absolute magnitude

American  

noun

Astronomy.

1. the magnitude of a star as it would appear to a hypothetical observer at a distance of 10 parsecs or 32.6 light-years.

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absolute magnitude British  

noun

1. the apparent magnitude a given star would have if it were situated at a distance of 10 parsecs (32.6 light years) from the earth

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absolute magnitude Scientific  

1. See under at magnitude

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Etymology

Origin of absolute magnitude

First recorded in 1900–05

Compare meaning

How does absolute-magnitude compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• apparent magnitude vs. absolute magnitude

Example Sentences

We shall find that only the greatest and most luminous stars in the stellar system have a negative value of the absolute magnitude.

From Lectures on Stellar Statistics by Charlier, Carl Vilhelm Ludvig

We conclude that the number of stars having an absolute magnitude brighter than 6m amounts to 8.

From Lectures on Stellar Statistics by Charlier, Carl Vilhelm Ludvig

Well, first one is struck with the absolute magnitude assigned to T. The figures seem vastly greater than would have been anticipated.

From The Value of Money by Anderson, Benjamin M.

We may go further and answer that all stars with an absolute magnitude brighter than 6m must be contained in this list.

From Lectures on Stellar Statistics by Charlier, Carl Vilhelm Ludvig

By this method the absolute magnitude, and hence the distance of a star is accurately determined from estimates of the relative intensities of certain lines in stellar spectra.

From Astronomy: The Science of the Heavenly Bodies by Todd, David Peck