An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A star showing the → Blazhko effect.

→ Blazhko effect; → star.

A star belonging to a variety of stars located above the → horizontal branch and blueward of the → red giant branch in the → Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of the → halo population.

→ blue; → halo; → star.

Setâregân plural of setâré, → star, âbi, → blue, hâlé, → halo.

A late → O-type star or an early → B-type star in whose spectrum the lines of some of the elements → carbon (C), → nitrogen (N), and → oxygen (O) are present.

→ CNO; → star.

An → O-type star which is apparently not associated with a → star cluster. A significant fraction of → massive stars in the → Milky Way and other galaxies are located far from star clusters and → star-forming regions. It is known that some of these stars are → runaways, i.e. possess high → space velocities (determined through the → proper motion and/or → radial velocity measurements), and therefore most likely were formed in embedded clusters and then ejected into the field because of dynamical interactions or → binary-→ supernova explosions. However, there exists a group of field O stars whose runaway status is difficult to prove via direct proper motion measurements or whose low space velocities and/or young ages appear to be incompatible with their large separation from known star clusters. The existence of this group led some authors to believe that these stars can form → in situ. The question of whether or not O stars can form in isolation (→ isolated massive star formation) is of crucial importance for → star formation models (Gvaramadze et al., 2012, MNRAS, 424, 3037).

→ field; → O star.

A luminous, hot, blue star whose spectrum is dominated by the lines of hydrogen, atomic helium, and ionized helium; also known as O-type star. This is the earliest → spectral type and the only → main sequence star in which ionized helium is present. The → effective temperatures of these stars range from about 30,000 K to 50,000 K, their luminosities from 50,000 to 1,000,000 times that of → solar luminosity, and their masses from about 20 to 100 → solar masses. The hottest O-type stars display high ionization emission features such as N III and He II, → Of star. They are divided into subtypes O2, the hottest, to O9.7, the coldest. O-type stars are relatively rare, for each star of 100 solar masses there are 10⁶ stars of solar mass. They are relatively short-lived since they spend only a few million years on the main sequence. The brightest O-type star in the sky visible with naked eye is → Alnitak. For prominent Galactic O stars see → HD 93129.

O, letter of alphabet used in the Harvard spectral classification; → star.

A star which is a source of emission at radio frequencies. Radio stars include pulsars, flare stars, binary star systems in which mass is transferred from one component to the other, and some X-ray stars.

→ radio; → star.

A general whole-sky catalog compiled by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory which results from the combination of several earlier catalogs. The compilation gives positions and proper motions for 258,997 stars, of which 8,712 are double and 499 variable, with an average distribution of 6 stars per square degree. The star positions have an average standard deviation of 0''.2 at their original epochs (0''.5 at epoch 1963.5). The equinox is 1950.0 and the system that of the FK4.

SAO acrynome of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; → star; → catalog.