Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, stars and comets, while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, more generally, all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earths atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole, Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Indians, Nubians, Chinese, during the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena.
The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can play an active role, especially in the discovery. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, Astronomy means law of the stars. Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects. Although the two share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct. Generally, either the term astronomy or astrophysics may be used to refer to this subject, since most modern astronomical research deals with subjects related to physics, modern astronomy could actually be called astrophysics. Few fields, such as astrometry, are purely astronomy rather than astrophysics, some titles of the leading scientific journals in this field includeThe Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics.
In early times, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye, in some locations, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that possibly had some astronomical purpose. Before tools such as the telescope were invented, early study of the stars was conducted using the naked eye, most of early astronomy actually consisted of mapping the positions of the stars and planets, a science now referred to as astrometry. From these observations, early ideas about the motions of the planets were formed, and the nature of the Sun, the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a cycle known as a saros
Earliest known life forms
The earliest known life forms on Earth are putative fossilized microorganisms. The earliest time that life forms first appeared on Earth is unknown, a life form, or lifeform, is an entity or being that is living. Earth remains the place in the universe known to harbor life forms. More than 99% of all species of life forms, amounting to five billion species. Estimates on the number of Earths current species of life forms range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living on Earth.
Under certain test conditions, life forms have been observed to thrive in the vacuum of outer space, Life forms appear to thrive in the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot in the Earths oceans. In August 2014, scientists confirmed the existence of life forms living 800 m below the ice of Antarctica, fossil evidence from the Earth informs most studies of the origin of life. Microbial mat fossils have found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of biogenic substances includes graphite, and possibly stromatolites, remains of biotic life have been found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. In recent years, there have been a number of discoveries that suggested the earliest appearance of life on Earth was even earlier in time, according to biologist Stephen Blair Hedges, If life arose relatively quickly on Earth … it could be common in the universe. Biota Life Vitae Wikispecies – a free directory of life
Geophysics
Although geophysics was only recognized as a separate discipline in the 19th century, its origins date back to ancient times. The first magnetic compasses were made from lodestones, while more modern magnetic compasses played an important role in the history of navigation, the first seismic instrument was built in 132 BC. Geophysics is applied to societal needs, such as resources, mitigation of natural hazards. Geophysics is a highly interdisciplinary subject, and geophysicists contribute to area of the Earth sciences. To provide an idea of what constitutes geophysics, this section describes phenomena that are studied in physics and how they relate to the Earth. The gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun give rise to two high tides and two low tides every lunar day, or every 24 hours and 50 minutes, there is a gap of 12 hours and 25 minutes between every high tide and between every low tide. Gravitational forces make rocks press down on rocks, increasing their density as the depth increases.
Measurements of gravitational acceleration and gravitational potential at the Earths surface, the surface gravitational field provides information on the dynamics of tectonic plates. The geopotential surface called the geoid is one definition of the shape of the Earth, the geoid would be the global mean sea level if the oceans were in equilibrium and could be extended through the continents. The Earth is cooling, and the heat flow generates the Earths magnetic field through the geodynamo. The main sources of heat are the heat and radioactivity. Some heat is carried up from the bottom of the mantle by mantle plumes, the heat flow at the Earths surface is about 4.2 ×1013 W, and it is a potential source of geothermal energy. Seismic waves are vibrations that travel through the Earths interior or along its surface, the entire Earth can oscillate in forms that are called normal modes or free oscillations of the Earth. Ground motions from waves or normal modes are measured using seismographs, if the waves come from a localized source such as an earthquake or explosion, measurements at more than one location can be used to locate the source.
The locations of earthquakes provide information on plate tectonics and mantle convection, measurements of seismic waves are a source of information on the region that the waves travel through. If the density or composition of the rock changes suddenly, some waves are reflected, reflections can provide information on near-surface structure. Changes in the direction, called refraction, can be used to infer the deep structure of the Earth. Earthquakes pose a risk to humans, understanding their mechanisms, which depend on the type of earthquake, can lead to better estimates of earthquake risk and improvements in earthquake engineering
SeaWiFS
SeaWIFS was a satellite-borne sensor designed to collect global ocean biological data. Active from September 1997 to December 2010, its mission was to quantify chlorophyll produced by marine phytoplankton. SeaWiFS was the scientific instrument on GeoEyes OrbView-2 satellite, and was a follow-on experiment to the Coastal Zone Color Scanner on Nimbus 7. The sensor resolution is 1.1 km,4.5 km, the sensor recorded information in the following optical bands, The instrument was specifically designed to monitor ocean characteristics such as chlorophyll-a concentration and water clarity. It was able to tilt up to 20 degrees to avoid sunlight from the sea surface and this feature is important at equatorial latitudes where glint from sunlight often obscures water colour. SeaWiFS had used the Marine Optical Buoy for vicarious calibration, the current SeaWiFS Project manager is Gene Carl Feldman. Chlorophyll concentrations are derived from images of the ocean’s color, generally speaking, the greener the water, the more phytoplankton are present in the water, and the higher the chlorophyll concentrations.
Chlorophyll a absorbs more blue and red light than green, with the reflected light changing from blue to green as the amount of chlorophyll in the water increases. Using this knowledge, scientists were able to use ratios of different reflected colors to estimate chlorophyll concentrations, the color of light is defined by its wavelength, and visible light has wavelengths from 400 to 700 nanometers, progressing from violet to red. A typical formula used for SeaWiFS data divides the reflectance of the maximum of several wavelengths by the reflectance at 550 nm. This roughly equates to a ratio of light to green light for two of the numerator wavelengths, and a ratio of two different green wavelengths for the other possible combination. The reflectance returned by this formula is plugged into a polynomial that relates the band ratio to chlorophyll. C h l = a n t i l o g This formula, to facilitate these comparisons, NASA maintains a system of oceanographic and atmospheric data called SeaBASS. This data archive is used to develop new algorithms and validate satellite data products by matching chlorophyll concentrations measured directly with those estimated remotely from a satellite and these data can be used to assess atmospheric correction that can greatly influence chlorophyll concentration calculations.
Numerous chlorophyll algorithms were tested to see which ones best matched chlorophyll globally, various algorithms perform differently in different environments. Many algorithms estimate chlorophyll concentrations more accurately in deep water than in shallow water. In shallow waters reflectance from other pigments and the bottom may cause inaccuracies. 05–50 mg m-3. ”. When accuracy is assessed on a scale, and all observations are grouped together
Microbial mat
A microbial mat is a multi-layered sheet of microorganisms, mainly bacteria and archaea. Microbial mats grow at interfaces between different types of material, mostly on submerged or moist surfaces, but a few survive in deserts and they colonize environments ranging in temperature from –40 °C to 120 °C. A few are found as endosymbionts of animals, the best known physical forms are flat mats and stubby pillars called stromatolites, but there are spherical forms. The final and most significant stage of this liberation was the development of oxygen-producing photosynthesis, since the chemical inputs for this are carbon dioxide. As a result, microbial mats began to produce the atmosphere we know today, at around the same time they may have been the birthplace of the more complex eukaryote type of cell, of which all multicellular organisms are composed. Because of microbial mats ability to use almost anything as food, there is considerable interest in industrial uses of mats, especially for water treatment, microbial mats have been referred to as algal mats and bacterial mats in older scientific literature.
They are a type of biofilm that is enough to see with the naked eye. Such interfaces form vertical chemical gradients, i. e. However, there are spherical mats, some on the outside of pellets of rock or other firm material and others inside spheres of sediment. A microbial mat consists of layers, each of which is dominated by specific types of micro-organism. Although the composition of individual mats varies depending on the environment, in effect each mat forms its own food chain, with one or a few groups at the top of the food chain as their by-products are not consumed by other groups. Different types of micro-organism dominate different layers based on their advantage for living in that layer. Sometimes there are intermediate layers inhabited by facultative anaerobic bacteria, for example, in hypersaline ponds near Guerrero Negro various kind of mats were explored. There are some mats with a middle purple layer inhabited by photosynthesizing purple bacteria, microbial mats are generally held together and bound to their substrates by slimy extracellular polymeric substances which they secrete.
In many cases some of the bacteria form filaments, which tangle and thus increase the structural strength. Marine mats may grow to a few centimeters in thickness, of only the top few millimeters are oxygenated. Underwater microbial mats have been described as layers that live by exploiting and to some extent modifying local chemical gradients, less complex biofilms live in many sub-aerial environments, for example on rocks, on mineral particles such as sand, and within soil. They have to survive for periods without liquid water, often in a dormant state. Microbial mats and less complex types of biofilm are found at temperature ranges from –40 °C to +120 °C and they even appear as endosymbionts in some animals, for example in the hindguts of some echinoids
Cosmic ray
Cosmic rays are high-energy radiation, mainly originating outside the Solar System. Upon impact with the Earths atmosphere, cosmic rays can produce showers of particles that sometimes reach the surface. Composed primarily of protons and atomic nuclei, they are of mysterious origin. Data from the Fermi space telescope have been interpreted as evidence that a significant fraction of cosmic rays originate from the supernovae explosions of stars. Active galactic nuclei probably produce cosmic rays, the term ray is a historical accident, as cosmic rays were at first, and wrongly, thought to be mostly electromagnetic radiation. In current usage, the cosmic ray almost exclusively refers to massive particles. Massive particles – those that have rest mass – can gain additional, mass-energy when they are moving, through this process, some particles acquire tremendously high mass-energies. These are significantly higher than the energy of even the highest-energy photons detected to date. The energy of the massless photon depends solely on frequency, not speed, at the higher end of the energy spectrum, relativistic kinetic energy is the main source of the mass-energy of cosmic rays.
Hence, the highest-energy detected fermionic cosmic ray was around 3×106 times more energetic than the highest-energy detected cosmic photons, of primary cosmic rays, which originate outside of Earths atmosphere, about 99% are the nuclei of well-known atoms, and about 1% are solitary electrons. Of the nuclei, about 90% are simple protons, i. e. hydrogen nuclei, 9% are alpha particles, identical to helium nuclei, a very small fraction are stable particles of antimatter, such as positrons or antiprotons. The precise nature of this fraction is an area of active research. An active search from Earth orbit for anti-alpha particles has failed to detect them, one can show that such enormous energies might be achieved by means of the Centrifugal mechanism of acceleration in Active galactic nuclei. At 50 J, the highest-energy ultra-high-energy cosmic rays have energies comparable to the energy of a 90-kilometre-per-hour baseball. As a result of discoveries, there has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies.
Most cosmic rays, however, do not have such extreme energies, his paper published in Physikalische Zeitschrift was not widely accepted. In 1911 Domenico Pacini observed simultaneous variations of the rate of ionization over a lake, over the sea, Pacini concluded from the decrease of radioactivity underwater that a certain part of the ionization must be due to sources other than the radioactivity of the Earth. In 1912, Victor Hess carried three enhanced-accuracy Wulf electrometers to an altitude of 5300 meters in a balloon flight
Earth science
Earth science or geoscience is a widely embraced term for the fields of science related to the planet Earth. Earth science can be considered to be a branch of planetary science, there are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences. The Earth sciences can include the study of geology, the lithosphere, and the structure of the Earths interior, as well as the atmosphere, hydrosphere. Typically, Earth scientists use tools from geography, physics, biology, Geology describes the rocky parts of the Earths crust and its historic development. Major subdisciplines are mineralogy and petrology, geomorphology, stratigraphy, structural geology, engineering geology and geodesy investigate the shape of the Earth, its reaction to forces and its magnetic and gravity fields. Geophysicists explore the Earths core and mantle as well as the tectonic and seismic activity of the lithosphere, geophysics is commonly used to supplement the work of geologists in developing a comprehensive understanding of crustal geology, particularly in mineral and petroleum exploration.
Soil science covers the outermost layer of the Earths crust that is subject to soil formation processes, major subdisciplines include edaphology and pedology. Ecology covers the interactions between the biota, with their natural environment and this field of study differentiates the study of the Earth, from the study of other planets in the Solar System, the Earth being the only planet teeming with life. Hydrology is a study revolved around the movement and quality of the water and involves all the components of the cycle on the earth. Sub-disciplines of hydrology include hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, watershed science, forest hydrology. Glaciology covers the icy parts of the Earth, atmospheric sciences cover the gaseous parts of the Earth between the surface and the exosphere. Major subdisciplines include meteorology, atmospheric chemistry, and atmospheric physics, plate tectonics, mountain ranges and earthquakes are geological phenomena that can be explained in terms of physical and chemical processes in the Earths crust.
Beneath the Earths crust lies the mantle which is heated by the decay of heavy elements. The mantle is not quite solid and consists of magma which is in a state of semi-perpetual convection and this convection process causes the lithospheric plates to move, albeit slowly. The resulting process is known as plate tectonics, plate tectonics might be thought of as the process by which the Earth is resurfaced. As the result of spreading, new crust and lithosphere is created by the flow of magma from the mantle to the near surface, through fissures. Through subduction, oceanic crust and lithosphere returns to the convecting mantle, volcanoes result primarily from the melting of subducted crust material. Crust material that is forced into the asthenosphere melts, and some portion of the material becomes light enough to rise to the surface—giving birth to volcanoes
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions.
There are several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects.
Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Matthew Fontaine Maury
Matthew Fontaine Maury, United States Navy, was an American astronomer, oceanographer, cartographer, author and educator, LL. D. Maury made many important new contributions to charting winds and ocean currents, in 1825 at age 19, Maury obtained, through the then-US Congressman Sam Houston, a midshipmans warrant in the United States Navy. As a midshipman on board the frigate USS Brandywine, almost immediately he began to study the seas and record methods of navigation. When a leg injury left him unfit for sea duty, Maury devoted his time to the study of navigation, winds and he became Superintendent of the U. S. Naval Observatory and head of the Depot of Charts and Instruments. Here, Maury studied thousands of logs and charts. He published the Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic, Maurys uniform system of recording oceanographic data was adopted by navies and merchant marines around the world and was used to develop charts for all the major trade routes. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Maury, a Virginian, resigned his commission as a US Navy commander and he spent the war in the South, as well as abroad in Great Britain and France.
He helped acquire a ship, CSS Georgia, for the Confederacy while advocating stopping the war in America among several European Nations, following the war, Maury accepted a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He died at his V. M. I. home in Lexington in 1873 after completing an exhausting lecture tour on national and international weather forecasting on land. He had completed his book on his Geological Survey of Virginia, Maury was a descendant of a prominent Virginia family of Huguenot ancestry whose ancestry can be traced back to 15th century France. Matthew Fontaine Maurys grandfather was a teacher to a future U. S. president. Maury had Dutch-American ancestry from the Minor family of early Virginia, M. F. Maury was born in 1806 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia near the City of Fredericksburg, his parents were Richard Maury and Diane Minor Maury. The family moved to Franklin, when he was age five and he wanted to emulate the naval career of his older brother, Flag Lieutenant John Minor Maury, who however caught yellow fever after fighting pirates as an officer in the United States Navy.
As a result of Johns painful death, Matthew Maurys father, Maury joined the Navy as a midshipman on board the frigate Brandywine which was carrying the Marquis de La Fayette home to France following the Marquis famous visit to the United States. Almost immediately, Maury began to study the seas and record methods of navigation, one of the experiences that piqued this interest was a circumnavigation of the globe on the USS Vincennes, his assigned ship and the first US warship to travel around the world. Matthew Maurys seagoing days came to an end at the age of 33 after a stagecoach accident broke his right leg. Maury had known of the Psalms of David since childhood, John Minor, Walker, Betsy, Richard Launcelot, Matthew Fontaine and Charles. His Bible is depicted on his monument beside his left leg, the product of his work was international recognition and the publication in 1847 of Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic
Earth
Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere.
The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe.
It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
NASA
President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1.
In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history.
Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
Vladimir Vernadsky
His ideas of noosphere were an important contribution to Russian cosmism. In 1943 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, Vernadsky was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, on 12 March 1863 in family of the native Kiev residents Russian-Ukrainian economist Ivan Vernadsky and music instructor Hanna Konstantynovych. According to family legend, his father was a descendent of Zaporozhian Cossacks and he had been a professor of political economy in Kiev before moving to Saint Petersburg. His mother was a Russian noblewoman of Ukrainian Cossack descent, Vernadsky graduated from Saint Petersburg State University in 1885. I believe there is hidden here still more to discover when one considers the complexity of chemical elements, while trying to find a topic for his doctorate, he first went to Naples to study under crystallographer Arcangelo Scacchi, who was senile by that time. Scacchis condition led Vernadsky to go to Germany to study under Paul Groth, Vernadsky learned to use Groths modern equipment, who had developed a machine to study the optical, elastic and electrical properties of crystals.
He gained access to the lab of Leonhard Sohncke. He served as professor and as rector of Moscow University. After the February revolution of 1917, he served on commissions of agriculture and education of the provisional government. Vernadsky first popularized the concept of the noosphere and deepened the idea of the biosphere to the meaning largely recognized by todays scientific community, the word biosphere was invented by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess, whom Vernadsky met in 1911. In Vernadskys theory of the Earths development, the noosphere is the stage in the earths development, after the geosphere. Just as the emergence of life transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition will fundamentally transform the biosphere. In this theory, the principles of life and cognition are essential features of the Earths evolution, and must have been implicit in the earth all along. Vernadskys visionary pronouncements were not widely accepted in the West, however, he was one of the first scientists to recognize that the oxygen and carbon dioxide in the Earths atmosphere result from biological processes.
During the 1920s he published works arguing that living organisms could reshape the planets as surely as any physical force, Vernadsky was an important pioneer of the scientific bases for the environmental sciences. Vernadsky was a member of the Russian and Soviet Academies of Sciences since 1912 and was a founder and first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev and he was a founder of the National Library of Ukrainian State and worked closely with the Tavrida University in Crimea. During the Russian Civil War, he hosted gatherings of the intellectuals who founded the émigré Eurasianism movement. He died, before a project was pursued
