List of Astronomy Acronyms - L

L

• L – (astrophysics terminology) Lagrange, Lagrange points
• L – (catalog) Luyten, a catalog of proper motion measurements of stars
• LAD-C – (instrumentation) Large Area Debris Collector, a canceled program that was to collect and catalog low orbital dust on the International Space Station
• LAEFF – (organization) Laboratorio de Astrofisica Espacial y Fisica Fundamental, a Spanish astronomy research organization
• LAL – (catalog) LALande, a historical catalog of stars
• LAMOST – (telescope) Large sky Area Multi-Object fiber Spectroscopic Telescope
• LANL – (organization) Los Alamos National Laboratory
• LASCO – (instrumentation) Large Angle and Spectrometric COronagraph, an instrument on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
• Laser – (instrumentation) Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
• LBN – (catalog) Lynds Bright Nebula, a catalog of bright nebulae
• LBNL – (organization) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• LBT – (telescope) Large Binocular Telescope
• LBV – (celestial object) Luminous Blue Variable, a type of very bright variable star
• LCDM – (astrophysics terminology) Lambda Cold Dark Matter, any model for structure formation in the universe that includes dark energy
  • also ΛCDM
• LCOGT network of autonomous robotic telescopes (2m, 1m and 40 cm) at 7 sites in both hemispheres
• LCROSS – (spacecraft) Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite
• LCRS – (observing program) Las Campanas Redshift Survey
• LDN – (catalog) Lynds Dark Nebula, a catalog of dark nebulae
• LDS – (catalog) Luyten Double Star
• LEO – (astrophysics terminology) Low Earth Orbit
• LEST – (telescope) Large Earth-based Solar Telescope
• LETGS – (instrumentation) Low Energy Transmission Gratings Spectrometer, an instrument on the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
  • also LETG
• LF – (astrophysics terminology) Luminosity Function, the spatial density of objects such as star clusters and galaxies as a function of their luminosity
• LFT – (catalog) Luyten Five-Tenths, a catalog of stars with proper motions exceeding 0.5"
• LGA – (instrumentation) Low Gain Antenna
• LGM – (celestial object) Little Green Men, a humorous name applied to pulsars soon after their discovery
• LHEA – (organization) Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics
• LHS – (catalog) Luyten Half-Second, a catalog of stars with proper motions exceeding 0.5"
• LIC – (celestial object) Local Interstellar Cloud, the cloud in the interstellar medium through which the solar system is currently moving
• LIGO – (telescope) Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, an instrument for detecting gravitational waves
• LINEAR – (observing program) Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research
• LINER – (celestial object) Low Ionization Nuclear Emission Region, a galactic nucleus that is characterized by spectral line emission from weakly ionized gas
• LIRG – (celestial object) Luminous Infrared Galaxy, a galaxy that is between 1011 and 1012 solar luminosities in the infrared
• LISA – (telescope) Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, a series of spacecraft that can be used to detect gravitational waves
• LLAGN – (celestial object) Low Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus, an active galactic nucleus with a low luminosity
• LLNL – (organization) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• LMC – (celestial object) Large Magellanic Cloud, an irregular galaxy near the Milky Way
• LMS – (celestial object) Lower Main Sequence star, the less massive hydrogen-burning main-sequence stars
• LMXB – (celestial object) Low-Mass X-Ray Binary, an X-ray-luminous binary star system in which one of the stars is a neutron star or black hole that is stripping material away from the other star in the system
• LN2 – (instrumentation) Liquid Nitrogen
• LOFAR – (telescope) LOw Frequency ARray, for radio astronomy
• LONEOS – (observing program) Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search
• LOSS – (observing program) Lick Observatory Supernova Search
• LOTIS – (telescope) Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System, a telescope designed to find the optical counterparts of gamma ray bursts
• LOTOSS – (observing program) Lick Observatory and Tenagra Observatory Supernova Searches
• LP – (catalog) Luyten Palomar, a catalog of proper motion measurements of stars
• LPI – (organization) Lunar and Planetary Institute
• LPL – (organization) Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, the planetary science department of the University of Arizona
• LPO – (organization) La Palma Observatory
• LPV – (celestial object) Long Period Variable, a type of variable star that changes in brightness slowly over time
• LRG – (celestial object) Luminous Red Galaxy, a dataset of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey that were selected on the basis of their red colors
• LRO – (spacecraft) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
• LSR – (astrophysics terminology) Local Standard of Rest, the frame of reference with a velocity equal to the average velocity of all the stars in the solar neighborhood, including the Sun
• LSST – (telescope) Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
• LST – (astrophysics terminology) Local Sidereal Time, the right ascension that is currently at the zenith
• LTE – (astrophysics terminology) Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium, a state where variations in temperature, pressure, etc. do not vary on small scales
• LTP – (astrophysics terminology) Lunar Transient Phenomenon, an observed event (such as a flash of light) on the surface of the Moon
• LTT – (catalog) Luyten Two-Tenths, a catalog of proper motion measurements for stars