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

For what cause or reason? On what account? wherefore; on account of which.

M.E., from O.E. hwi, hwy instrumental case of hwæt "who."

Cerâ, from Mid.Pers. ce rây "why; how," from cê "what" (→ because) + rây, → reason.

Having considerable or great extent from side to side; broad. → wide binary, → wide field.

From M.E., from O.E. wid; akin to Du. wijd, Ger. weit, Old Norse vithr.

Bozorg, → large.
Gošâd, gošâdé "opened; ample, broad," from gošudan "to open up, to loose," → resolve.

An international collaboration, more accurately named SuperWASP, led by the United Kingdom, that aims at detecting → extrasolar planets by means of the → transit method. SuperWASP consists of two robotic observatories that operate continuously all year around, providing coverage of the sky in both hemispheres. The first, SuperWASP-North, is located on the island of La Palma. The second, SuperWASP-South, is located at the site of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). The observatories each consist of eight wide-angle cameras that simultaneously monitor the sky for → planetary transit events. Using the array of cameras makes it possible to monitor millions of stars simultaneously at an → apparent visual magnitude from about 7 to 13.

→ wide; → angle; → search; → planet.

A binary system with semi-major axis as large as 10,000 → astronomical units.

→ wide; → binary.

A telescope → field of view which covers a relatively large → angular area on the sky.

→ wide; → field.

A → NASA infrared astronomical → space telescope launched in December 2009 to carry out an → all-sky survey from 3 to 22 → microns. With its 40-cm → telescope telescope and → infrared cameras, WISE aimed at a wide variety of studies ranging from the evolution of → protoplanetary disks to the history of → star formation in normal galaxies. In early October 2010, after completing its prime science mission, the spacecraft ran out of → coolant that keeps its instrumentation cold. However, two of its four infrared cameras remained operational. Hence, NASA extended the NEOWISE portion of the WISE mission by four months, with the primary purpose of hunting for more → asteroids and → comets, and to finish one complete scan of the main → asteroid belt. In August 2013, the WISE telescope's mission was extended for more three years to search for asteroids that could collide with Earth.

→ wide field; → infrared; → survey; → explorer.

An extent from side to side; breadth; wideness. → bandwidth; → beamwidth; → equivalent width; → slitwidth.

From wide, M.E., O.E. wid (cf. Du. wijd, O.H.G. wit, Ger. weit) + -th a suffix forming nouns of quality or condition, M.E. -th(e); O.E. -thu, -th.

Pahnâ, from pahn "wide, broad," from Mid.Pers. pah(a)n; Av. paθana- "broad, wide, spacious."

For all metals the ratio of the → thermal conductivity, κ, to the → electrical conductivity, σ, is directly proportional to the absolute temperature: K/σ = (1/3)(πk/e)²T, where k is → Boltzmann's constant and e the electron's charge.

Named after the German physicists Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann (1826-1899) and Rudolph Franz (1826-1902); → law.

The wavelength corresponding to the maximum emissive power of a black body is inversely proportional to the absolute temperature of the body: λ_max.T = 0.29 cm-deg. Wien's law explains why objects of different temperature emit spectra that peak at different wavelengths. Hotter objects emit most of their radiation at shorter wavelengths; hence they will appear to be bluer. Wien's law was an early attempt to describe the → blackbody radiation. The law closely approximated the true shape of the blackbody spectrum at short wavelengths, but ultimately failed because it relied solely on classical physics. It was superseded by → Planck's radiation law, which correctly describes the blackbody spectrum at all wavelengths.

After the German physicist Wilhelm Wien (1864-1928), who found the law in 1896. He was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in physics; → displacement; → law.

A theorem used in signal processing whereby the → spectral density of a random signal is the → Fourier transform of the corresponding → autocorrelation function. In other words, the autocorrelation function and the spectral density function constitute a → Fourier transform pair. The Wiener-Khinchin theorem allows one to estimate the spectral density function from the Fourier transform of the autocorrelation function, which is easier to handle. The theorem has an important application particularly in radio astronomy. The two following → Fourier integrals are called the Wiener-Khinchin relations: K(τ) = ∫ J(f)e^-iωτdf and J(f) = ∫ K(τ)e^iωτdτ (both summed over -∞ to +∞), where K(τ) is the autocorrelation function and J(f) is the spectral density.

Named after Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), American mathematician, who first published this theorem in 1930, and Aleksandr Khinchin (1894-1959), Russian mathematician, who did so independently in 1934; → theorem.

Living in a state of nature; not tamed or domesticated (Dictionary.com).

M.E., from O.E. wilde; cognate with Du., O.H.G. wildi, Ger. wild, Sw. vild.

Towsan "wild," cf. Av. disav- "a kind of night predator animal."

Animals and plants living in their natural habitat.

→ wild; → life.

A space telescope launched by NASA in 2001 which measures the temperature fluctuations in the → cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. It creates a full-sky map of the CMB, with a 13 arcminute resolution via multi-frequency observations. WMAP is the first mission to use a → Lagrangian point L2 as its permanent observing station at a distance of 1.5 million km. WMAP completed its prime two years of mission operations in September 2003 and is continuing in 2009 its observations for still several years to come. WMAP's measurements have played a considerable role in establishing the current standard model of cosmology. They are consistent with a Universe that is dominated by → dark energy, with negative pressure or a → cosmological constant. In this model, the age of the Universe is 13.73 ± 0.12 billion years. The current expansion rate of the Universe measured by the Hubble constant, is 70.5 ± 1.3 km·s^-1 Mpc^-1. The content of the Universe consists of 4.56% ± 0.15% ordinary → baryonic matter, 22.8% ± 1.3% → cold dark matter, and 72.6% ± 1.5% of → dark energy, that accelerates the → expansion of the Universe.

WMAP, short for Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, in honor of David Todd Wilkinson (1935-2002), who had been a member of the mission's science team.

The depression on the → Sun's → photosphere associated with → sunspots and involving the → Wilson effect. The measured depression values vary between about 700 and 2,000 km.

→ Wilson effect; → depression.

A phenomenon in which the shape of → sunspots flattens as they approach the → Sun's limb due to the → solar rotation. More specifically, when a sunspot approaches the → solar limbs the width of the → penumbra, relative to the → umbra, on the side facing the center of the Sun seems to become narrower than on the side facing the limb. This phenomenon arises from a projection effect, and is due to a geometrical depression (the → Wilson depression) in the layers of constant → optical depth in sunspots (see, e.g., Sami K. Solanki, 2003, Sunspots: An overview, The Astron. Astrophys. Rev., 11, 153).

First noticed by Alexander Wilson (1714-1786); → effect.

The strong correlation between the equivalent width of Ca II → H and K lines of a late-type giant or supergiant star with the absolute visual magnitude of the star.

O. C. Wilson & M. K. Vainu Bappu (1957, ApJ 125, 661); → effect.

A member of a broad class of hypothetical elementary particles moving with non-relativistical speeds at the time of structure formation in the early Universe. WIMPs have nonzero rest mass and participate only in the weak nuclear interaction. WIMPs are expected to have collapsed into a roughly isothermal, spherical halo within which the visible portion of our galaxy resides. → dark halo. The → neutralino, predicted by supersymmetric theories is the favorite WIMP candidate. Another candidate is the → axion. WIMPs are candidates for dark matter.

→ weak; → interction; → massive; → particle .

1a) Meteo.: Air in motion, especially a natural and perceptible movement of air relative to the ground.
1b) Astro.→ radiation-driven wind; → solar wind; → Galactic wind; → stellar wind.
2) To change direction; turn; to have a circular or spiral course or direction; to coil or twine about something.

1) M.E., O.E. wind (cf. O.S., O.Fris., Du. wind, O.H.G. wind, Ger. Wind, Goth. winds).
2) M.E. windan, from O.E. windan "to turn, twist, curl," cognate with Du. winden, O.H.G. wintan, Ger. winden, from PIE *wendh- "to turn, wind, weave."

1) Bâd, from Mid.Pers. wâd "wind;" Av. vāta- "wind;" cf. Skt. vāta- "wind, god of wind;" Gk. anemos "wind;" L. ventus "wind" (Fr. vent); cognate with E. wind, as above.
2) Picidan "to twist, entwine, coil," → spiral.

A quasi-spherical accretion that is likely to occur in a → high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) when the optical star of → early spectral class (O-B) does not fill its → Roche lobe, but has a significant → mass loss via → stellar wind. In → close binary systems another accretion regime, → disk accretion, occurs when the optical star overfills its Roche lobe.

→ wind; → accretion.

A process whereby dense winds of very luminous O type stars modify the temperature and internal structure of the underlying photosphere by scattering back a considerable part of the coming photospheric radiation. Not to be confused with → line blanketing .

Thus called because the wind acts like a blanket and heats the photosphere * by reflecting its radiation; → wind.