Harvard classification

British

/ ˈhɑːvəd /

noun

a classification of stars based on the characteristic spectral absorption lines and bands of the chemical elements present See spectral type

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Harvard classification

C20: named after the observatory at Harvard, Massachusetts, where it was prepared and published as part of The Henry Draper Catalogue (1924)

Example Sentences

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Such a scale is indeed implicit in the Harvard classification of the spectra.

From Lectures on Stellar Statistics by Charlier, Carl Vilhelm Ludvig

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023