rotation curve
Astronomy
noun
A graph of the orbital speed of stars, gas clouds, etc., in a galaxy plotted against their distance from the galactic centre.
- The rotation curve of a typical spiral galaxy, outside the central bulge, is flat, the orbital speed remaining approximately constant with distance rather than decreasing with distance as predicted by Kepler's third law; the existence of dark matter has been postulated to account for this discrepancy..
Origin
1960s; earliest use found in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
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