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Lists of astronomical objects. Selection of astronomical bodies and objects: Moon Mimas and Ida, an asteroid with its own moon, Dactyl. Comet Lovejoy and Jupiter, a giant gas planet. The Sun; Sirius A with Sirius B, a white dwarf; the Crab Nebula, a remnant supernova.
A star is any massive self-luminous celestial body of gas that shines by radiation derived from its internal energy sources. Of the tens of billions of trillions of stars composing the observable universe , only a very small percentage are visible to the naked eye.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Of the roughly 10,000 stars visible to the naked eye, only a few hundred have been given proper names in the history of astronomy. [a] Traditional astronomy tends to group stars into constellations or asterisms and give proper names to those, not to individual stars. Many star names are, in origin, descriptive of the part in the constellation ...
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Astronomical objects such as stars, planets, nebulae, asteroids and comets have been observed for thousands of years, although early cultures thought of these bodies as gods or deities. These early cultures found the movements of the bodies very important as they used these objects to help navigate over long distances, tell between the seasons, and...
The universe can be viewed as having a hierarchical structure. At the largest scales, the fundamental component of assembly is the galaxy. Galaxies are organized into groups and clusters, often within larger superclusters, that are strung along great filaments between nearly empty voids, forming a web that spans the observable universe. Galaxies ha...
The constituents of a galaxy are formed out of gaseous matter that assembles through gravitational self-attraction in a hierarchical manner. At this level, the resulting fundamental components are the stars, which are typically assembled in clusters from the various condensing nebulae. The great variety of stellar forms are determined almost entire...
The IAU definitions of planet and dwarf planet require that a Sun-orbiting astronomical body has undergone the rounding process to reach a roughly spherical shape, an achievement known as hydrostatic equilibrium. The same spheroidal shape can be seen on smaller rocky planets like Mars to gas giants like Jupiter. Any natural Sun-orbiting body that h...
SkyChart, Sky & Telescope at the Library of CongressWeb Archives (archived 2005-06-13)Monthly skymaps for every location on Earth. Archived 2007-09-13 at the Wayback Machine.Asteroids & Comets. Asteroids and comets are the leftovers from the formation of planetary systems. They are found throughout our Solar System and can be a source of both beauty and destruction. Nebulae. A nebula is a cosmic cloud of gas and dust floating in space.
Named stars. There are currently 451 named stars (see the list below ). All these names were formally approved in recent years, but most of them have been used for centuries.
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Mar 13, 2024 · Celestial objects, also known as astronomical objects, are physical entities, associations, or structures that current science has identified in the observable universe. They range from individual planets, stars, and moons to larger structures like galaxies and beyond.
