voorwerp

English

Hanny's Voorwerp is the green splotch in this false-color image.

Etymology

Dutch voorwerp (object), after Hanny's Voorwerp, discovered in 2007 by Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkel.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈvɔːɹˌwɛɹp/

Noun

voorwerp (plural voorwerps)

  1. (astronomy) An ionization or light echo, especially the quasar ionization echo known as Hanny's Voorwerp.
    • 2014 December 9, Chad Orzel, Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, Basic Books, →ISBN:
      The voorwerp turns out to be a cloud of gas tens of thousands of light-years across, which has somehow been heated to high enough temperatures to emit visible light. The exact mechanism of the heating is still under debate, but probably []
    • 2018 February 15, Matt Brown, Everything You Know About Space is Wrong, Batsford, →ISBN:
      Other voorwerps have since been spotted, but Hanny holds the distinction of finding the first, with nothing more exotic than a public website and the power of the human brain.
    • 2020 April 7, Michael Nielsen, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Princeton University Press, →ISBN, pages 132, 140:
      But regardless of which explanation is correct, or even if some other explanation is needed, the voorwerp is fascinating. Suppose, for instance, that it really is a quasar mirror. As we've seen, this means that the voorwerp is a huge collection of mirrors, echoing the light of the quasar at many different times over the quasar's lifetime. That means light from the voorwerp is a bit like a biography of the quasar,  []
      There's even a voorwerp project, and the Zooites have successfully hunted down several more voorwerps. In all, Galaxy Zoo has been used to write 22 scientific papers, on a wide variety of topics, and many more papers are on the way.

Alternative forms

  • Voorwerp

Dutch

Etymology

From voor (before) + werpen (to throw), a calque of Latin obiectum.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈvoːrˌʋɛrp/
  • (file)

Noun

voorwerp n (plural voorwerpen, diminutive voorwerpje n)

  1. a physical object
  2. (grammar) the object (of a sentence)

Derived terms

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