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

The action of rapidly moving a telescope in the alpha or delta direction under computer control as it moves to point at a new position in the sky.

Slew "to turn, swing, twist," earlier slue a nautical word, of unknown origin.

Tondrâneš, literally "driving fast," from tond "swift, rapid, brisk; fierce, severe" (Mid.Pers. tund "sharp, violent;" Sogdian tund "violent;" cf. Skt. tod- "to thrust, give a push," tudáti "he thrusts;" L. tundere "to thrust, to hit" (Fr. percer, E. pierce, ultimately from L. pertusus, from p.p. of pertundere "to thrust or bore through," from per- + tundere, as explained); PIE base *(s)teud- "to thrust, to beat") + râneš, verbal noun of rândan "to push, drive, cause to go," causative of raftan "to go, walk, proceed" (present tense stem row-, Mid.Pers. raftan, raw-, Proto-Iranian *rab/f- "to go; to attack").

A motor designed to drive a high-speed radar antenna for slewing to monitor a target.

→ slewing; → drive

1) A thin, broad piece cut from something.
2) To cut into slices; divide into parts (Dictionary.com).

O.Fr. escliz "splinter, fragment" (Fr. éclisse), a back-formation from esclicier "to splinter, shatter, smash;" cf. O.H.G. slihhan.

Qâc, contraction of qârc, from karj "slice, a slice of melon; a piece cut out of the collar of a garment;" ultimately from Proto-Ir. *kartaka-, from *kart- "to cut," cf. Av. karət- "to cut;" Skt. kart- "to cut," karəta- "knife;" Mid.Pers. kârt, → knife.

An important astronautical technique whereby a spacecraft takes up a tiny fraction of the gravitational energy of a planet it is flying by, allowing it to change trajectory and speed. Also known as → gravitational slingshot or → gravitational assist.

Slingshot, from sling, from M.E. slyngen, from O.N. slyngva "to sling, fling" + shot, from M.E., from O.E. sc(e)ot, (ge)sceot; cf. Ger. Schoss, Geschoss; → effect.

Oskar, → effect; falâxan "sling;" from Av. fradaxšana- "sling," fradaxšanya- "sling, sling-stone;"

A long, thin opening in a spectrograph allowing only the light studied to fall on the prism.

O.E. slitan "to cut or tear up, slit;" cf. O.S. slitan, O.N. slita, M.L.G., M.Du. sliten, Du. slijten, O.H.G. slizan, Ger. schleißen "to slit."

Šekâf "slit," from Mod./Mid.Pers. škâf- škâftan "to split, burst;" Proto-Iranian *kap-, *kaf- "to split;" cf. Gk. skaptein "to dig;" L. cabere "to scratch, scrape," P.Gmc. *skabanan (Goth. skaban; Ger. schaben; E. shave). PIE base *(s)kep- "to cut, to scrape, to hack."

A type of spectrograph that uses a slit to provide resolution.

→ slit; → spectrograp.

The width size of the slit which determines the spectral resolution of a spectrograph.

→ slit; → width.

A major → redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide angle telescope with different modes in → imaging and → spectroscopy. The telescope, a modified → Ritchey-Chretien→ altitude-azimuth type is located at Apache Point Observatory, south east New Mexico, United States. A large consortium of universities and institutions all over the world participate in the project. The telescope started its observations in 2000, taking spectra and images of about 35% of the night sky, with 3 million spectra and 500 million images coming together to form the most comprehensive astrophysical catalog in the world. This catalog contains millions of galaxies up to z = 1, bright → quasars up to z = 6, with images in five major filter bands (u, g, r, i and z). SDSS was divided into multiple surveys/projects: SDSS I (2000-2005); SDSS II (2005-2008), including the Sloan Supernova Survey; SDSS III (2008-2014), including the APO Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS); SDSS IV (2014-2020), including the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA).

Named after the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which contributed significant funding; → digital; → sky; → survey.

1) An inclined surface; deviation from the horizontal or vertical.
2) The tangent of the angle formed by the intersection of a given straight line and the X-axis of a system of Cartesian coordinates.
3) The derivative of the function whose graph is a given curve evaluated at a designated point.
4) The exponent of the → initial mass function . See also → Salpeter slope.
5) → slope parameter.

From M.E. aslope (adv.) "on the incline," from O.E. *aslopen, p.p. of aslupan "to slip away," from a- "away" + slupan "to slip."

Šib "slope, descent, declivity," contraction of nešib, našib "declivity, descent; lowness of ground, slope of any place;" Mid.Pers. nišēp "declivity, (astrology) dejection," Av. *nixšvaēpā-, xšvaēpā- "bottom, rear."

In a → power-law distribution or → regression, the → exponent that represents the effect of the → independent variable, x, on the → dependent variable, y. X has no association with y if the slope parameter = 0 and x has strong association with y if the slope parameter is large.

→ slope; → parameter.

Moving or proceeding with little or less than usual speed or velocity.

O.E. slaw "inactive, sluggish;" cf. O.S. sleu "blunt, dull," M.Du. slee, Du. sleeuw "sour, blunt," O.H.G. sleo "blunt, dull," O.N. sljor, Dan. sløv, Swed. slö "blunt, dull."

Âhesté "slow, quiet, tender, soft," ultimately from Proto-Iranian *ā-hasta-ka-, literally "at rest, motionless, seated." The first and third components are affixes, the main component from *had- "to "sit, be seated;" cf. Av. had- "to sit" (nī...hazdiiāt "would sit down"); Pers. nešastan "to sit;" PIE base *sed- "to sit;" cf. Skt. sad- to sit," sidati "sits;" Gk. hezomai "to sit," hedra "seat, chair;" L. sedere "to sit;" O.Ir. suide "seat, sitting;" Welsh sedd "seat;" Lith. sedmi "to sit;" Rus. sad "garden;" Goth. sitan, Ger. sitzen; E. sit.

A neutron whose kinetic energy does not exceed about 10 electron-volts. Also called → thermal neutron.

→ slow; → neutron.

A type of nova whose light curve exhibits a characteristically slow development, having a rise time of several days, maximum of several weeks, and slower decline.

→ slow; → nova.

A member of a class of → B stars that are situated along the → main sequence with → spectral types ranging from B2 to B9 and masses from 3 to 7 → solar masses. In the → H-R diagram the SPB group lies below → beta Cephei variables, which are more massive. SPBs show light and line-profile variations that are multi-periodic with periods of the order of days. This variability is understood in terms of non-radial → stellar pulsations, and their → oscillation modes are high-order → g modes. Theoretical models attribute the pulsational nature of SPBs to the → kappa mechanism, acting in the metal → opacity bump at 2 x 10⁵ K. Their g-mode pulsations penetrate deep into the stellar interior, making these objects very promising for → asteroseismology. Several oscillation modes are excited simultaneously, resulting in periodicities on time scales of the order of months or even years. The prototype of this group is 53 Per. First introduced as a distinct class by Waelkens (1991, A&A 246, 453).

→ slow; → pulsating; → B star.

A worm-like gastropod that is related to the → snail family but has no shell.

M.E. slugge "sluggish," probably from Scandinavian; cf. dialectal Norwegian sluggje "heavy, slow person."

Lisak dialectal Tabari (also see Dehxodâ)

Of limited size; of comparatively restricted dimensions; not large. → method of small perturbations; → Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC).

M.E. smale; O.E. smæl "slender, narrow, small;" cf. Dan., Swed., M.Du., Du., O.H.G. smal, O.Fris. smel, Ger. schmal "narrow," Goth. smalista "smallest."

Kucak "small;" Mid.Pers. kucak "small," related to kutâh "short, small, little," kudak "child, infant," kutulé, → dwarf; Mid.Pers. kôtâh "low," kôtak "small, young; baby;" Av. kutaka- "little, small."
Kam "little, few; deficient, wanting; scarce," from Mid.Pers. kam "little, small, few," O.Pers./Av. kamna- "small, few."

Same as → Little Dipper.

→ small; → Little Dipper.

An irregular galaxy, the smaller of the two → Magellanic Clouds that are satellites of our own Galaxy, lying in the southern constellation → Tucana about 20 degrees from the → south celestial pole. The SMC covers an area roughly 3 by 5 degrees in dimension and has an overall → visual magnitude about +2.7. The SMC is about 10,000 → light-years in diameter and some 210,000 light-years (61 → kpc) away. It has a visible mass of about 1/50-th that of our Galaxy and 1/10-th of that of the → Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Its → heavy element content is about a factor 5 smaller than that of the Galaxy. The SMC is the third-nearest external galaxy after the → Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy and the LMC.

→ small; → Magellanic; → cloud.

A term introduced by the → International Astronomical Union (August 2006) to name the → solar system bodies other than → planets and → dwarf planets. Small solar system bodies include → asteroids, → comets, and → meteoroids.

→ small; → solar; → system; → body.

An asteroid taxonomy built on the → Tholen classification but based on the presence or absence of → absorption features in the visible part of the spectrum. In many cases the two classifications are the same, but the Tholen C and S classes are subdivided in the SMASS classification.

SMASS stands for the Small Main-belt Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey, → small; → main belt; → asteroid; → spectroscopic; → survey; → classification.