Advertisement

Advertisement

galactic poles

plural noun

  1. the two points on the celestial sphere, diametrically opposite each other, that can be joined by an imaginary line perpendicular to the galactic plane
“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


Discover More

Example Sentences

The number of objects is, indeed, too small to allow us to draw any cosmological conclusions from this distribution, but we shall find in the following many similar instances regarding objects that are principally accumulated along the Milky Way and are scanty at the galactic poles.

At some such distance as this, we might find a thinning out of the stars in the direction of the galactic poles, or the commencement of the Milky Way in the direction of this stream.

Even if this were not found at the distance which we have supposed, it is quite certain that, at some greater distance, we should at least find that the region of the Milky Way is richer in stars than the region near the galactic poles.

The points in which the latter intersects the celestial sphere are called the galactic poles.

Our horizon corresponds, as it were, to the central circle of the Milky Way, which now surrounds us on all sides in a horizontal direction, while the galactic poles are 90 degrees distant from every part of it, as every point of the horizon is 90 degrees from the zenith.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement