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General astronomy
Industry: Astronomy
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General astronomy
seismology
Astronomy; General astronomy
the study of a planet's interior from observations of how seismic waves (``earthquake waves'') travel through the interior.
semi-major axis
Astronomy; General astronomy
the distance between the center of an elliptical orbit and one end of the orbit along the long dimension of the elliptical orbit. It equals the average distance between two orbiting objects.
Seyfert galaxy
Astronomy; General astronomy
a spiral galaxy with a compact, very bright nucleus that produces a non-thermal continuous spectrum with broad (fat) emission lines on top.
shell burning
Astronomy; General astronomy
nuclear fusion that is occurring in a layer outside a star's core instead of inside the core as the core compresses. The fusion rate is faster than before and the outer layers are pushed outward to ...
short period comet
Astronomy; General astronomy
a comet with an orbit period less than about 200 years long that comes from the Kuiper Belt.
sidereal day
Astronomy; General astronomy
time between successive meridian crossings of a star. It is the true rotation period of a planet (on Earth, one sidereal day = 23 hours 56 minutes 4.09 seconds). Rotation rate of the Earth = 1° every ...
sidereal period
Astronomy; General astronomy
the period of revolution of one object around another measured with respect to the stars (e.g., for the Moon, it is 27.3 days).
