Granule
Encyclopedia
Granule is a generic term used for a small particle or grain. The generic term is employed in a variety of specific contexts.
- Granule (solar physics)Granule (solar physics)Granules on the photosphere of the Sun are caused by convection currents of plasma within the Sun's convective zone. The grainy appearance of the solar photosphere is produced by the tops of these convective cells and is called granulation.The rising part of the granules is located in the center...
, visible structures in the photosphere of the Sun arising from activity in the Sun's convective zone - Granule (cell biology)Granule (cell biology)In cell biology, a granule is a small particle. It can be any structure barely visible by light microscopy. The term is most often used to describe a secretory vesicle.-Leukocytes:...
, any of several submicroscopic structures, some with explicable origins, others noted only as cell type-specific features of unknown function - "Azurophil granule", a structure characteristic of the azurophilAzurophilAn azurophil is an object readily stained with an azure dye. Azurophils include certain cytoplasmic granules in white blood cells and hyperchromatin, imparting a burgundy or merlot coloration. Neutrophils in particular are known for containing azurophils loaded with a wide variety of...
eukarytotic cell type - "Chromaffin granule", a structure characteristic of the chromophilChromophilA chromophil biological cell is a cell which is easily stainable by absorbing chromium salts used in histology to increase the visual contrast of samples for microscopy.-Function:...
eukaryotic cell type - Martian spherulesMartian spherulesMartian spherules are the abundant spherical hematite inclusions discovered by the Mars rover Opportunity at Meridiani Planum on the planet Mars...
, spherical granules of material found on the surface of the planet Mars - Granule (geology)Granule (geology)A granule is a clast of rock with a particle size of 2 to 4 millimetres based on the Krumbein phi scale of sedimentology. Granules are generally considered to be larger than sand and smaller than pebbles . A rock made predominantly of granules is termed a conglomerate....
, a specified particle size of 2–4 millimetres (-1–-2 on the φ scale) - In pharmaceutical terms, a granule is small particles gathered into a larger, permanent aggregate in which the original particles can still be identified
- In the Oracle databaseGranule (Oracle DBMS)In computing, a granule is a unit of contiguous virtual memory allocated to a process.In the Oracle DBMS, the Oracle server allocates the system global area in granule units at the time of instance startup. During the startup, each component acquires as many granules as it requires...
, a unit of contiguously allocated virtual memory