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Trifid Nebula, M20
An area of active star formation in our Milky Way galaxy 2,200 light-years away.
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Trojan asteroid
A Trojan asteroid is a chunk of rock, metal, and ice that shares an orbit with a planet. Trojans can inhabit two regions, 60 degrees ahead of or behind the planet. They are held in place by the combined gravitational pull of the Sun and the planet with which they share an orbit. Earth has two known Trojans. The giant outer planets may have thousands of them. Jupiter, for example, has at least 5,000. Many Trojans contain organic compounds. Similar compounds could have been incorporated into the young Earth, so the Trojans could tell us more about the development of life on our planet and the possibility of life on other worlds of the solar system.
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Tycho Brahe
A Danish astronomer who lived from 1546 to 1601. In 1576, the King of Denmark granted him the island of Hveen on which to establish an observatory. Since this was before the invention of the telescope, he designed his own equipment for unaided eye observations. Until 1597 he made very accurate observations at Hveen, then moved to Prague. His very detailed records were later used by Johannes Kepler to discern Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion.
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