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

A year based solely on the Moon's motion, containing 12 synodic months, each of 29.5306 days, that is a year of 354.3672 days. Used by Hebrews, Babylonians, Greeks, and Arabs.

→ lunar; → year.

The rocks that make up the bright portions of the lunar surface.

From → lunar + ite a suffix used to form the names of minerals, such as hematite and malachite.

The interval of a complete lunar cycle, between one new Moon and the next, that is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 2.8 seconds. or 29.5306 days. → synodic month.

M.E. lunacyon, from M.L. lunation-.

Mahâyand, literally "coming, arrival of the Moon," from mâh→ moon + âyand "coming, arrival," present stem of âmadan "to come"; O.Pers. aitiy "goes;" Av. ay- "to go, to come," aēiti "goes;" Skt. e- "to come near," eti "arrival;" Gk ion " going," neut. pr.p. of ienai "to go;" L. ire "to go;" Goth. iddja "went," Lith. eiti "to go;" Rus. idti "to go;" from PIE base *ei- "to go, to walk."

A calendar in which the → solar year consists of 12 or 13 lunar → synodic months. Lunisolar calendars are → solar calendars, but use the lunar month as the basic unit rather than the → solar day. The 13th → embolismic month is to keep lunar and solar cycles in pace with each other. The reason is that the solar year has about 365 days, but 12 lunar months amount to 354 days, which is about 11 days short of a year. The most well-known lunisolar calendars are the Babylonian, Hebrew, and Chinese.

From luni-, from → lunar, + → solar; → calendar.

→ precession of the equator.

From luni-, from → lunar, + → solar; → precession.

The Wolf. A constellation in the southern hemisphere, located at about 15h right ascension, 45° south declination. Abbreviation: Lup; genitive: Lupi.

L. lupus "wolf," PIE *wlqwos/*lukwos; cf. Pers. gorg, as below; Gk. lykos; Albanian ulk; O.C.S. vluku; Rus. volcica; Lith. vilkas "wolf;" P.Gmc. *wulfaz (cf. O.S. wulf, O.N. ulfr, O.Fris., Du., O.H.G., Ger., E. wolf).

Gorg "wolf," Aftari dialect varg, M.Pers. gurg, O.Pers. Varkana- "Hyrcania," district southeast of the Caspian Sea, literally "wolf-land," today Iran Gorgân; Khotanese birgga-; Sogdian wyrky; Av. vəhrka-; Skt. vrka-.

Any of the several → dark clouds lying in the direction of the constellation → Lupus between → Galactic longitudes 334° < l < 352° and → Galactic latitudes +5° < b < +25°. In terms of angular extent the whole group is one of the largest low-mass star forming complexes on the sky, and it also contains one of the richest associations of → T Tauri stars. An average distance of about 150 pc places it among the nearest star forming regions, together with those in Corona Australis, Ophiuchus, Taurus-Auriga, and Chamaeleon (Comeron, 2008, in Handbook of Star Forming Regions Vol. II, PASP, Reipurth, ed.).

→ Lupus; → dark; → cloud.

An large nonthermal radio source in the constellation → Lupus, identified as a very old supernova remnant. It is also an extended source of soft X-rays.

→ Lupus; → loop.

A large → main belt  → asteroid that belongs to a sub-type of hydrated → M-type asteroids. It is an elongated body with its longest side around 130 km. The → Rosetta space probe flew by Lutetia and gathered data on it in 2008. Lutetia was discovered on November 15, 1852, by Hermann Goldschmidt (1802-1866) from the balcony of his apartment in Paris.

Named → Lutetia from L. Lutetia Parisiorum, literally "Parisian swamps," the Gallo-Roman city that was the ancestor of present-day Paris.

A systematic error that can be introduced when → trigonometric parallaxes are used to calibrate a luminosity system. The bias arises when stars are selected by a lower limit in the observed parallax values. This favors the stars for which the measured parallax result is relatively too large.

Named after Th. Lutz & D.H. E. Kelker, 1973, PASP 85, 573; → bias.

SI unit of illumination equal to a luminous flux of 1 lumen per square meter. SI unit of luminous incidence or illuminance, equal to 1 lumen per square meter.

From Gk. lux "light," → lumen.

Theodore Lyman (1874-1954), an American physicist who was a pioneer in studying the spectroscopy of the → extreme ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic radiation.
→ Lyman alpha blob, → Lyman alpha emitting galaxy (LAEs), → Lyman alpha forest, → Lyman alpha line, → Lyman alpha nebula , → Lyman band, → Lyman break, → Lyman break galaxy, → Lyman continuum, → Lyman continuum escape, → Lyman limit, → Lyman ghost, → Lyman series, → Lyman-Werner photon.

Named for Th. Lyman, as above.

A gigantic cloud of → hydrogen hydrogen gas emitting the → Lyman alpha line identified in → high redshift, → narrow band → surveys. LABs can span hundreds of thousands of → light-years that is larger than galaxies. Normally, Lyman alpha emission is in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, but Lyman alpha blobs are so distant, their light is redshifted to (longer) optical wavelengths. The most important questions in LAB studies remain unanswered: how are they formed and what maintains their power? One of the largest LABs known is SSA22-LAB-01 (z = 3.1). Embedded in the core of a huge → cluster of galaxies in the early stages of formation, it was the very first such object to be discovered (in 2000) and is located so far away that its light has taken about 11.5 billion years to reach us. Recent observations of SSA22-LAB-01 using → ALMA shows two galaxies at the core of this object and they are undergoing a burst of → star formation that is lighting up their surroundings. These large galaxies are in turn at the centre of a swarm of smaller ones in what appears to be an early phase in the formation of a massive cluster of galaxies (see J. E. Geach et al. 2016, arXiv:1608.02941).

→ Lyman; → alpha; → blob.

A galaxy belonging to an important population of low mass → star-forming galaxies at → redshift z > 2. Their number increases with redshift. A large fraction of the → dwarf starburst galaxies during the → reionization epoch may be intrinsic LAEs, but their Lyα photons can be scattered by the → neutral hydrogen (H I) in the → intergalactic medium (IGM), which makes Lyα line a powerful probe of reionization. These high-z LAEs have low → metallicity, low stellar masses, low dust → extinction, and compact sizes. The current best nearby analogs of high-z LAEs are → Green Pea galaxies (Yang et al, 2017, arxiv/1706.02819 and references therein).

→ Lyman alpha line; → emit; → -ing; → galaxy.

The appearance of many differentially → redshifted→ Lyman alpha lines in → absorption in a → quasar's → spectrum, caused by intervening → hydrogen clouds along our → line of sight to the quasar.

→ Lyman; → forest.

The spectral line in the → Lyman series which is associated with the → atomic transition between → energy levels n = 2 and n = 1. The corresponding wavelength is 1216 Å in the → far ultraviolet.

→ Lyman; → line.

A huge gaseous nebula (≥ 50 kpc) lying at high → redshifts (z ~ 2-6) and strongly emitting radiation due to the → Lyman alpha line (luminosities of  ≥ 10⁴³ erg s^-1) of hydrogen gas. Also called Lyman alpha blobs, they are thought to lie in massive (M ~ 10¹³ solar masses) → dark matter halos, which would subsequently evolve into those typical of rich → galactic clusters.

→ Lyman; → nebula.

A sequence of → permitted transitions in the → ultraviolet from an → excited state (B) of the → molecular hydrogen (H₂) to the electronic → ground state, with ΔE > 11.2 eV, λ < 1108Å (first → band head). When a hydrogen molecule absorbs such a photon, it undergoes a transition from the ground electronic state to the excited state (B). The following rapid → decay creates an → absorption band in that wavelength range. See also → Werner band. → Lyman-Werner photon.

→ Lyman (Th. Lyman, 1906, Astrophys. J. 23, 181); → band.

The dividing point in a galaxy's spectrum at wavelengths shorter than the → Lyman limit. Galaxies contain large amounts of → neutral hydrogen which is very effective at absorbing radiation shortward of 912 Å. Hence galaxies are virtually dark at these wavelengths.

→ Lyman; → break.

A star-forming galaxy at → high redshift affected by the → Lyman break. Such a galaxy is detected in the red (R, → photometric band) but not in the blue (U and B bands). At those high redshfits (above 2.5), the → Lyman limit at 912 Å is shifted between the U and B bands.

→ Lyman; → break; → galaxy.