Semana passada, foi publicado na SymmetryBreaking um texto sobre uma peça do futuro telescópio HETDEX (Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment) – que investigará a, até agora hipotética, Energia Escura – chamada VIRUS (Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph) que incluiu o divertido trecho abaixo sobre os estranhos acrônimos usados por astrônomos/astrofísicos. Mantenho em inglês para não acabar com as piadinhas, peço perdão àqueles não versados na língua dos porcos imperialistas.

Reporters at the recent American Astronomical Society
meeting in Atlanta needed SMARTS to interpret the witty acronyms
invented by astronomers for their pet projects. A FIRST look at the
abstract volume turned up some DIRT and some real GEMS, so one writer
went on a QUEST for the best-or worst-creations.

The DEEP search exposed some clever IDEAS, from trees (ASPENS) to
desert (MOJAVE), and from ocean (SCUBA) to movie EPICs (SAURON). Some
scientists couldn’t quite spell (KASCADE), making one wonder whether
they were on LSD. (At the very least, they were all WET.)

The ARCADE-like poster room was a veritable hall of BEASTs. One
could GLIMPSE CANGAROOs, EGRETs, FLAMINGOS, GNATs, and even OGLE a fine
BASS. A few astronomers, burdened by strained acronyms, stood at their
posters with MACHO GLAREs. Others smiled to some internal MUSYC,
confident in the DESTINY of their proposals.

When it came down to the WIRE, the writer blew a FUSE trying to pick
the one acronym that really SINGS. For a COMPLETE list, SEGUE to this
web page*. If that’s too much to ask, don’t shoot the MESSENGER.

* Editor’s note: This link doesn’t exist as the piece was never published, but it would have linked to the text below.

SMARTS: Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System

FIRST: Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters

DIRT: Dust InfraRed Toolbox

GEMS: Galaxy Evolution from Morphology and Spectral energy distributions

QUEST: QUasar Equatorial Survey Team

DEEP: Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe

IDEAS: Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy and Space science

ASPENS: Astrometric Search for Planets Encircling Nearby Stars

MOJAVE: Monitoring Of Jets in AGN with VLBA Experiments

SCUBA: Submillimeter Common User Bolometer Array

EPIC: European Photon Imaging Cameras

SAURON: Spectroscopic Areal Unit for Research on Optical Nebulae

KASCADE: KArlsruhe Shower Core and Array DEtector

LSD: Lenses Structure and Dynamics

WET: Whole Earth Telescope

ARCADE: Absolute Radiometer for Cosmic And Diffuse Emission

BEAST: Background Emission Anisotropy Scanning Telescope

GLIMPSE: Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire

CANGAROO: Collaboration of Australia and Nippon for a GAmma Ray Observatory in the Outback

EGRET: Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope

FLAMINGOS: FLoridA Multi-object Imaging Near-infrared Grism Observational Spectrometer

GNAT: Global Network of Astronomical Telescopes

OGLE: Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment

BASS: Broadband Array Spectrograph System

MACHO: MAssive Compact Halo Object

GLARE: Gemini Lyman-Alpha at Reionization Era

MUSYC: MUltiwavelength Survey by Yale and Chile

DESTINY: Dark Energy Space Telescope (hey, what about INY?)

WIRE: Wide-field InfraRed Explorer

FUSE: Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer

SINGS: SIRTF (now Spitzer) Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey

COMPLETE: COordinated Molecular Probe Line Extinction Thermal Emission survey

SEGUE: Sloan Extension for Galactic Underpinnings and Evolution

MESSENGER: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging mission

O acrônimo escolhido para o Monitor de Radiação Atmosférica – MonRAt -, um projeto de experimento brasileiro com a finalidade de detectar a radiação de fluorecência produzida na passagem de raios cósmicos de altas energias pela atmosfera, pode não causar muita estranheza, mas os leitores que eram crianças na década de 80 com certeza esboçaram um sorriso. Vai dizer que não? =P