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

The diffuse glowing band of light seen on dark nights spanning the sky as a great circle. It is produced by light from stars and nebulae in the → Galactic plane. The apparent form of the Milky Way in the sky results from a geometrical effect created by our location in the outlying regions of a huge, flattened disk of stars. → Milky Way galaxy.

From L.L. galaxias "Milky Way," from Gk. galaxis kyklos "emilky circle," from gala (gen. galaktos) "milk."
In Gk. mythology, Jupiter, hoping to immortalize his infant son Hercules (who was born to a mortal woman), placed the baby on Juno's breast. Her milk spilled up, forming the Milky Way.
Milky, from milk; M.E.; O.E. meol(o)c, (Anglian) milc; cf. Gr. Milch, Goth. miluks; akin to L. mulgere, Gk amelgein "to milk;" PIE base *melg- "wiping, stroking;" → way.

Râh, → way; širi, adj. of šir "milk;" Mid.Pers. šir; cf. Skt. ksira- "milk."

A → spiral galaxy, of which the → solar system is a small part. It is the second largest in our → Local Group of galaxies. The Milky Way is a disk-shaped system, with a diameter of between 80,000 and 100,000 → light-years and a thickness of about 2,000 light-years, containing more than 10¹¹ stars. The stars are divided into two main categories, → Population II stars and → Population I stars.
The core, or nucleus, of the Galaxy is surrounded by an ellipsoidal central → bulge that measures some 15,000 light-years in diameter and about 6,000 light-years in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the disk. Surrounding the bulge and extending in a near spherical distribution above and below the → Galactic plane is the → Galactic halo. The halo contains about 200 → globular clusters and an extremely thinly scattered population of individual stars.
The Sun is located just over half way out from the center to the edge of the disk at a distance of about 25,000 light-years. In common with other stars, the Sun revolves around the → Galactic Center. Its → orbital velocity is about 220 km s^-1 and its → orbital period is about 225 million years. Overall, the Galaxy exhibits → differential rotation, that is stars and gas clouds closer to the center have shorter orbital periods than those that are located further out.
The → spiral arms of the Milky Way lie within its disk, where bright → young stars, → H II regions, and → molecular clouds of gas and dust are concentrated into curved "arms" that appear to radiate from the central bulge in a spiral pattern. The Galaxy's spiral pattern consists of several major arms and a number of shorter segments, one of which, the → Orion arm, contains the Sun and the Orion star-forming region.
Near-infrared observations have shown that the stars in the central bulge are arranged in an elongated → galactic bar, about twice as long as it is wide, that is seen nearly end on from the present location of the solar system. The exact center, or nucleus, of the Galaxy coincides with a strong source of radio emission, called → Sagittarius A, that is less than 15 astronomical units in diameter. Observations of the speeds at which clouds of ionized gas are revolving round the → Galactic center imply that several million solar masses of material are concentrated within a region of about one light-year in radius. Since only about half of this mass can be accounted for by stars, it seems likely that the balance (about 2.5 million solar masses) is contained in a central black hole and that accretion onto this black hole is the underlying source of the energy radiated by Sagittarius A.
The Milky Way also has a → dark matter component. The Galactic → rotation curve indicates that there is a large amount of invisible → non-baryonic surrounding the whole Galaxy.

→ Milky Way; → galaxy.

The huge star system of which the Sun is a member. Same as the Galaxy or the Milky Way galaxy.

→ Milky Way; → system.

A massive, young, and hot star that is moving quickly through space. Runaways are probably propelled through space from a binary star when its companion has exploded as a supernova, or ejected from a stellar cluster by the dynamical interactions in the system.

→ run; away, from O.E. aweg, earlier on weg "on from this (that) place;" → star.

Setâré, → star; gorizân present participle of goriz-, gorixtan "to escape; to flee, run away;" Mid.Pers. virextan; Proto-Iranian *vi-raik, from vi- "apart, asunder" + *raik; Av. raek- "to leave, set free, let off;" Mid./Mod.Pers. reg/rig (in mordé-rig "inheritance"); Skt. ric- "to leave," rinakti "gives up, evacuates;" Gk. leipein "to leave;" L. linquere "to leave;" from PIE *linkw-, from *leikw- "to leave behind" (cf. Goth. leihvan; O.E. lænan "to lend;" O.H.G. lihan "to borrow;" O.N. lan "loan").

1) The uncontrolled → fusion of hydrogen into helium.
2) A → thermonuclear reaction process occurring at electron → degenerate conditions in stellar material, such as in → Type Ia supernovae.

→ thermonuclear; → runaway.

Vâžireš, → reaction; garmâhaste-yi, → thermonuclear; legâm gosixté literally "rampant, unrestrained," from legâm "bridle, rein" + gosixté "broken off, torn away," p.p. of gosixtan "to tear away, to break off."

A road, track, or path.

M.E. wei(gh)e, wai, from O.E. weg "road, path;" cf. Du. weg, O.H.G. weg, Ger. Weg, Goth. wigs "way;" PIE base *wegh- "to move."

Râh "way, path" (from Mid.Pers. râh, râs "way, street," also rah, ras "chariot;" from Proto-Iranian *rāθa-; cf. Av. raθa- "chariot;" Skt. rátha- "car, chariot," rathyā- "road;" L. rota "wheel," rotare "to revolve, roll;" Lith. ratas "wheel;" O.H.G. rad; Ger. Rad; Du. rad; O.Ir. roth; PIE *roto- "to run, to turn, to roll");