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Revision as of 09:23, 6 January 2015

It has been suggested that this article be merged into List of astronomy acronyms. (Discuss) Proposed since June 2014.

At the 2012 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU; the international body for professional astronomy), the organising committee of IAU Commission 5 (Data and Information) requested the creation of a list of Astronomical Acronyms on Misplaced Pages. This list of acronyms and initials is not definitive but reflects current usage amongst professional astronomers.

List of Acronyms

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Z

1

• 1RXS First ROSAT X-ray Survey

2

• 2MASS 2 Micron All Sky Survey

A

• AAS American Astronomical Society – the primary association of professional astronomers in the United States
• ACE Advanced Composition Explorer
• ADS The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory/NASA astrophysics data system, an on-line database of almost all astronomical publications
• AGC Arecibo general catalog
• AGN active galactic nucleus – the nucleus of a galaxy that contains an active massive black hole
• AIPS Astronomical Image Processing System – a widely used software package used for processing radio astronomy data
• AMANDA Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array – a neutrino telescope located at a depth of 1.5 – 1.9 km below the ice in Antarctica.
• AMBER Astronomical Multi-BEam Recombiner – a near-infrared interferometric instrument at VLTI
• ARCADE Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission – a balloon satellite experiment to measure the heating of the Universe by the first stars and galaxies after the big bang.
• ASAS All Sky Automated Survey
• ASKAP Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder – a next-generation radio telescope under construction in Western Australia. It differs from previous radio-telescopes in having many pixels at the focus of each antenna.
• ATCA Australia Telescope Compact Array, a radio telescope in Australia operated by CSIRO.
• ATLAS Australia Telescope Large Area Survey – a deep radio astronomical sky survey of two SWIRE fields covering a total of about 7 square degrees of sky.
• AU Astronomical Unit - a unit of length, roughly the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

B

• BICEP2 Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2
• BLAST Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope – a submillimeter telescope that hangs from a high-altitude balloon, operated by a multi-university consortium headed by the University of Pennsylvania
• BOOMERanG Balloon Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics

C

• CANGAROO Collaboration between Australian and Nippon for a Gamma Ray Observatory in the Outback - a very high energy cosmic gamma ray observatory, located on the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia.
• CARA Centre for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica - an organisation that operates an observatory at the South Pole, including several different telescopes from different research groups.
• CARMA Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy - an array of millimetre-wave telescopes located near Owens Valley, California
• CCAFS Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, an air force base in Florida where NASA launches satellites from.
• CCD Charge Coupled Device - a device for the movement of electrical charge.
• CDFS Chandra Deep Field South - a deep field surveyed by many telescopes at different wavelengths, first selected for deep field observations by the Chandra X-ray Observatory
• CDM Cold dark matter is a hypothetical form of dark matter thought to account for 80% of matter in the Universe.
• CDS Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg – a major astronomical data centre
• CFHT Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
• CHIPSat Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer satellite
• CINDI Coupled Ion-Neutral Dynamics Investigation
• CMB Cosmic microwave background radiation thermal radiation filling the observable universe almost uniformly
• CME – coronal mass ejection
• COSMOS The Cosmic Evolution Survey a deep field surveyed by many telescopes at different wavelengths, first selected as a Hubble Space Telescope Treasury Project to survey a two square degree equatorial field with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
• CRRES Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite
• CSS Catalina Sky Survey
• CV – cataclysmic variable, a type of active star

D

• DEC Declination
• DSN Deep Space Network - network of large antennas and communication facilities.
• DM dark matter – the unidentified non-baryonic matter responsible for 80% of matter in the Universe.
• DSS Digitized Sky Survey

E

• EGS Extended Groth Strip – a deep field surveyed by many telescopes at different wavelengths
• EGRET Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope - a Gamma-ray telescope mounted on board NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory
• ELAIS ESO Large-area infrared survey – a survey which named three deep fields (ELAIS-North, ELAIS-South1, ELAIS-South2) which are used for deep sky surveys
• ELF Extremely Luminous Far-infrared Galaxy, a synonym for Ultra-Luminous infrared galaxy - a galaxy which emits more than 10 solar luminosities in the far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• EMU Evolutionary Map of the Universe – a planned radio survey of the sky which will use the new ASKAP radio telescope to make a radio survey of the sky, producing a catalogue of 70 million galaxies.
• ESA European Space Agency
• ESO European Southern Observatory
• EVN European VLBI Network – a collaboration of the major radio astronomical institutes in Europe, Asia and South Africa to perform high angular resolution observations of cosmic radio sources.

F

• FITS Flexible Image Transport System
• FORTE Fast On-orbit Rapid Recording of Transient Events
• FOV Field of View - the extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment.

G

• GALEX GALaxy Evolution eXplorer
• GALEXASC GALaxy Evolution eXplorer all-sky catalog
• GBT Green Bank Telescope – the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia, US.
• GMRT Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope
• GOLD Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk
• GOODS Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey

H

• HCG Hickson Compact Group
• HD Henry Draper Catalogue
• HDF Hubble Deep Field - a deep field surveyed by many telescopes at different wavelengths, first selected for deep field observations by the Hubble Space Telescope
• HDFS Hubble Deep Field South - a deep field surveyed by many telescopes at different wavelengths, first selected for deep field observations by the Hubble Space Telescope
• HIP Hipparcos satellite
• HLIRG Hyper-Luminous infrared galaxy - a galaxy which emits more than 10 solar luminosities in the far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• HET Hobby-Eberly Telescope
• HOPS The H2O southern Galactic Plane Survey
• HST Hubble Space Telescope

I

• IAU International Astronomical Union
• IC Index Catalog, a secondary catalog to the New General Catalogue
• IMAGE Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration
• IMBH Intermediate-mass black hole
• IRAM Institut de radioastronomie millimétrique
• IRAS Infrared Astronomical Satellite
• ISON International Scientific Optical Network

J

• JBO Jodrell Bank Observatory A radio observatory in England. Part of The University of Manchester.
• JIVE Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe
• JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory

L

• LCDM or ΛCDM Lambda – cold dark matter – a cosmological model in which the universe contains a cosmological constant, denoted by Lambda, and cold dark matter. It is frequently referred to as the standard model of Big Bang cosmology.
• LINEAR LIncoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research
• LIRG Luminous infrared galaxy - a galaxy which emits more than 10 solar luminosities in the far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• LMC Large Magellanic Cloud
• LOAN Longitude of ascending node
• LOFAR The LOFAR low-frequency synthesis array, based in the Netherlands
• LONEOS Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search
• LSST Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

M

• MACHO Massive Compact Halo Objects – a class of objects once hypothesised to be the cause of Dark Matter
• MALT Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team – including MALT90 and MALT45
• MAVEN Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN
• MBH – massive black hole
• MCG Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies
• MERLIN Multi Element Radio Linked Interferometer. A seven-telescope radio interferometer – maximum baseline ~200 km – operated from Jodrell Bank Observatory
• MESSENGER MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging
• MIDI MID-Infrared instrument. A mid-infrared instrument of the VLTI
• MMS Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission
• MPC Minor Planet Center
• MRK Markarian galaxies
• MSL Mars Science Laboratory
• MUSYC Multi-wavelength survey by Yale-Chile

N

• NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• NEAT Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking
• NED NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
• NEOWISE Near-Earth Object WISE
• NGC New General Catalogue
• NGS-POSS National Geographic Society – Palomar Observatory Sky Survey
• NOAO National Optical Astronomy Observatory – one of the major optical observatory organisations in the USA
• NRAO National Radio Astronomy Observatory – the premier radio observatory in the US
• NRAL Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratory – the former name for Jodrell Bank Observatory
• NuSTAR Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array
• NVSS NRAO VLA Sky Survey A major survey of the sky produced in 1998 using the VLA radio telescope

O

• OSIRIS-REx Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer

P

• Pan-STARRS Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System
• PGC Principal Galaxies Catalogue
• POSSUM Polarisation Sky Survey of the Universe's Magnetism – a polarisation survey to be conducted with the new ASKAP radio telescope
• PRIMUS The Prism Multi-Object Survey – a large of several deep fields
• PSR Pulsar

R

• RA Right ascension
• RASS ROSAT all-sky survey
• ROSAT Röntgensatellit, German for 'X-ray satellite'
• RXTE Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer

S

• S82 Stripe 82
• SAO Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• SDO Scattered disc object
• SDO Solar Dynamics Observatory
• SDSS Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• SETI Search for extraterrestrial intelligence
• SKA Square Kilometre Array – a next-generation radio telescope to be built in Australia and South Africa
• SMBH – super-massive black hole
• SMC Small Magellanic Cloud
• SMM Solar Maximum Mission
• SOHO SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory
• SOLO Solar Orbiter
• STEREO Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory
• SWIRE Spitzer Widefield Infrared Extragalactic Survey – a large deep survey carried out with the Spitzer space telescope

T

• TABLEAUX International Conference on Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods
• TCC Theory of Cryptography Conference
• THEMIS Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms
• TNO Trans-Neptunian object
• TPHOLs Theorem Proving in Higher-Order Logics
• TRACE Transition Region and Coronal Explorer
• TSD Text, speech and dialogue

U

• UAI Union Astronomique Internationale – the French name for the International Astronomical Union, and one of its two official names
• UGC Uppsala General Catalogue
• UKIDSS UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey
• UKIRT United Kingdom Infrared Telescope
• ULIRG Ultra-Luminous infrared galaxy - a galaxy which emits more than 10 solar luminosities in the far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• ULX Ultraluminous X-ray source
• UZC Updated Zwicky Catalogue

V

• VISTA Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy a 4-m diameter telescope operated by the European Southern Observatory, and located in Chile.
• VIPERS VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey an ESO Large Program to map galaxies over an unprecedented volume of the z~1 Universe
• VLA Very Large Array – a large radio telescope located in Socorro, New Mexico, operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• VLBI very long baseline interferometry – a technique used in Radio astronomy involving the use of radio telescopes separated by hundreds or thousands of km.
• VLT Very Large Telescope – one of the world's largest telescopes, operated by the European Southern Observatory
• VV Vorontsov-Vel'yaminov Interacting Galaxies
• VVDS VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey

W

• WALLABY WALLABY is a survey of neutral hydrogen in galaxies to be conducted with the new ASKAP radio telescope
• WD White dwarf
• WIMP Weakly interacting massive particle – a class of objects hypothesised to be the cause of Dark Matter
• WIRE Wide Field Infrared Explorer
• WISE Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
• WMAP Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe
• WSRT Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope

X

• XMM X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission

Z

• ZOA Zone of Avoidance

External links

• Acronym Finder
• Astroacro
• Astronomical Acronyms and Abbreviations

References

1. "The CANGAROO Project" The University of Adelaide. Retrieved 17 September 2011.

• Articles to be merged from June 2014
• Use dmy dates from September 2012
• Lists of abbreviations
• Astronomical nomenclature