Ansa

Ansa or ANSA can refer to any of the following:

• Ansa, Queen of the Lombards, 8th century, wife of Desiderius, king of the Lombards
• Ansa (moth), genus of moth
• Ansa (Hinduism) or Aṃśa in Hinduism, a solar deity and one of the Adityas.
• ansa as part of Arabic words means "constant"

As the acronym ANSA:

• Agence nouvelle des solidarités actives, association créée en janvier 2006 par Martin Hirsch
• Afghan National Standards Association, the ISO representative organization for Afghanistan.
• Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, Italian news agency
  • Ansa Mediterranean or ANSAmed, section of the above
• Association of Norwegian Students Abroad
• Applied Neuroscience Society of Australasia
• Australian Network of Student Anthropologists, student-run arm of the Australian Anthropological Society.
• ANSA, an Italian manufacturer of OEM exhaust systems for automobiles.
• ANSA Pre-processor, commercial pre-processing software (Automatic Net-generation for Structural Analysis).
• The Planet of the Apes equivalent of NASA; it is never made clear in the movies what the letters actually stand for.
• ANSA Business, watch retailer based in The Netherlands

ansa is Latin for "handle". It has several uses derived from this meaning:

• In anatomy, the word is applied to nervous structures which resemble loops (for example the ansa lenticularis, ansa cervicalis, Loop of Henle (ansa nephroni) or the ansa of the tympanal organ).
• In archaeology it is used for the engraved and ornamented handle of a vase, which has often survived when the vase itself, being less durable, has disappeared.
• In astronomy, one of the apparent ends of the rings of Saturn as seen in perspective from the earth: so-called because, in the earlier telescopes, they looked like handles projecting from the planet.
• In chemistry, it is used to describe a bridge between two functional groups/ligands.
• In the plural ansae, in astronomy, compact nebulosities such as can be found in protoplanetary nebulae.