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

Any of various plants of the genus Trifolium with three round, green leaves that are joined together. Clovers occasionally have leaves with four leaflets, instead of the usual three.

M.E. clovere; O.E. clafre; cf. M.L.G. klever, M.Du. claver, Du. klaver, O.S. kle, O.H.G. kleo, Ger. Klee "clover," of uncertain origin.

Šabdar, of unknown origin.

A bright → quasar whose image is split into four spots due to → gravitational lensing (Magain et al. 1988, Nature 334, 325). The four images of comparable brightness all lie within 0.7 arc seconds of the image center. The quasar has a → redshift of 2.56, corresponding to a distance of about 11 billion → light-years. Observations indicate that the lensing galaxy is located approximately at the geometrical center of the four images. A firm spectroscopic redshift of the lens has yet to be obtained; however, a → cluster of galaxies at a redshift of z = 1.7 has been suggested to account for the lensing of this system. H1413+117 was the first quasar to be detected in the → submillimeter wave → continuum and in → carbon monoxide emission.

So named because of the optical image; → clover; → leaf; → quasar.