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

Not occurring naturally; produced by man.

M.E., from O.Fr., from L. artificialis "belonging to art," from artificium "craftsmanship."

Sâxtegi "artificial," from sâxtan "to build, to make," → structure.

A shallow flat vessel filled with → mercury or some other viscous → liquid used in special → sextant for measuring altitudes of celestial bodies at sea in the absence of a → visible horizon.

→ artificial; → horizon.

An artificially created language system for international communication or for a specific intellectual or scientific purpose. Examples include Esperanto, computer programing languages, → symbolic logic, and → tensor analysis.

→ artificial; → language.

Any light other than that which proceeds from the heavenly bodies.

→ artificial; → light.

A man-made equipment that orbits around Earth or a solar system body.

→ artificial; → satellite.

In → adaptive optics, a point source created on the sky by means of a laser beam in order to correct for the → atmospheric turbulence. A laser tuned to the wavelength of 589 nm will excite sodium atoms at an altitude of ~ 100 km in the Earth's atmosphere, producing an artificial "star."

→ artificial; → star.