadr (الصدر) "chest, breast," contraction of as-sadr-al-Zat-al-kursi (الصدر‌الذات‌الکرسی) "the chest of the throne's owner" or "the chest of the seated one" referring to the Ar. rendering of the character in Gk. mythology.