Lexical Compendium

Wait... what is this? Sometimes I come across a word, phrase, idiom, quote, reference, bit of slang, person of interest, etc that either I don't know or I find amusing, interesting, etc. This is a collection of those items so that I can refer back to them in emails, texts, etc.

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albedo

Albedo is the measure of reflectivity of a surface, specifically Earth's ability to reflect solar radiation back into space. It is expressed as a percentage, with higher albedo indicating greater reflectivity.

I first came across this term while reading a SciTechDaily post about how scientists have a theory as to why global warming in 2023 exceeded predictions. The year 2023 was also had a record-low albedo.


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References:

Tags: science, vocabulary

Date Added: 21 Dec 2024

DSKY

An acronym for Display Keyboard (pronounced diskey). This was the interface that Apollo astronauts used to communicate with the computers on the Command and Lunar Modules.

I first came across this acronym while watching the television series For All Mankind.


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References:

Tags: space, astronaut, apollo

Date Added: Unknown
Date Modified: 27 Jun 2024

Pale Blue Dot

The "pale blue dot" is how Carl Sagan described the Earth as seen in a photograph taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 (the last picture of the Earth it took as it continued to leave the solar system).


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References:

Tags: space, carl_sagan, earth

Date Added: 23 Jun 2024

spaghettification

Spaghettification refers to the streching and compressing that occurs as an object passes within a black hole's event horizon. The process was first described by Stephen Hawking in the book "A Brief History of Time."


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References:

Tags: science, space

Date Added: 05 Jul 2024