Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy

The Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy was first published in 1997, containing nearly 4,000 entries written by a team of specialist contributors, both amateur and professional, under my editorship. A heavily revised version of that first edition appeared in 2003 in which the number of entries increased to over 4,000. At the same time the type size was reduced slightly, allowing the material to fit into fewer pages than before. A reprint of that revised edition came out in 2004 incorporating further updates, mostly concerning space missions and observatories.

A second edition was published in September 2007. For this, all entries were reviewed by a team of specialists, mostly different from those who had written the original entries. A new departure in this edition was the inclusion of URLs of websites, notably for various space missions, observatories and various other institutions, and online catalogues. In this 2007 second edition over 160 new entries were added to those in the revised edition of 2004, although some minor entries, particularly for small planetary satellites, have been deleted.

The following additions and corrections apply to the second edition of 2007. The online edition is updated frequently.

Addenda and corrigenda

Aten group: Eleanor Helin (1932–2009).

Castalia: Eleanor Helin (1932–2009)

Chandrayaan-1: launched 2008 October.

Chang’e: launched 2007 October. Impacted Moon 2009 March 1 at end of mission.

Dawn: launched in 2007 September.

Deep Impact: now scheduled to fly past Comet Hartley 2 (103P/Hartley) in 2010 October.

Encke Division: now renamed the Encke Gap. For a complete list of names of all planetary rings and gaps see http: //planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/append8.html

Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE): observations ceased 2007 July.

Faulkes Telescopes: FT-South came into operation 2007.

focal length: delete asterisk before “image”.

Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST): launched 2008 June. Now known as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

Giant Magellan Telescope: the location is confirmed as Las Campanas. The scheduled completion date is now 2019. The nine partners in the project now include Astronomy Australia and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. MIT and the University of Michigan are no longer partners.

Herschel Space Observatory: launched 2009 May.

HII region: in line 5, “10100 000” should read “10–100 000”.

Hubble Space Telescope: the fifth and final servicing mission took place in 2009 May. The repair and replacement of equipment is intended to keep HST in operation for at least a further five years.

initial mass function: Salpeter d. 2008.

Kaguya (formerly Selene): Selene: launched 2007 September. Impacted Moon 2009 June.

http: //www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/selene/index_e.html

Kepler mission: launched 2009 March 7.

Kleinmann–Low nebula: Low d. 2009

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope: now due to begin operation in 2016.

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna: launch is now due for 2018.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: launched 2009 June.

Phoenix Mars lander: launched 2007 August. Landed on Mars 2008 May.

Planck: launched 2009 May.

Planck constant: delete the final “3” in the value given.

plutoid: new name for dwarf planets like Pluto