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

A prefix meaning "before, prior to, in advance of, early, beforehand, in front of."

M.E., from O.Fr. pré-, from L. præ (adverb) "before."

Piš- "before; in front," from Mid.Pers. pêš "before, earlier," O.Pers. paišiya "before; in the presence of."

A precursor of a small, loosely bound → star cluster (→ bound cluster) as well as an → OB association, with masses ranging from about 10 to 1000 → solar masses or more.

→ pre-; → cluster; → core.

Same as → PG 1159 star.

→ post-; → degenerate; → star.

A technique in spectroscopy which uses a combination of several dispersive elements (prisms in series or a grism) before focusing the light on the primary disperser, usually a grating, in order to achieve high spectral resolutions.

→ pre-; → dispersion.

A → binary system whose components are → pre-main sequence stars.

→ pre-; → main sequence; → binary.

A → Herbig AeBe star displaying → forbidden emission lines in its spectrum.

→ pre-; → main; → sequence; → B[e] star.

A star that evolves in the → Hayashi phase and has not yet reached the → zero-age main sequence.

→ pre-; → main sequence, → star.

The stage of a star before its eruption to become a nova.

→ pre-; → nova; → stage.

An adjective relating to a stage before the formation of a → protostar. → pre-stellar core.

→ pre-; → stellar.

A small, gravitationally unstable molecular → clump of typical size of less than 0.1 pc resulting from → gravitational collapse and → fragmentation of a larger → molecular cloud. It is a centrally concentrated structure which evolves into a → class 0 object, where eventually a single star or a stellar system is formed. Core masses range between 0.5 and 5 solar masses, with a mean number density of at least 10⁴-10⁵ cm^-3, and a temperature as low as about 10 K. A pre-stellar core evolves into a → Class 0 object. Also called dense core.

→ pre-stellar; → core.

A → post-planetary nebula star that is approaching the top of the → white dwarf sequence. These stars have exhausted the capacity of → nuclear burning in their cores.

→ pre-; → white; → dwarf.