Glossary term: Astrophysics
Description: Astrophysics is a science that employs the principles of physics to study the nature of astronomical objects. In astrophysics, the radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, together with non-electromagnetic signals, such as gravitational waves and neutrinos emitted by astronomical objects, are studied, alongside their properties in terms of brightness, density, and temperature. Astrophysics is a very broad science that includes branches of theoretical and observational physics.
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Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher
The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".
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In Other Languages
- Arabic: الفيزياء الفلكية
- German: Astrophysik
- Spanish: Astrofísica
- French: Astrophysique
- Italian: Astrofisica
- Korean: 천체물리학
- Brazilian Portuguese: Astrofísica
- Simplified Chinese: 天体物理学
- Traditional Chinese: 天體物理學
Related Media
Solar absorption lines
Caption: This is a high resolution spectrum of light from our Sun showing visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The absorption lines are visible clearly as narrow black regions. The visualization shown here was created to mimic a so-called echelle spectrum, with wavelength increasing from left to right along each strip, and from bottom to top. Each of the 50 horizontal strips covers 6 nanometers, for a complete spectrum across the visible range from 400 to 700 nanometers.
This spectrum was created from a digital atlas observed with the Fourier Transform Spectrometer at the McMath-Pierce Solar Facility at the National Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak, near Tucson, Arizona (‘Solar Flux Atlas from 296 to 1300 nm" by Robert L. Kurucz, Ingemar Furenlid, James Brault, and Larry Testerman: National Solar Observatory Atlas No. 1, June 1984).
Note: NSO/Kitt Peak FTS data used here were produced by NSF/NOAO.
Credit: N.A. Sharp/KPNO/NOIRLab/NSO/NSF/AURA
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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
