Astronomical acronyms

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.

List of Acronyms

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.^[1]
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

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

External links

References

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

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

[1]