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

The passing on of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another (OxfordDictionaries.com).

M.E., from M.Fr. hérédité, from O.Fr. eredite "inheritance, legacy," from L. hereditatem (nominative hereditas) "heirship, inheritance," → heritage.

Rigandâšt, literally "possessing heritage," from rigan, → heritage, + dâšt past stem of dâštan "to have, hold, possess, maintain," → property.

→ superheterodyne receiver.

→ heterodyne; → receiver.

Based on chemical composition, the atmosphere is divided into two broad layers: the → homosphere and the heterosphere. The heterosphere has heterogeneous chemical composition, with layered structure, of nitrogen, oxygen, helium, and hydrogen, respectively. The heterosphere begins from about 90 km from the Earth's surface and extends to space.

→ hetero-; → shere.

A cosmological → structure formation model in which the smallest gravitationally bound structures (→ quasars and galaxies) form first, followed by → groups, → galaxy clusters, and → superclusters of galaxies.

→ hierarchical; → structure; → formation.

An array of → IACT telescopes for studying cosmic → gamma rays in the 100 GeV to 100 TeV energy range. The HESS observatory is located in Namibia, southern Africa, at an altitude of 1800 m, and the project is an international collaboration of more than 100 scientists from nine countries. In its Phase I, HESS used four telescopes each consisting of a light collector with a diameter of 13 m and a focal length of 15 m placed at the corners of a square 120 m apart. Each telescope is segmented into 380 round mirror facets of 60 cm diameter and uses a camera consisting of 960 closely packed → photomultiplier tubes. The first of the telescopes went into operation in Summer 2002. Phase II includes a fifth telescope, called Large Cherenkov Telescope (LCT), of 27 m diameter, located in the centre of the initial array. This upgrade lowers the triggering threshold of the HESS array to about 20 GeV, thus broadening the energy window in which gamma-ray astronomy can be done, opening up more opportunities in astrophysical research (see, e.g., Bernlöhr et al. 2003, Astroparticle Physics 20, 111).

H.E.S.S., short for High Energy Stereoscopic System, is also intended to pay homage to Victor F. Hess (1883-1964), an Austrian-American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 for his discovery of → cosmic rays.

A galaxy or quasar having a → redshift larger than about 0.8, corresponding to a → look-back time half the present age of the Universe. The qualifier "high" is, however, relative and depends on context and authors' assessment.

→ high; → redshift; → object.

An observation that provides a particularly narrow, peaked image of a point source. → point spread function.

→ high; → resolution; → observation.

The spherical region around a → secondary in which the secondary's gravity is more important for the motion of a particle about the secondary than the tidal influence of the → primary. The radius is described by the formula: r = a (m/3M)^1/3, where, in the case of the Earth, a is the semi-major axis of the orbit around the Sun, m is the mass of Earth, and M is the mass of the Sun. The Hill sphere for the Earth has a radius of 0.01 → astronomical units (AU). Therefore the Moon, lying at a distance of 0.0025 AU, is well within the Hill sphere of the Earth.

Named for George William Hill (1838-1914), an American astronomer who described this sphere of influence; → sphere.

Concentric → spheres of Eudoxus.

→ homo-; → center; → -ic; → sphere.

A → linear differential equation if the right-hand member is zero, Q(x) = 0, on interval I.

→ homogeneous; → linear; → differential; → equation.

Based on chemical composition, the Earth atmosphere is divided into two broad layers: the homosphere and the → heterosphere. The homosphere extends from the surface of the Earth up to the height of about 90 km. It is characterized by an almost homogeneous composition of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (10%), carbon dioxide as well as traces of constituents like dust particles, → aerosols and cloud droplets.

→ homo-; → shere.

The angular distance of an object below the horizon when it appears to lie on the horizon.

→ horizontal; → refraction.

A type of → accretion flow by a → compact object such as a → black hole which has a high → virial temperature, is → optically thick, and occurs at lower mass → accretion rates compared with → cold accretion flows. In a hot accretion flow with a very low mass accretion rate, the electron mean free path is very large, and so the accreting → plasma is nearly collisionless. In this type of accretion flow, thermal conduction transports the energy from the inner to the outer regions. As the gas temperature in the outer regions can be increased above the → virial temperature , the gas in the outer regions can escape from the gravitational potential of the central black hole and form outflows, significantly decreasing the mass accretion rate.

→ cold; → accretion; → flow.

Same as → hot molecular core.

→ hot; → core.

A member of the most extreme galaxies in terms of their luminosities and unusual hot → dust temperatures. The → infrared emission from HDOGs is dominated by obscured accretion onto a central → supermassive black hole (SMBH), in most cases without significant contribution from → star formation. The large contrast between the underlying → host galaxy and the hyper-luminous emission from the → active galactic nucleus (AGN) implies that either the SMBH is much more massive than expected for the stellar mass of its host, or is radiating well above its → Eddington limit. The most extreme of these remarkable systems known is → W2246-0526.

→ hot; → dust; → obscure; → galaxy.

A relatively small, dense, and hot → molecular clump occurring in regions of → massive star formation. HMCs have diameters ≤ 0.1 pc, densities ≥ 10⁷ cm^-3, and temperatures ≥ 100 K. The densest hot cores are traced in → ammonia (NH₃) and possess densities of 10⁸ cm^-3, sizes down to 0.05 pc and temperatures of up to 250 K. Hot molecular cores are generally associated with → compact H II regions and → ultracompact H II regions. High angular resolution observations suggest that HMCs are internally heated by embedded sources, since temperature and density increases toward the center as expected if star formation is occurring close to the core center. Same as → hot core.

→ hot; → molecular; → core.

The → Hubble parameter for the → present epoch. It is the constant of proportionality between the → recession velocities of galaxies and their distances from each other. The latest determinations using the → Hubble Space Telescope observations of → Cepheids give H₀ = 72 ± 8 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 (W. L. Freedman et al., 2001, ApJ 553, 47, arXiv:astro-ph/0012376), the → WMAP observations yield 70.4 ± 1.3 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 (N. Jarosik et al., 2011, ApJS 192, 14, arXiv:1001.4744), and the → Planck Satellite observations give 67.3 ± 1.2 km s^-1 Mpc^-1 (Planck Collaboration, 2014, A&A 571, A16, arXiv:1303.5076). More recently, the Hubble constant was derived by a team of astronomers, using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with a 2.4% accuracy (Adam G. Reiss et al., 2016, arXiv:1604.01424). The new value, 73.2 km s^-1 Mpc^-1, suggests that the Universe is expanding between five and nine percent faster than previously calculated. The → Hubble law is only applicable for large distances (> 20 Mpc), when the proper motions of galaxies in groups and clusters cannot confuse the recession due to expansion.

→ Hubble; → Friedmann-Lemaitre Universe; → constant.

The general outward motion of → galaxy clusters resulting from the → expansion of the Universe.

→ Hubble-Lemaitre law; → flow.

The speed with which a → galaxy cluster recedes from us is directly proportional to its distance. It can be stated as v = H₀d, where v is the recessional velocity, H₀ the → Hubble-Lamaitre constant, and d the distance. See also → Hubble-Lemaitre flow. It should be underlined that Hubble was not the first to discover the → velocity-distance relation. Two years before Hubble, in 1927, Georges Lemaître (1894-1966) had derived the relation and published it in a paper in French which remained neglected (→ Friedmann-Lemaitre Universe).

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) at its 30th Meeting approved the Resolution B4 proposed by the IAU Executive Committee recommending the use of Hubble-Lemaitre law instead of Hubble's law, after Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), the American astronomer who published his results in 1929 and Georges Lemaître, Belgian priest and astronomer, who published a paper on the expansion of the Universe in 1927; → law.

The rate pf change of the → cosmic scale factor: H(t) = (dR/dt)/R. The Hubble parameter is a time-dependent quantity and therefore is not constant. The → Hubble-Lemaitre constant is the Hubble-Lemaître parameter measured today.

→ Hubble-Lemaitre law; → parameter.