Solar System Bodies (H)
For planets, comets and asteroids a different definition of absolute magnitude is used which is more meaningful for nonstellar objects.
In this case, the absolute magnitude is defined as the apparent magnitude that the object would have if it were one astronomical unit (AU) from both the Sun and the observer. Because the object is illuminated by the Sun, absolute magnitude is a function of phase angle and this relationship is referred to as the phase curve.
To convert a stellar or galactic absolute magnitude into a planetary one, subtract 31.57.
Read more about this topic: Absolute Magnitude
Famous quotes containing the words solar, system and/or bodies:
“Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In nothing was slavery so savage and relentless as in its attempted destruction of the family instincts of the Negro race in America. Individuals, not families; shelters, not homes; herding, not marriages, were the cardinal sins in that system of horrors.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)
“Why do we spend years using up our bodies to nurture our minds with experience and find our minds turning then to our exhausted bodies for solace?”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)