Astronomical acronyms

Updated on Sep 20, 2024

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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 Wikipedia. This list of acronyms and initials is not definitive but reflects current usage amongst professional astronomers.

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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 10¹² 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 10¹³ 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 10¹¹ 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 [spectroscopic survey] 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

SONEAR Southern Observatory for Near Earth Asteroids Research

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

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 10¹² 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

References

Astronomical acronyms Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

Contents

1

2

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Z

References