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HOT SPOT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A lively entertainment spot
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("hot spot" is a kind of...):
spot (a business establishment for entertainment)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A point of relatively intense heat or radiation
Synonyms:
hot spot; hotspot
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("hot spot" is a kind of...):
point (the precise location of something; a spatially limited location)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A place of political unrest and potential violence
Example:
the United States cannot police all of the world's hot spots
Synonyms:
flashpoint; hot spot; hotspot; trouble spot
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("hot spot" is a kind of...):
geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)
Context examples:
Within months following the equinox, the vortex in the stratosphere over the south pole had become prominent, as had an atmospheric "hot spot" at high altitudes.
(Cassini Sees Dramatic Seasonal Changes on Titan, NASA)
A further consequence of a rigid ice shell, according to the study, is any outgassing of methane into Titan's atmosphere must happen at scattered hot spots — like the hot spot on Earth that gave rise to the Hawaiian Island chain.
(Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea, NASA)
Individual geysers were found to coincide with small-scale hot spots, only a few dozen feet (or tens of meters) across, which were too small to be produced by frictional heating, but the right size to be the result of condensation of vapor on the near-surface walls of the fractures.
(101 Geysers on Icy Saturn Moon, NASA)
Over a period of almost seven years, Cassini’s cameras surveyed the south polar terrain of the small moon, a unique geological basin renowned for its four prominent "tiger stripe” fractures and the geysers of tiny icy particles and water vapor first sighted there nearly 10 years ago. The result of the survey is a map of 101 geysers, each erupting from one of the tiger stripe fractures, and the discovery that individual geysers are coincident with small hot spots. These relationships pointed the way to the geysers’ origin.###!!!###
(101 Geysers on Icy Saturn Moon, NASA)
