The words that matter at Asteria, in one place — from the astronomy of small bodies to the plumbing of tokens. Definitions are short by design; follow the links for the full story.
Every term is tagged Astronomy Web3 Asteria or Legal.
Jump to: A · B · C · D · E · G · H · I · J · K · M · N · O · P · R · S · T · W
A#
Absolute magnitude (H)#
Astronomy How bright an asteroid would look if it sat 1 AU from both the Sun and the observer, fully lit. Lower numbers mean brighter. Combined with albedo it gives a size estimate: D = 1329 / √p × 10^(−H/5) kilometres.
Albedo#
Astronomy The fraction of incoming sunlight a surface reflects. Asteria records geometric albedo, which runs from a few percent for the darkest carbonaceous asteroids to more than 40 percent for the brightest basaltic and enstatite-rich ones.
Amor asteroid#
Astronomy A near-Earth asteroid that approaches Earth's orbit from outside without crossing it, with a perihelion between 1.017 and 1.3 AU.
Aphelion#
Astronomy The point of an orbit farthest from the Sun. Its distance is Q = a(1 + e).
Apollo asteroid#
Astronomy An Earth-crossing near-Earth asteroid with a semi-major axis larger than Earth's and a perihelion below 1.017 AU. The most numerous group of known near-Earth asteroids.
Approval#
Web3 Permission a wallet grants to another address to transfer its tokens. setApprovalForAll covers every token in a collection, so grant it only to marketplaces you chose deliberately. See Wallets & custody.
Asteroid#
Astronomy A small rocky or metallic body orbiting the Sun, too small to be a planet and without the glowing coma of a comet. Most known asteroids orbit in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Astronomical unit (AU)#
Astronomy The unit of distance based on the Earth–Sun distance, defined as exactly 149,597,870,700 metres — about 150 million kilometres. Orbit sizes at Asteria are given in AU.
Aten asteroid#
Astronomy An Earth-crossing near-Earth asteroid with a semi-major axis smaller than Earth's (below 1 AU) and an aphelion beyond 0.983 AU.
Atira asteroid#
Astronomy A near-Earth asteroid whose entire orbit lies inside Earth's, with an aphelion below 0.983 AU. Very few are known: they spend their lives in the Sun's glare.
B#
Block explorer#
Web3 A website that shows the transactions, addresses, tokens and contracts on a blockchain. The simplest way to inspect a token independently of any marketplace — or of Asteria.
C#
Certificate#
Asteria The digital artwork issued with every registry entry, generated from the same record as the token. A commemorative record, not a title deed. See Digital certificates.
CID#
Web3 Content identifier: the address of a file on IPFS, derived from the file's own bytes. Change a single byte and the CID changes, so a CID always points to exactly one version of a document.
D#
Dedication#
Asteria An optional inscription of up to 240 characters, shown on a certificate beneath the registry name. Planned for launch and reviewed under the naming guidelines.
Designation#
Astronomy The official label of a minor planet. A provisional designation such as 2004 MN4 encodes the year and half-month of discovery; once the orbit is secure, the MPC adds a permanent number — (99942) — and sometimes, later, a name: (99942) Apophis.
Digital collectible#
Asteria A unique digital item, represented by a token, that people collect for its meaning, story and design. Asteria tokens are digital collectibles: not investments, and not property rights in an asteroid.
E#
Eccentricity (e)#
Astronomy How stretched an orbit is. Zero is a perfect circle; values between 0 and 1 are ellipses; at 1 or above, the path is open and the body never returns.
Ecliptic#
Astronomy The plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun, used as the reference plane for orbital inclination.
ERC-721#
Web3 The Ethereum standard for non-fungible tokens: each token has a unique ID within its contract and one holder at a time. Asteria tokens are designed as ERC-721 (opens in a new tab) tokens.
ERC-2981#
Web3 The NFT royalty standard. Given a sale price, a contract reports a royalty amount and a recipient; marketplaces decide whether to honour it. See ERC-2981 (opens in a new tab).
ERC-4906#
Web3 An extension of ERC-721 that adds metadata-update events, telling wallets and marketplaces when to refresh a token's metadata.
EVM#
Web3 The Ethereum Virtual Machine: the runtime that executes smart contracts on Ethereum and on the many networks compatible with it. Asteria's network will be EVM-compatible; which one is to be announced.
G#
Gas#
Web3 The fee paid to a blockchain network to process a transaction, priced in the network's native currency. It rises and falls with demand, and it is paid to the network, not to Asteria.
H#
Hash#
Web3 A fixed-length fingerprint of data, produced by a function such as SHA-256 or Keccak-256. Change the data even slightly and the hash changes completely. Asteria plans to use hashes to tie certificates and designations to the records they describe.
Hilda group#
Astronomy Asteroids at about 3.7–4.2 AU locked in a 3:2 resonance with Jupiter: three laps around the Sun for every two of Jupiter's. Seen together, they trace a triangle with corners near Jupiter's L3, L4 and L5 points.
Hungaria group#
Astronomy Asteroids at the inner edge of the main belt, about 1.78–2.0 AU from the Sun, on steeply inclined orbits of roughly 16–34°. Many are bright E-types from the X-complex.
I#
IAU#
Astronomy The International Astronomical Union (opens in a new tab), founded in 1919: the internationally recognised authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features. It does not sell names.
Inclination (i)#
Astronomy The tilt of an orbit relative to the ecliptic, in degrees. At 0° an orbit lies in the plane of Earth's; beyond 90° the body travels around the Sun backwards (retrograde).
IPFS#
Web3 The InterPlanetary File System: a peer-to-peer network that stores files by their content rather than their location. A file stays available as long as at least one node "pins" it. Asteria plans to host metadata and media on IPFS.
J#
JPL Small-Body Database#
Astronomy NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's public database of orbits and physical data for asteroids and comets — one of the sources Asteria entries are checked against during verification.
K#
Kepler's third law#
Astronomy The square of an orbital period is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis. For bodies orbiting the Sun, with P in years and a in AU: P² = a³. An orbit with a = 2.64 AU takes about 4.29 years.
Kirkwood gap#
Astronomy A dip in the number of main-belt asteroids at distances where the orbital period would be a simple fraction of Jupiter's — the 3:1 gap near 2.5 AU and the 5:2 gap near 2.82 AU, for example. Repeated tugs from Jupiter clear these zones. First noted by Daniel Kirkwood in the 1860s.
M#
Main belt#
Astronomy The region between Mars and Jupiter, roughly 2.1 to 3.3 AU from the Sun, where most known asteroids orbit. The Kirkwood gaps divide it into inner, middle and outer zones.
Mars-crosser#
Astronomy An asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars, with a perihelion between 1.3 and 1.666 AU.
Metadata#
Web3 The JSON document a token's tokenURI points to. It describes the token — name, image, attributes — and, for Asteria, holds the full registry record. See Token metadata.
Minor planet#
Astronomy Any natural body orbiting the Sun that is neither a planet nor a comet: asteroids, trans-Neptunian objects, even dwarf planets such as (1) Ceres.
Minor Planet Center (MPC)#
Astronomy The organisation that collects observations of minor planets and comets, computes their orbits and assigns designations and numbers. It operates under the auspices of the IAU at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. See minorplanetcenter.net (opens in a new tab).
Mint#
Web3 To create a new token on a blockchain, recording it to its first holder's address. Asteria tokens are planned to be minted at the primary sale.
Multisig#
Web3 A wallet that needs several authorised signatures — say, three of five — before it can act. Asteria plans to hold every privileged contract role in multisig wallets.
N#
Near-Earth object (NEO)#
Astronomy An asteroid or comet whose perihelion is below 1.3 AU. Near-Earth asteroids fall into four groups: Atiras, Atens, Apollos and Amors.
Non-fungible#
Web3 Unique and not interchangeable. One euro can replace another; one registry entry cannot replace another.
O#
Orbit class#
Asteria The dynamical group of an asteroid, derived from its semi-major axis, eccentricity and inclination — from Atira to Jupiter Trojan. See Orbits explained.
Outer Space Treaty#
Legal The 1967 international treaty that forms the basis of space law. Its Article II rules out national appropriation of outer space, the Moon and other celestial bodies — which is why no registry, Asteria included, can convey ownership of an asteroid. See Legal framework.
P#
Perihelion#
Astronomy The point of an orbit closest to the Sun. Its distance is q = a(1 − e).
Preview data#
Asteria The demo catalogue entries shown on this site. Physically consistent, but placeholders until the verified inventory is imported for launch. See Explore.
Private key#
Web3 The secret number that controls a blockchain address and signs its transactions. Most wallets derive it from a seed phrase. Never share it with anyone.
R#
Registry ID#
Asteria The permanent identifier of an entry in the Asteria registry, such as ASR-0001. Never reused, never reassigned.
Registry name#
Asteria The name Asteria assigns to a registry entry, such as Vesperine. Meaningful in the registry, on the token and on the certificate — not an IAU-recognised name. See Registry vs official names.
Resonance#
Astronomy A mean-motion resonance occurs when two orbital periods form a ratio of small whole numbers, like the Hildas' 3:2 with Jupiter. Resonances can protect orbits, as for the Hildas and Trojans, or empty them, as in the Kirkwood gaps.
Rotation period#
Astronomy The time an asteroid takes to spin once, measured from the rhythmic rise and fall of its brightness — its light curve. Rubble-pile asteroids larger than a few hundred metres rarely spin faster than about once every 2.2 hours.
Royalty#
Web3 A share of a secondary-sale price directed to the original creator, signalled on-chain through ERC-2981. Asteria's planned rate is described in Fees & royalties.
S#
Seed phrase#
Web3 Twelve or twenty-four words that encode a wallet's master key, also called a recovery phrase. Anyone who has it controls the wallet. Asteria will never ask for it.
Self-custody#
Web3 Holding your own keys instead of letting a company hold them for you. Full control, and full responsibility.
Semi-major axis (a)#
Astronomy Half the longest diameter of an elliptical orbit — the average of the perihelion and aphelion distances. It sets the orbital period through Kepler's third law.
Smart contract#
Web3 A program deployed on a blockchain that runs exactly as written. Asteria's contracts are planned, not deployed. See Smart contracts.
Spectral class#
Astronomy A grouping of asteroids by how their surfaces reflect light at different wavelengths, which hints at composition. Asteria uses six: C, S, M, V, X and D. See Spectral classes.
T#
Testnet#
Web3 A blockchain network for testing, where tokens have no monetary value. Asteria's contracts will run on a public testnet before any launch.
Tier#
Asteria One of three groupings in the catalogue — Genesis, Celestial and Sovereign — based on an entry's physical and orbital traits. See Pricing & tiers.
Token ID#
Web3 The number that identifies a token within its contract. Together with the contract address, it identifies the token uniquely on its network.
Trojan#
Astronomy An asteroid that shares a planet's orbit, clustered around one of the two stable Lagrange points 60° ahead of (L4) or behind (L5) the planet. Jupiter Trojans orbit at about 5.2 AU.
W#
Wallet#
Web3 Software or hardware that stores your keys and signs transactions on your behalf. It holds keys, not tokens. See Wallets & custody.
WGSBN#
Astronomy The IAU Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature, which reviews and approves names for minor planets and comets and publishes them in the WGSBN Bulletin.