An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A → galactic disk that has undergone → disk settling.

→ settle; → disk.

A dark disk seen in absorption against the bright nebular background. → proplyd.

From Fr. silhouette, in allusion to Étienne de Silhouette (1709-67), Fr. controller general of finances in 1759; perhaps from his ephemeral tenure; → disk.

Gerdé, → disk; siyah-rox, from siyah, → black, + rox, variant of ru(y) "face, surface; aspect; appearance," (Mid.Pers. rôy, rôdh "face;" Av. raoδa- "growth," in plural form "appearance," from raod- "to grow, sprout, shoot;" cf. Skt. róha- "rising, height").

The apparent shape of the → Sun's → photosphere.

→ solar; → disk.

A disk component of a → spiral galaxy that lies above the → thin disk and mainly consists of stars. The thick disk of our → Galaxy makes up about 10-50% of the stellar mass of the → Milky Way and has a scale height of ~ 1,000-3,000 → light-years. Thick disk stars are, on average, moving faster in a vertical direction with respect to the → galactic plane than thin disk stars. In contrast to thin disk, the stars within the thick disk are almost all older than 10 billion years and typically have a smaller → metallicity than the average values for the thin disk stars. These facts suggest that the formation scenarios for the thin and thick disks were different. In particular, it is thought that the thick disk is much older than the thin disk.

→ thick; → disk;

A disk component of a → spiral galaxy containing → stars, → gas, and → dust which are confined to the galaxy's → plane of rotation. In contrast to → thick disks, thin disks contain the bulk of the → baryonic matter in spiral galaxies. For example, on the order of 60-90% of the baryonic matter in the → Milky Way is located in the thin disk. The scale height of the thin disk in the Milky Way is about 400 → light-years, whereas its scale length is about 10,000 light-years. Moreover, the outer regions of thin disks appear to be bent by the → warp phenomenon. The thin disks of spiral galaxies are active sites of → star formation, especially in the spiral arms. For this reason, stars in the thin disk tend to be relatively young. Thin disk stars also tend to be → metal-rich compared with thick disk and → halo stars, and typically have a → metallicity similar to that of the Sun.

→ thin; → disk;

The → accretion disk of a → T Tauri star that displays very weak or no → infrared excess at → near infrared wavelengths, but shows strong excess at → intermediate infrared and longer wavelengths. This happens when the hot inner dust disk has dissipated whereas the cooler outer disk is still intact.

→ transition; → disk.

A model for explaining several observational features of → circumstellar disks around → Be stars. According to this model, the central star provides → angular momentum to the disk at the innermost radius, and then it is redistributed over the whole disk via → viscosity. Thus, in isolated Be stars, the equatorial disk can spread out to a large distance as long as the star can give angular momentum to the disk. The VDD model, first introduced by Lee et al. (1991, MNRAS, 250, 432) and further developed by several other researchers, is now widely accepted as the best physical model for describing the circumstellar disks of Be stars. Among the growing evidence supporting the VDD model is the confirmation that the disks rotate in a Keplerian way (→ Keplerian orbit), allowing for the identification of viscosity as the mechanism that makes the disk grow (see, e.g., Klement et al., 2015, A&A 584, A85).

→ viscous; → decretion; → disk.

A → galactic disk that exhibits a → warp phenomenon.

→ warp; → disk.