ELONGATION

Elongation

In astronomy, a planet's elongation is the angle between the Sun and the planet, with Earth as the reference point. The greatest elongation of a given planet occurs when this inner planet’s position, in its orbital path to the Sun, is at tangent to the observer on Earth. Given the planets able to elongate are well within the area of Earth's orbit of the Sun, observation of such a phenomenon should not pose that much a challenge, compared to deep sky objects, for example. When a planet is at its greatest elongation, it is farthest from the Sun as viewed from Earth, so its view is also best at that point.

The above text is a snippet from Wikipedia: Elongation (astronomy)
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elongation

Noun

  1. The act of lengthening, or the state of being lengthened; protraction; extension.
  2. That which lengthens out; continuation.
  3. The ratio of the extension of a material to the length of the material prior to stretching.
  4. Removal to a distance; withdrawal; a being at a distance; distance.
  5. The angular distance of a planet from the sun; as, the elongation of Venus or Mercury.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: elongation
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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