1.
Red Oak, Iowa
–
Red Oak is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Iowa, United States, located along the East Nishnabotna River. The population was 5,742 in the 2010 census, a decline from the 6,197 population in the 2000 census, Red Oak derives its name from Red Oak Creek which flows through the community and was noted for the red oaks on its banks. The first settlers arrived there in the 1850s and that courthouse remained in place until the current Montgomery County Courthouse was built in 1891. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1869 the community was officially founded when the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad arrived. The community was named Red Oak Junction by the railroad on March 20,1876, the junction was a line off the main Chicago to Council Bluffs, Iowa line that went to Nebraska City, Nebraska and on to Lincoln, Nebraska. The Junction name was dropped in 1901 although the community continues to celebrate its history each summer in Junction Days, in 1903 a new depot was opened by the railroad. It today serves as a museum celebrating the significant military heritage and its disproportionate number of casualties in various wars. The depot is one of nine places in Montgomery County on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Montgomery County, Iowa. Darwin R. Merritt, born in Red Oak on April 12,1872, graduated third in his class from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland on July 1,1897. On February 15,1898, he perished in the explosion that sank the USS Maine in the harbor of Havana and his body was later recovered and interred in Evergreen Cemetery in Red Oak. The community has had a number of casualties in the Civil War. In the American Civil War, the area provided more Union troops per capita than any other in the state, company M had 160 casualties among its 250 members,52 men were killed in action. Early World War II battles claimed a number of soldiers from Red Oak. In the Battle of the Kasserine Pass in February 1943, forty-five soldiers from Red Oak alone were captured or killed, at the time more than 100 telegrams arrived in Red Oak saying that its soldiers were missing in action. In recognition of Red Oaks extraordinary sacrifice, the name was given to a victory ship. The SS Red Oak Victory has become a museum in the shipyard where it was built, in Richmond. The old Burlington Northern depot has been transformed into a museum telling this history, the Red Oak School District was established in 1870, while Webster Eaton first published the Red Oak Express newspaper in 1868. Red Oak is located at 41°0′42″N 95°13′38″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.01 square miles, of which,3.95 square miles is land and 0.06 square miles is water
2.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
–
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and is a part of the Boston metropolitan area. According to the 2010 Census, the population was 105,162. As of July 2014, it was the fifth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Cambridge was one of the two seats of Middlesex County prior to the abolition of county government in 1997, Lowell was the other. The site for what would become Cambridge was chosen in December 1630, because it was located safely upriver from Boston Harbor, Thomas Dudley, his daughter Anne Bradstreet, and her husband Simon, were among the first settlers of the town. The first houses were built in the spring of 1631, the settlement was initially referred to as the newe towne. Official Massachusetts records show the name capitalized as Newe Towne by 1632, the original village site is in the heart of todays Harvard Square. In the late 19th century, various schemes for annexing Cambridge itself to the city of Boston were pursued and rejected, in 1636, the Newe College was founded by the colony to train ministers. Newe Towne was chosen for the site of the college by the Great and General Court primarily—according to Cotton Mather—to be near the popular, in May 1638 the name of the settlement was changed to Cambridge in honor of the university in Cambridge, England. Hooker and Shepard, Newtownes ministers, and the colleges first president, major benefactor, in 1629, Winthrop had led the signing of the founding document of the city of Boston, which was known as the Cambridge Agreement, after the university. It was Governor Thomas Dudley who, in 1650, signed the charter creating the corporation which still governs Harvard College, Cambridge grew slowly as an agricultural village eight miles by road from Boston, the capital of the colony. By the American Revolution, most residents lived near the Common and Harvard College, with farms and estates comprising most of the town. Coming up from Virginia, George Washington took command of the volunteer American soldiers camped on Cambridge Common on July 3,1775, most of the Tory estates were confiscated after the Revolution. On January 24,1776, Henry Knox arrived with artillery captured from Fort Ticonderoga, a second bridge, the Canal Bridge, opened in 1809 alongside the new Middlesex Canal. The new bridges and roads made what were formerly estates and marshland into prime industrial and residential districts, in the mid-19th century, Cambridge was the center of a literary revolution when it gave the country a new identity through poetry and literature. Cambridge was home to some of the famous Fireside Poets—so called because their poems would often be read aloud by families in front of their evening fires, the Fireside Poets—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes—were highly popular and influential in their day. Cambridge was incorporated as a city in 1846, the citys commercial center began to shift from Harvard Square to Central Square, which became the downtown of the city around this time. The coming of the railroad to North Cambridge and Northwest Cambridge then led to three changes in the city, the development of massive brickyards and brickworks between Massachusetts Ave. For many decades, the citys largest employer was the New England Glass Company, by the middle of the 19th century it was the largest and most modern glassworks in the world
3.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Comet
–
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to evolve gasses, a process called outgassing. This produces an atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects of radiation and the solar wind acting upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei range from a few hundred metres to tens of kilometres across and are composed of collections of ice, dust. The coma may be up to 15 times the Earths diameter, if sufficiently bright, a comet may be seen from the Earth without the aid of a telescope and may subtend an arc of 30° across the sky. Comets have been observed and recorded since ancient times by many cultures, Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and they have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to potentially several millions of years. Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star. Long-period comets are set in motion towards the Sun from the Oort cloud by gravitational perturbations caused by passing stars, hyperbolic comets may pass once through the inner Solar System before being flung to interstellar space. The appearance of a comet is called an apparition, Comets are distinguished from asteroids by the presence of an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere surrounding their central nucleus. This atmosphere has parts termed the coma and the tail, however, extinct comets that have passed close to the Sun many times have lost nearly all of their volatile ices and dust and may come to resemble small asteroids. Asteroids are thought to have a different origin from comets, having formed inside the orbit of Jupiter rather than in the outer Solar System, the discovery of main-belt comets and active centaur minor planets has blurred the distinction between asteroids and comets. As of November 2014 there are 5,253 known comets, however, this represents only a tiny fraction of the total potential comet population, as the reservoir of comet-like bodies in the outer Solar System is estimated to be one trillion. Roughly one comet per year is visible to the eye, though many of those are faint. Particularly bright examples are called Great Comets, the word comet derives from the Old English cometa from the Latin comēta or comētēs. That, in turn, is a latinisation of the Greek κομήτης, Κομήτης was derived from κομᾶν, which was itself derived from κόμη and was used to mean the tail of a comet. The astronomical symbol for comets is ☄, consisting of a disc with three hairlike extensions. The solid, core structure of a comet is known as the nucleus, cometary nuclei are composed of an amalgamation of rock, dust, water ice, and frozen gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia. As such, they are described as dirty snowballs after Fred Whipples model
5.
Astronomy
–
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, 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, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, 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, however, 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 also 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, Moon, 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
6.
Harvard College Observatory
–
The Harvard College Observatory is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and was founded in 1839, with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, it forms part of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. HCO houses a collection of approximately 500,000 astronomical plates taken between the mid-1880s and 1989 and this 100-year coverage is a unique resource for studying temporal variations in the universe. The Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard project is digitally scanning and archiving these photographic plates, in 1839, the Harvard Corporation voted to appoint William Cranch Bond, a prominent Boston clockmaker, as Astronomical Observer to the University. This marked the founding of the Harvard College Observatory, hCOs first telescope, the 15-inch Great Refractor, was installed in 1847. That telescope was the largest in the United States from installation until 1867, on the night of July 16–17,1850, Whipple and Bond made the first daguerreotype of a star. Cannon and Leavitt were hired initially as computers to perform calculations and examine stellar photographs, from 1898 to 1926, a series of Bulletins were issued containing many of the major discoveries of the period. These were then replaced by Announcement Cards which continued to be issued until 1952, in 1908, the observatory published the Harvard Revised Photometry Catalogue, which gave rise to the HR star catalogue, now maintained by the Yale University Observatory as the Bright Star Catalogue. Field 1971–1972 Harvard Computers Sears Tower – Harvard Observatory The Minor Planet Center credits many asteroid discoveries to Harvard Observatory, see List of largest optical refracting telescopes, for other great refractors Dava Sobel. The Glass Universe, How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars, HCO home page Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Harvard College Observatory Bulletins Harvard College Announcement Cards
7.
Minor planet
–
A minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is neither a planet nor exclusively classified as a comet. Minor planets can be dwarf planets, asteroids, trojans, centaurs, Kuiper belt objects, as of 2016, the orbits of 709,706 minor planets were archived at the Minor Planet Center,469,275 of which had received permanent numbers. The first minor planet to be discovered was Ceres in 1801, the term minor planet has been used since the 19th century to describe these objects. The term planetoid has also used, especially for larger objects such as those the International Astronomical Union has called dwarf planets since 2006. Historically, the asteroid, minor planet, and planetoid have been more or less synonymous. This terminology has become complicated by the discovery of numerous minor planets beyond the orbit of Jupiter. A Minor planet seen releasing gas may be classified as a comet. Before 2006, the IAU had officially used the term minor planet, during its 2006 meeting, the IAU reclassified minor planets and comets into dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Objects are called dwarf planets if their self-gravity is sufficient to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium, all other minor planets and comets are called small Solar System bodies. The IAU stated that the minor planet may still be used. However, for purposes of numbering and naming, the distinction between minor planet and comet is still used. Hundreds of thousands of planets have been discovered within the Solar System. The Minor Planet Center has documented over 167 million observations and 729,626 minor planets, of these,20,570 have official names. As of March 2017, the lowest-numbered unnamed minor planet is 1974 FV1, as of March 2017, the highest-numbered named minor planet is 458063 Gustavomuler. There are various broad minor-planet populations, Asteroids, traditionally, most have been bodies in the inner Solar System. Near-Earth asteroids, those whose orbits take them inside the orbit of Mars. Further subclassification of these, based on distance, is used, Apohele asteroids orbit inside of Earths perihelion distance. Aten asteroids, those that have semi-major axes of less than Earths, Apollo asteroids are those asteroids with a semimajor axis greater than Earths, while having a perihelion distance of 1.017 AU or less. Like Aten asteroids, Apollo asteroids are Earth-crossers, amor asteroids are those near-Earth asteroids that approach the orbit of Earth from beyond, but do not cross it
8.
Astronomer
–
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who concentrates their studies on a specific question or field outside of the scope of Earth. They look at stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies, as well as other celestial objects — either in observational astronomy. Examples of topics or fields astronomers work on include, planetary science, solar astronomy, there are also related but distinct subjects like physical cosmology which studies the Universe as a whole. Astronomers usually fit into two types, Observational astronomers make direct observations of planets, stars and galaxies, and analyze the data, theoretical astronomers create and investigate models of things that cannot be observed. They use this data to create models or simulations to theorize how different celestial bodies work, there are further subcategories inside these two main branches of astronomy such as planetary astronomy, galactic astronomy or physical cosmology. Today, that distinction has disappeared and the terms astronomer. Professional astronomers are highly educated individuals who typically have a Ph. D. in physics or astronomy and are employed by research institutions or universities. They spend the majority of their time working on research, although quite often have other duties such as teaching, building instruments. The number of astronomers in the United States is actually quite small. The American Astronomical Society, which is the organization of professional astronomers in North America, has approximately 7,000 members. This number includes scientists from other such as physics, geology. The International Astronomical Union comprises almost 10,145 members from 70 different countries who are involved in research at the Ph. D. level. Before CCDs, photographic plates were a method of observation. Modern astronomers spend relatively little time at telescopes usually just a few weeks per year, analysis of observed phenomena, along with making predictions as to the causes of what they observe, takes the majority of observational astronomers time. Astronomers who serve as faculty spend much of their time teaching undergraduate and graduate classes, most universities also have outreach programs including public telescope time and sometimes planetariums as a public service to encourage interest in the field. Those who become astronomers usually have a background in maths, sciences. Taking courses that teach how to research, write and present papers are also invaluable, in college/university most astronomers get a Ph. D. in astronomy or physics. Keeping in mind how few there are it is understood that graduate schools in this field are very competitive
9.
Asteroid
–
Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids and these terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disc of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered and found to have volatile-based surfaces that resemble those of comets, in this article, the term asteroid refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System including those co-orbital with Jupiter. There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the remnants of planetesimals. The large majority of known asteroids orbit in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter. However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects, individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups, C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are identified with carbon-rich, metallic. The size of asteroids varies greatly, some reaching as much as 1000 km across, asteroids are differentiated from comets and meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition, while asteroids are composed of mineral and rock, comets are composed of dust. In addition, asteroids formed closer to the sun, preventing the development of the aforementioned cometary ice, the difference between asteroids and meteoroids is mainly one of size, meteoroids have a diameter of less than one meter, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Finally, meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials, only one asteroid,4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the eye for a short time. As of March 2016, the Minor Planet Center had data on more than 1.3 million objects in the inner and outer Solar System, the United Nations declared June 30 as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, the first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, and was originally considered to be a new planet. In the early half of the nineteenth century, the terms asteroid. Asteroid discovery methods have improved over the past two centuries. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, the expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers
10.
Whipple shield
–
In contrast to monolithic shielding of early spacecraft, Whipple shields consist of a relatively thin outer bumper spaced some distance from the main spacecraft wall. The original particle energy is more thinly over a larger wall area. A direct analogy is that a lighter bullet resistant vest is needed to stop a load of birdshot than a rifle bullet with the same total mass. Although a Whipple shield lowers total spacecraft mass, which is desirable in spaceflight. There are several variations on the simple Whipple shield, multi-shock shields, like the one used on the Stardust spacecraft, use multiple bumpers spaced apart to increase the shields ability to protect the spacecraft. Whipple shields that have a filling in between the layers of the shield are called stuffed Whipple shields. The filling in these shields is usually a material like Kevlar or Nextel aluminium oxide fiber. The type of shield, the material, thickness and distance between layers are varied to produce a shield with minimal mass that will minimize the probability of penetration. There are over 100 shield configurations on the International Space Station alone, spaced armor Micrometeoroid shielding Brief descriptions of spacecraft shielding by NASA B. G. Cour-Palais reminisces of the Apollo meteoroid protection program The Skylab meteoroid shield design, crews recounting of the invention of the multi-shock shield, p
11.
Tennis
–
Tennis is a racket sport that can be played individually against a single opponent or between two teams of two players each. Each player uses a racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net. The object of the game is to play the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return, the player who is unable to return the ball will not gain a point, while the opposite player will. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society, the sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including wheelchair users. The modern game of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis and it had close connections both to various field games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport of real tennis. The rules of tennis have changed little since the 1890s, two exceptions are that from 1908 to 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s. Tennis is played by millions of players and is also a popular worldwide spectator sport. Historians believe that the ancient origin lay in 12th century northern France. Louis X of France was a player of jeu de paume, which evolved into real tennis. Louis was unhappy with playing tennis outdoors and accordingly had indoor, in due course this design spread across royal palaces all over Europe. Because of the accounts of his death, Louis X is historys first tennis player known by name. Another of the enthusiasts of the game was King Charles V of France. It wasnt until the 16th century that rackets came into use, and the game began to be called tennis, from the French term tenez, an interjection used as a call from the server to his opponent. It was popular in England and France, although the game was played indoors where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, during the 18th century and early 19th century, as real tennis declined, new racket sports emerged in England. This in turn led to the codification of rules for many sports, including lawn tennis, most football codes, lawn bowls. In 1872, along with two doctors, they founded the worlds first tennis club in Leamington Spa. Evans, turfgrass agronomist, Sports historians all agree that deserves much of the credit for the development of modern tennis, according to Honor Godfrey, museum curator at Wimbledon, Wingfield popularized this game enormously
12.
Occidental College
–
Occidental College is a private, co-educational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1887 by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, Occidental College is often referred to as Oxy for short. In 2017, the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings placed Occidental 27th on its list of the top 100 liberal arts colleges in the United States. The New York Times ranked Occidental No.20 on its list of the most economically diverse U. S. colleges and universities, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching selected Occidental as a community engagement institution. The college was named to the 2014 Presidents Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with distinction, Occidental is also one of the most racially diverse liberal arts colleges, with approximately 50% of the student body identitifying as students of color. The college is ranked No.7 for liberal arts colleges, Oxy was ranked the sixth Most Beautiful college campus by Newsweek in 2012. Occidental College was founded on April 20,1887, by a group of Presbyterian clergy, missionaries, and laymen, including James George Bell, Lyman Stewart, the cornerstone of the schools first building was laid in September 1887 in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. The colleges first term began a year later with 27 male and 13 female students, in 1896, the Boyle Heights building was destroyed by fire. The college temporarily relocated to the old St. Vincents College campus on Hill Street before a new site was selected in Highland Park in 1898, eventually, the college erected three main buildings, the Academy Building, the Stimson Library, and the Hall of Arts and Letters. In 1909, the Pomona College Board of Trustees suggested a merger between Pomona and Occidental, but the proposal came to nothing, the following year, the college severed formal ties with the Presbyterian Church and became a non-sectarian, non-denominational institution. The small size of the 15-acre campus and the disruption caused by frequent freight trains pushed the colleges trustees to find a new location, in 1912, the school began construction of a new campus located in Los Angeles Eagle Rock neighborhood. That same year, Occidental President John Willis Baer announced the decision to convert Occidental College into an all-mens institution. However, students and faculty protested, and the idea was abandoned, two weeks after Booker T. Washington came to visit Occidental, on March 27,1914, Swan, Fowler, and Johnson Halls were dedicated at its new Eagle Rock campus. Patterson Field, today one of the oldest collegiate sports stadiums in Los Angeles, was opened in 1916, in April 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I, the college formed a Students Army Training Corps to aid the war effort. The Delta of California Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established at Occidental in 1926, at a time when the other chapters in California were at Stanford, UC Berkeley. During World War II, many students left Occidental to fight in the war, in July 1943, the U. S. Navy established a Navy V-12 officer training program on campus that produced hundreds of graduates before it was disbanded at the end of the war in 1945. Rhodes scholars Aaron Segal and John Paden were among the 10 Occidental students who participated in Crossroads Africa that year, in 1969,42 students were suspended for peacefully protesting military recruiting on campus. One year later, faculty voted to suspend classes in the wake of the Kent State shootings, subsequently, Oxy students wrote 7,000 letters to Washington D. C. protesting U. S. involvement in the war in Southeast Asia
13.
Southern California
–
Southern California, often abbreviated as SoCal, is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises Californias 10 southernmost counties. The region is described as eight counties, based on demographics and economic ties, Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara. The more extensive 10-county definition, which includes Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, is used and is based on historical political divisions. Southern California is an economic center for the state of California. The 8-county and 10-county definitions are not used for the greater Southern California Megaregion, the megaregions area is more expansive, extending east into Las Vegas, Nevada and south across the Mexican border into Tijuana.5 million people. With over 22 million people, Southern California contains roughly 60 percent of Californias population, located east of Southern California is the Colorado Desert and the Colorado River at the border with Arizona. The Mojave Desert is located at the border with the state of Nevada while towards the south is the Mexico–United States border, within Southern California are two major cities, Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as three of the countrys largest metropolitan areas. With a population of 3,792,621, Los Angeles is the most populous city in California and the second most populous in the United States. South of Los Angeles and with a population of 1,307,402 is San Diego, the second most populous city in the state and the eighth most populous in the nation. The counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, and Riverside are the five most populous in the state, the motion picture, television, and music industry are centered in the Los Angeles area in Southern California. Hollywood, a district within Los Angeles, gives its name to the American motion picture industry, headquartered in Southern California are The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures, Universal, MGM, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Brothers. Universal, Warner Brothers, and Sony also run major record companies, Southern California is also home to a large homegrown surf and skateboard culture. Companies such as Vans, Volcom, Quiksilver, No Fear, RVCA, some of the worlds biggest action sports events, including the X Games, Boost Mobile Pro, and the U. S. Open of Surfing, are all held in Southern California. Southern California is also important to the world of yachting, the annual Transpacific Yacht Race, or Transpac, from Los Angeles to Hawaii, is one of yachtings premier events. The San Diego Yacht Club held the Americas Cup, the most prestigious prize in yachting, from 1988 to 1995, Southern California is home to many sports franchises and sports networks such as Fox Sports Net. Many locals and tourists frequent the Southern California coast for its popular beaches, the desert city of Palm Springs is popular for its resort feel and nearby open spaces. Southern California is not a geographic designation and definitions of what constitutes Southern California vary. Geographically, Californias North-South midway point lies at exactly 37°958.23 latitude, around 11 miles south of San Jose, however, when the state is divided into two areas, the term Southern California usually refers to the 10 southernmost counties of the state
14.
University of California, Los Angeles
–
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California, United States. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919 and it offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA enrolls about 31,000 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students, and had 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, the university is organized into six undergraduate colleges, seven professional schools, and four professional health science schools. Fourteen Nobel laureates, three Fields Medalists, two Chief Scientists of the U. S. Air Force and three Turing Award winners have been faculty, researchers, or alumni, the university was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1974. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015–2016 ranked UCLA 16th in the world for academics, in 2015-2016, UCLA ranked 12th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and 31st in the 2016/17 QS World University Rankings. UCLA student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Pac-12 Conference, the Bruins won 126 national championships, including 113 NCAA team championships, more than any other university. UCLA student-athletes, coaches and staff won 251 Olympic medals,126 gold,65 silver and 60 bronze, UCLA student-athletes competed in every Olympics since 1920 with one exception, and won a gold medal in every Olympics that the United States participated in since 1932. The State Normal School at Los Angeles opened on August 29,1882, the facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their technique with children. That elementary school is related to the present day version, UCLA Lab School, in 1887, the school became known as the Los Angeles State Normal School. In 1914, the moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood. However, David Prescott Barrows, the new President of the University of California, the same legislation added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926, the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname Bruins, in 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles. In the same year, the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million, less than one-third its value, by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss, the campus in Westwood opened to students in 1929. The original four buildings were the College Library, Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building, the first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. A timeline of the history can be found on its website, during its first 32 years, UCLA was treated as an off-site department of UC. As such, its presiding officer was called a provost, in 1951, UCLA was formally elevated to co-equal status with UC Berkeley, and its presiding officer Raymond B. Allen was the first chief executive to be granted the title of chancellor. The appointment of Franklin David Murphy to the position of Chancellor in 1960 helped spark an era of growth of facilities. By the end of the decade, UCLA had achieved distinction in a range of subjects
15.
University of California, Berkeley
–
The University of California, Berkeley, is a public research university located in Berkeley, California. In 1960s, UC Berkeley was particularly noted for the Free Speech Movement as well as the Anti-Vietnam War Movement led by its students. S, Department of Energy, and is home to many world-renowned research institutes and organizations including Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Space Sciences Laboratory. Faculty member J. R. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, Lawrence Livermore Lab also discovered or co-discovered six chemical elements. The Academic Ranking of World Universities also ranks the University of California, Berkeley, third in the world overall, in 1866, the private College of California purchased the land comprising the current Berkeley campus. Ten faculty members and almost 40 students made up the new University of California when it opened in Oakland in 1869, billings was a trustee of the College of California and suggested that the college be named in honor of the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley. In 1870, Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, with the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students and held its first classes. In 1905, the University Farm was established near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California, by the 1920s, the number of campus buildings had grown substantially, and included twenty structures designed by architect John Galen Howard. Robert Gordon Sproul served as president from 1930 to 1958, by 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments. During World War II, following Glenn Seaborgs then-secret discovery of plutonium, UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley is now a partner in managing two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, originally, military training was compulsory for male undergraduates, and Berkeley housed an armory for that purpose. In 1917, Berkeleys ROTC program was established, and its School of Military Aeronautics trained future pilots, including Jimmy Doolittle, both Robert McNamara and Frederick C. Weyand graduated from UC Berkeleys ROTC program, earning B. A. degrees in 1937 and 1938, in 1926, future fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz established the first Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at Berkeley. The Board of Regents ended compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962, during the McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath. A number of faculty members objected and were dismissed, ten years passed before they were reinstated with back pay, in 1952, the University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus. Each campus was given autonomy and its own Chancellor. Then-president Sproul assumed presidency of the entire University of California system, Berkeley gained a reputation for student activism in the 1960s with the Free Speech Movement of 1964 and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the highly publicized Peoples Park protest in 1969, students and the school conflicted over use of a plot of land, then governor of California Ronald Reagan called the Berkeley campus a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants. Modern students at Berkeley are less active, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives
16.
Dwarf planet
–
A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass object that is neither a planet nor a natural satellite. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes five dwarf planets, Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, another hundred or so known objects in the Solar System are suspected to be dwarf planets. Individual astronomers recognize several of these, and in August 2011 Mike Brown published a list of 390 candidate objects, Stern states that there are more than a dozen known dwarf planets. Only two of these bodies, Ceres and Pluto, have observed in enough detail to demonstrate that they actually fit the IAUs definition. The IAU accepted Eris as a dwarf planet because it is more massive than Pluto and they subsequently decided that unnamed trans-Neptunian objects with an absolute magnitude brighter than +1 are to be named under the assumption that they are dwarf planets. The classification of bodies in other systems with the characteristics of dwarf planets has not been addressed. Starting in 1801, astronomers discovered Ceres and other bodies between Mars and Jupiter which were for some decades considered to be planets. Between then and around 1851, when the number of planets had reached 23, astronomers started using the asteroid for the smaller bodies. With the discovery of Pluto in 1930, most astronomers considered the Solar System to have nine planets and it was roughly one-twentieth the mass of Mercury, which made Pluto by far the smallest planet. Although it was more than ten times as massive as the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. In the 1990s, astronomers began to find objects in the region of space as Pluto. Many of these shared several of Plutos key orbital characteristics, and Pluto started being seen as the largest member of a new class of objects and this led some astronomers to stop referring to Pluto as a planet. Several terms, including subplanet and planetoid, started to be used for the now known as dwarf planets. By 2005, three trans-Neptunian objects comparable in size to Pluto had been reported and it became clear that either they would also have to be classified as planets, or Pluto would have to be reclassified. Astronomers were also confident that more objects as large as Pluto would be discovered, Eris was discovered in January 2005, it was thought to be slightly larger than Pluto, and some reports informally referred to it as the tenth planet. As a consequence, the became a matter of intense debate during the IAU General Assembly in August 2006. The IAUs initial draft proposal included Charon, Eris, and Ceres in the list of planets, dropping Charon from the list, the new proposal also removed Pluto, Ceres, and Eris, because they have not cleared their orbits. The IAUs final Resolution 5A preserved this three-category system for the bodies orbiting the Sun
17.
Pluto
–
Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. It was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered, Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was originally considered to be the ninth planet from the Sun. After 1992, its planethood was questioned following the discovery of objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2005, Eris, which is 27% more massive than Pluto, was discovered and this led the International Astronomical Union to define the term planet formally in 2006, during their 26th General Assembly. That definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it as a dwarf planet, Pluto is the largest and second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object directly orbiting the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume but is less massive than Eris, like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock and is relatively small—about one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has an eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 30 to 49 astronomical units or AU from the Sun. This means that Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune, light from the Sun takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance. Pluto has five moons, Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos. Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a system because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body. The IAU has not formalized a definition for binary dwarf planets, on July 14,2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto. During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed measurements and observations of Pluto, on October 25,2016, at 05,48 pm ET, the last bit of data was received from New Horizons from its close encounter with Pluto on July 14,2015. In the 1840s, Urbain Le Verrier used Newtonian mechanics to predict the position of the then-undiscovered planet Neptune after analysing perturbations in the orbit of Uranus. Subsequent observations of Neptune in the late 19th century led astronomers to speculate that Uranuss orbit was being disturbed by another planet besides Neptune, by 1909, Lowell and William H. Pickering had suggested several possible celestial coordinates for such a planet. Lowell and his observatory conducted his search until his death in 1916, unknown to Lowell, his surveys had captured two faint images of Pluto on March 19 and April 7,1915, but they were not recognized for what they were. There are fourteen other known prediscovery observations, with the oldest made by the Yerkes Observatory on August 20,1909. Percivals widow, Constance Lowell, entered into a legal battle with the Lowell Observatory over her late husbands legacy. Tombaughs task was to image the night sky in pairs of photographs, then examine each pair
18.
Solar System
–
The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets, with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets, of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly, the moons, two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the mass is in the Sun. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being composed of rock. The four outer planets are giant planets, being more massive than the terrestrials. All planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a flat disc called the ecliptic. The Solar System also contains smaller objects, the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptunes orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, within these populations are several dozen to possibly tens of thousands of objects large enough that they have been rounded by their own gravity. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets, identified dwarf planets include the asteroid Ceres and the trans-Neptunian objects Pluto and Eris. In addition to two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds. Six of the planets, at least four of the dwarf planets, each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects. The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, the heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium, it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, the Solar System is located in the Orion Arm,26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. For most of history, humanity did not recognize or understand the concept of the Solar System, the invention of the telescope led to the discovery of further planets and moons. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99. 86% of the known mass. The Suns four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the mass, with Jupiter. The remaining objects of the Solar System together comprise less than 0. 002% of the Solar Systems total mass, most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earths orbit, known as the ecliptic
19.
Leslie Peltier
–
Leslie Copus Peltier was an American amateur astronomer and discoverer of several comets and novae, once described as the worlds greatest non-professional astronomer by Harlow Shapley. Leslie Copus Peltier was born in Delphos, Ohio, Delphos is located in northwestern Ohio in both Van Wert and Allen County. His homeplace was located on South Bredeick Street, and his home is still standing today, the home was known as Brookehaven. Peltier married Dorothy Nihiser in November 1933, an amateur astronomer, he was a prolific discoverer of comets and also a persistent observer of variable stars and member of the AAVSO. He was co-discoverer of 12 comets,10 of which carry his name and he wrote the heart-warming autobiographical Starlight Nights, which evokes the magic of stargazing in simpler days, on a farm and without light pollution. Main-belt asteroid 3850 Peltier is named in his honor, as is the Leslie C, Peltier Award of the Astronomical League
20.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
21.
Chaff (countermeasure)
–
Modern armed forces use chaff to distract radar-guided missiles from their targets. Most military aircraft and warships have chaff dispensing systems for self-defense, an intercontinental ballistic missile may release in its midcourse phase several independent warheads as well as penetration aids such as decoy balloons and chaff. The idea of using chaff developed independently in the United Kingdom, Germany, an early idea was to use sheets the size of a notebook page, these would be printed so they would also serve as propaganda leaflets. However, it was found the most effective version used strips of black paper backed with foil, exactly 27 by 2 centimetres. The Head of the TRE, A. P. Rowe, meanwhile, in Germany, similar research had led to the development of Düppel. The German code name was that of the estate on which the first German tests with chaff had been made, circa 1942. Once the idea had been passed to the US via the Tizard Mission, Fred Whipple developed a system for dispensing strips for the USAAF, the systems were all essentially identical in concept, small aluminium strips cut to one-half of the target radars wavelength. When hit by the radar, such lengths of metal resonate and re-radiate the signal, opposing defences would find it almost impossible to distinguish the aircraft from the echoes caused by the chaff. Other radar-confusing techniques included Mandrel, Piperack, and Jostle and this caused concern in RAF Fighter Command and Anti-Aircraft Command, who managed to suppress the use of Window until July 1943. At this time, it was felt the new generation of centimetric radars available to Fighter Command would deal with any Luftwaffe response to RAF Bomber Command use. Bomber Harris, Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command, finally got approval to use Window as part of Operation Gomorrah, the first aircrew trained to use Window were 76 squadron. Twenty-four crews were briefed on how to drop the bundles of aluminised-paper strips, one every minute through the flare chute, the radar guided master searchlights wandered aimlessly across the sky. The anti-aircraft guns fired randomly or not at all and the fighters, their radar displays swamped with false echoes. Over a week of attacks a vast area of Hamburg was devastated, resulting in more than 40,000 civilian deaths, squadrons quickly had special chutes fitted to their bombers to make the deployment even easier. Seeing this as a development that made it safer to go on operations, a lesser known fact is that the Luftwaffe used this technology just six weeks after the above-mentioned Hamburg raid. The German strips were cut into 80 centimetre by 1.9 centimetre lengths, in a series of raids in 1943, and the mini-blitz of Operation Steinbock between February and May 1944, Düppel allowed German bombers to once again attempt to operate over London. Although theoretically effective, the number of bombers, notably in relation to the RAFs now-large night fighter force. The British fighters were able to go aloft in large numbers, the Germans obtained better results during the air raid on Bari, on 2 December 1943, when Allied radars were effectively deceived by the use of Düppel strips
22.
Radar
–
Radar is an object-detection system that uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, or velocity of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, Radio waves from the transmitter reflect off the object and return to the receiver, giving information about the objects location and speed. Radar was developed secretly for military use by several nations in the period before, the term RADAR was coined in 1940 by the United States Navy as an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging or RAdio Direction And Ranging. The term radar has since entered English and other languages as a common noun, high tech radar systems are associated with digital signal processing, machine learning and are capable of extracting useful information from very high noise levels. Other systems similar to make use of other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. One example is lidar, which uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light from lasers rather than radio waves, as early as 1886, German physicist Heinrich Hertz showed that radio waves could be reflected from solid objects. In 1895, Alexander Popov, an instructor at the Imperial Russian Navy school in Kronstadt. The next year, he added a spark-gap transmitter, in 1897, while testing this equipment for communicating between two ships in the Baltic Sea, he took note of an interference beat caused by the passage of a third vessel. In his report, Popov wrote that this phenomenon might be used for detecting objects, the German inventor Christian Hülsmeyer was the first to use radio waves to detect the presence of distant metallic objects. In 1904, he demonstrated the feasibility of detecting a ship in dense fog and he obtained a patent for his detection device in April 1904 and later a patent for a related amendment for estimating the distance to the ship. He also got a British patent on September 23,1904 for a radar system. It operated on a 50 cm wavelength and the radar signal was created via a spark-gap. In 1915, Robert Watson-Watt used radio technology to advance warning to airmen. Watson-Watt became an expert on the use of direction finding as part of his lightning experiments. As part of ongoing experiments, he asked the new boy, Arnold Frederic Wilkins, Wilkins made an extensive study of available units before selecting a receiver model from the General Post Office. Its instruction manual noted that there was fading when aircraft flew by, in 1922, A. Hoyt Taylor and Leo C. Taylor submitted a report, suggesting that this might be used to detect the presence of ships in low visibility, eight years later, Lawrence A. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa followed prewar Great Britain, and Hungary had similar developments during the war. Hugon, began developing a radio apparatus, a part of which was installed on the liner Normandie in 1935
23.
Certificate of Merit Medal
–
The Certificate of Merit Medal was a military decoration of the United States Army that was issued between the years of 1905 and 1918. The Certificate of Merit Medal replaced the much older Certificate of Merit which was authorized by the United States Congress on March 3,1847, the system of military awards and decorations presented to members of the United States Military can trace its lineage to the Badge of Military Merit. This military award, established by George Washington, was given in recognition of soldiers who displayed unusual gallantry or extraordinary fidelity, awarded three times during the Revolutionary War, the Badge of Military Merit was not awarded again. Thus, for more than 50 years the United States Military had no official military decorations, the original Certificate of Merit was authorized by an Act of Congress related to the expansion of the US Army during the Mexican–American War. This was a forward in the recognition of the individual contributions of soldiers. The first certificates were only authorized for Privates and it was not until 1854 that the Certificate of Merit was awarded to NCOs the rank of Sergeant, the Certificate of Merit was never authorized for officers. It was issued to 545 soldiers during the Mexican–American War, after the war, the Certificate of Merit was discontinued. Following the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, the Certificate of Merit was reintroduced, in 1892, the criteria for the Certificate of Merit was changed. Simple heroism in battle, on the contrary, is rewarded by a medal of honor. Soldiers, both privates and non-commissioned officers, were eligible for award of a Certificate of Merit upon the recommendation of their regimental or corps commander, Service could be in peacetime or in time of war. These regulations remained in effect until 9 July 1918, in 1905, a medal was created for those holding a Certificate of Merit and called the Certificate of Merit Medal. This medal was authorized for wear on a United States military uniform and it was always worn following the Medal of Honor, before all campaign medals. The first recipient of the Certificate of Merit Medal was First Lieutenant William B, baker, who was presented medal No.1 on 30 December 1907. Baker had received an original Certificate of Merit as a Corporal during the Spanish–American War on 13 August 1898. The last act recognized by a Certificate of Merit was May 1918, the last soldier to be awarded the Certificate of Merit Medal was George Arrington for his service while a Private with the 24th Infantry Regiment in 1889. 361, and subsequently converted it to a Distinguished Service Cross, the Certificate of Merit Medal was declared obsolete on July 19,1918. Those holding the Certificate of Merit Medal could exchange their medal for the newly created Distinguished Service Medal, in 1934, Congress changed the regulation allowing the conversion of the medal to the Distinguished Service Cross, including those converted to the Distinguished Service Medal. The medal is bronze,1.25 inches in diameter, the obverse depicts an eagle facing left, with its wings partially spread
24.
Harvard University
–
Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
25.
Comet nucleus
–
The nucleus is the solid, central part of a comet, popularly termed a dirty snowball or an icy dirtball. A cometary nucleus is composed of rock, dust, and frozen gases, when heated by the Sun, the gases sublimate and produce an atmosphere surrounding the nucleus known as the coma. The force exerted on the coma by the Suns radiation pressure and solar wind cause an enormous tail to form, a typical comet nucleus has an albedo of 0.04. This is blacker than coal, and may be caused by a covering of dust, comets, or their precursors, formed in the outer Solar System, possibly millions of years before planet formation. How and when formed is debated, with distinct implications for Solar System formation, dynamics. Three-dimensional computer simulations indicate the structural features observed on cometary nuclei can be explained by pairwise low velocity accretion of weak cometesimals. The currently favored creation mechanism is that of the nebular hypothesis, astronomers think that comets originate in both the Oort cloud and the scattered disk. Most cometary nuclei are thought to be no more than about 10 miles across, the largest comets that have come inside the orbit of Saturn are C/2002 VQ94, Hale–Bopp, 29P, 109P/Swift–Tuttle, and 28P/Neujmin. The potato-shaped nucleus of Halleys comet contains equal amounts of ice, during a flyby in September 2001, the Deep Space 1 spacecraft observed the nucleus of Comet Borrelly and found it to be about half the size of the nucleus of Halleys Comet. Borrellys nucleus was also potato-shaped and had a black surface. Like Halleys Comet, Comet Borrelly only released gas from small areas where holes in the crust exposed the ice to sunlight, the nucleus of comet Hale–Bopp was estimated to be 60 ±20 km in diameter. Hale-Bopp appeared bright to the eye because its unusually large nucleus gave off a great deal of dust. The nucleus of P/2007 R5 is probably only 100–200 meters in diameter, the largest centaurs are estimated to be 250 km to 300 km in diameter. Three of the largest would include 10199 Chariklo,2060 Chiron, known comets have been estimated to have an average density of 0.6 g/cm3. Below is a list of comets that have had estimated sizes, densities, about 80% of the Halleys Comet nucleus is water ice, and frozen carbon monoxide makes up another 15%. Much of the remainder is carbon dioxide, methane. Scientists think that comets are chemically similar to Halleys Comet. The nucleus of Halleys Comet is also a dark black
26.
Satellite
–
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an artificial object which has been intentionally placed into orbit. Such objects are called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earths Moon. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the worlds first artificial satellite, since then, about 6,600 satellites from more than 40 countries have been launched. According to a 2013 estimate,3,600 remained in orbit, of those, about 1,000 were operational, the rest have lived out their useful lives and become space debris. Approximately 500 operational satellites are in orbit,50 are in medium-Earth orbit. A few large satellites have been launched in parts and assembled in orbit. Over a dozen space probes have been placed into orbit around other bodies and become artificial satellites to the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, a few asteroids, Satellites are used for many purposes. Common types include military and civilian Earth observation satellites, communications satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also satellites. Satellite orbits vary greatly, depending on the purpose of the satellite, well-known classes include low Earth orbit, polar orbit, and geostationary orbit. A launch vehicle is a rocket that throws a satellite into orbit, usually it lifts off from a launch pad on land. Some are launched at sea from a submarine or a mobile maritime platform, Satellites are usually semi-independent computer-controlled systems. Satellite subsystems attend many tasks, such as power generation, thermal control, telemetry, attitude control, the first fictional depiction of a satellite being launched into orbit was a short story by Edward Everett Hale, The Brick Moon. The idea surfaced again in Jules Vernes The Begums Fortune, in 1903, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published Exploring Space Using Jet Propulsion Devices, which is the first academic treatise on the use of rocketry to launch spacecraft. He calculated the speed required for a minimal orbit. In 1928, Herman Potočnik published his book, The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor. He described the use of orbiting spacecraft for observation of the ground, in a 1945 Wireless World article, the English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke described in detail the possible use of communications satellites for mass communications. He suggested that three geostationary satellites would provide coverage over the entire planet, the first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4,1957, and initiating the Soviet Sputnik program, with Sergei Korolev as chief designer. This in turn triggered the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, Sputnik 1 helped to identify the density of high atmospheric layers through measurement of its orbital change and provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere
27.
Operation Moonwatch
–
Operation Moonwatch was an amateur science program formally initiated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1956. The SAO organized Moonwatch as part of the International Geophysical Year which was probably the largest single scientific undertaking in history and its initial goal was to enlist the aid of amateur astronomers and other citizens who would help professional scientists spot the first artificial satellites. Moonwatch’s origins can be traced to two sources, in the United States, there was a thriving culture of amateur scientists including thousands of citizens who did astronomy for an avocation. During the Cold War, the United States also encouraged thousands of citizens to take part in the Ground Observer Corps, Moonwatch brought together these two activities and attitudes, melding curiosity and vigilance into a thriving activity for citizens. Moonwatch, in words, was an expression of 1950s popular culture. Moonwatch was the brainchild of Harvard astronomer Fred L. Whipple and he overcame the objections of colleagues who doubted ordinary citizens could do the job or who wanted the task for their own institutions. Eventually, Whipple carved out a place for amateurs in the IGY, in the late 1950s, thousands of teenagers, housewives, amateur astronomers, school teachers, and other citizens served on Moonwatch teams around the globe. Using specially designed telescopes, hand-built or purchased from vendors like Radio Shack, citizens formed Operation Moonwatch teams in towns and cities all around the globe, built their own equipment, and courted sponsors. In many cases, Moonwatch was not just a fad but an expression of real interest in science. This network, aided by a corps of volunteer satellite spotters, the instruments at these stations were eventually designed by Dr. James G. Baker and Joseph Nunn and hence known as Baker-Nunn cameras. From the start, Whipple planned that the professionally manned Baker-Nunn stations would be complemented by teams of dedicated amateurs, amateur teams would relay the information back to the SAO in Cambridge where professional scientists would use it to generate accurate satellite orbits. At this point, professionals at the Baker-Nunn stations would take over the task of photographing them. Sputnik 1s sudden launch was followed less than a month later with the Soviets orbiting Sputnik 2, Moonwatch teams networked around the world who provided tracking information needed by scientists in Western nations. For the opening months of the Space Age, members of Moonwatch were the only organized world-wide network that was prepared to spot, the information they provided was complemented by the radio tracking program called Minitrack the United States Navy operated as well as some information from amateur radio buffs. In many cases, Moonwatch teams also had the responsibility of communicating news of Sputnik, Moonwatch caught the attention of those citizens interested in science or the Space Race during the late 1950s and much of the general public as well. Newspapers and popular magazines featured stories about Moonwatch regularly, dozens of articles appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, meanwhile, in the U. S. local businesses sponsored teams with monikers like Spacehounds and The Order of Lunartiks. Meanwhile, Moonwatch teams in Peru, Japan, Australia, Moonwatch complemented the professional system of satellite tracking stations that Fred Whipple organized around the globe. These two networks – one composed of amateurs and the other of seasoned professionals – helped further Whipple’s personal goals of expanding his own astronomical empire
28.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
29.
Sputnik 1
–
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957 and it was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable and this surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, tracking and studying Sputnik 1 from Earth provided scientists with valuable information, even though the satellite itself wasnt equipped with sensors. The density of the atmosphere could be deduced from its drag on the orbit. Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No. 1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, the satellite travelled at about 29,000 kilometres per hour, taking 96.2 minutes to complete each orbit. It transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, the signals continued for 21 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on 26 October 1957. Sputnik burned up on 4 January 1958 while reentering Earths atmosphere, after travelling about 70 million km, on 17 December 1954, chief Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev addressed Dimitri Ustinov and proposed a developmental plan for an artificial satellite. Korolev forwarded a report by Mikhail Tikhonravov with an overview of similar projects abroad, Tikhonravov had emphasized that the launch of an orbital satellite was an inevitable stage in the development of rocket technology. On 29 July 1955, U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced through his press secretary that the United States would launch an artificial satellite during the International Geophysical Year. A week later, on 8 August, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union approved the proposal to create an artificial satellite. On 30 August Vasily Ryabikov – the head of the State Commission on R-7 rocket test launches – held a meeting where Korolev presented calculation data for a trajectory to the Moon. They decided to develop a version of the R-7 rocket for satellite launches. On 30 January 1956 the Council of Ministers approved practical work on an artificial Earth-orbiting satellite. This satellite, named Object D, was planned to be completed in 1957–58, it would have a mass of 1,000 to 1,400 kg, the first test launch of Object D was scheduled for 1957. These included measuring the density of the atmosphere and its ion composition, the wind, magnetic fields. These data would be valuable in the creation of artificial satellites. A system of stations was to be developed to collect data transmitted by the satellite, observe the satellites orbit
30.
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
–
The SAO was founded in 1890 by Samuel Pierpont Langley, the Smithsonians third Secretary, primarily for studies of the sun. Langley is remembered today as a pioneer, but he was trained as an astronomer and was the first American scientist to perceive astrophysics as a distinct field. Langley invented the bolometer and discovered infrared radiation from the sun, in 1955, the SAO moved from Washington, D. C. to Cambridge, to affiliate with HCO and to expand its staff, facilities, and most importantly, its scientific scope. Smithsonian and the USAF Project Space Track shared observations and ephemerides throughout the days of satellite tracking. In 1973, the ties between Smithsonian and Harvard were strengthened and formalized by the creation of the joint Harvard-Smithsonian CfA, SAO has operated a number of remote stations over the years. Currently, more than 300 scientists at the CfA are engaged in a program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences. The Chandra X-ray Observatory is managed and operated by SAO from Cambridge, with the University of Arizona, SAO also manages the MMT Observatory. Samuel Pierpont Langley 1890–1906 Charles Greeley Abbot 1906–1942 Loyal Blaine Aldrich 1942–1955 Fred Lawrence Whipple 1955–1973 George B, field 1973–1982 Irwin I. Shapiro 1982–2004 Charles R. Alcock 2004– SAO homepage Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
31.
John F. Kennedy
–
Kennedy was a member of the Democratic Party, and his New Frontier domestic program was largely enacted as a memorial to him after his death. Kennedy also established the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, Kennedys time in office was marked by high tensions with Communist states. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam by a factor of 18 over President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Cuba, a failed attempt was made at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in April 1961. He subsequently rejected plans by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to orchestrate false-flag attacks on American soil in order to gain approval for a war against Cuba. After military service in the United States Naval Reserve in World War II and he was elected subsequently to the U. S. Senate and served as the junior Senator from Massachusetts from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Vice President, and Republican presidential candidate, Richard Nixon in the 1960 U. S, at age 43, he became the youngest elected president and the second-youngest president. Kennedy was also the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president, to date, Kennedy has been the only Roman Catholic president and the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22,1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested that afternoon and determined to have fired the shots that hit the President from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald two days later in a jail corridor, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeded Kennedy after he died in the hospital. The FBI and the Warren Commission officially concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin, the majority of Americans alive at the time of the assassination, and continuing through 2013, believed that there was a conspiracy and that Oswald was not the only shooter. Since the 1960s, information concerning Kennedys private life has come to light, including his health problems, Kennedy continues to rank highly in historians polls of U. S. presidents and with the general public. His average approval rating of 70% is the highest of any president in Gallups history of systematically measuring job approval and his grandfathers P. J. Kennedy and Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald were both Massachusetts politicians. All four of his grandparents were the children of Irish immigrants, Kennedy had an elder brother, Joseph Jr. and seven younger siblings, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Ted. Kennedy lived in Brookline for ten years and attended the Edward Devotion School, the Noble and Greenough Lower School, and the Dexter School through 4th grade. In 1927, the Kennedy family moved to a stately twenty-room, Georgian-style mansion at 5040 Independence Avenue in the Hudson Hill neighborhood of Riverdale, Bronx and he attended the lower campus of Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys, from 5th to 7th grade. Two years later, the moved to 294 Pondfield Road in the New York City suburb of Bronxville, New York. The Kennedy family spent summers at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in September 1930, Kennedy—then 13 years old—attended the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. In late April 1931, he required an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury, in September 1931, Kennedy attended Choate, a boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, for 9th through 12th grade
32.
Meteoritical Society
–
The membership of the society comprises over 900 scientists and amateur enthusiasts from over 33 countries who are interested in a wide range of planetary science topics. Members interests include meteorites, cosmic dust, asteroids and comets, natural satellites, planets, impact events, the Meteoritical Society is the organization that records all known meteorites in its Meteoritical Bulletin. The Society presents or cosponsors six awards each year, The Leonard Medal, awarded since 1966 in honor of the first President of the Society, Leonard, is given for outstanding contributions to the science of meteoritics and closely allied fields. The Prize is given in memory of D. Moreau Barringer Sr. the Nier Prize recognizes outstanding research in meteoritics and allied fields by young scientists. It has been awarded since 1996 in honor of the late physicist and geochemist and it has been given since 2000, and honors the memories of the incomparable meteoriticist Paul Pellas and lunar scientist Graham Ryder. The first award was for 2006, the Gordon A. McKay Award is for the best oral presentation by a student at the annual meeting of the society. It honors the memory of planetary scientist Gordon A. McKay, the first award will be presented in 2009. The Meteoritical Society hosts a meeting during the summer, which generally alternates between North America and Europe. It has also held meetings in South Africa, Australia, Brazil, marvin The British and Irish Meteorite Society
33.
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
–
The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the RAS. The RAS Council have complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded and it has been awarded both for research that has taken a lifetime and for specific pieces of research. The first Gold Medals were awarded in 1824, silver medals were also awarded in 1824 and 1827, but that practice was quickly abandoned, instead the RAS established other awards. In the early years, more than one medal was awarded in a year. This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt an award should jointly be made to John Couch Adams, a controversy arose and no award was made in 1847. The controversy was resolved by giving 12 testimonial awards in 1848 to various people including Adams and Le Verrier, Adams and Le Verrier did not get their gold medals until 1866 and 1868, respectively. Adams, as President, presented Le Verrier with the medal, in some years, particularly early on, the RAS sometimes decided that there were no suitable nominations and so did not award the Gold Medal. There are therefore 17 years without an award, the most recent being 1942, one medal per year was the usual practise, although two medals were awarded in both 1867 and 1886. To ensure balance in areas, in 1964 the award was expanded to two medals per year, one in astronomy and one in geophysics, which remains the current system. All recipients are listed below, along with the years no award was made. The first woman to receive the Gold Medal was Caroline Herschel in 1828, no other woman received the award until Vera Rubin in 1996. Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge were jointly awarded the 2005 Gold Medal in astronomy, the medal features an image of the 40-foot telescope that was constructed by astronomer Sir William Herschel, who was the first President of the RAS
34.
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
–
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is a scientific and educational organization, founded in San Francisco on February 7,1889. Its name derives from its origins on the Pacific Coast, but today it has members all over the country and it has the legal status of a nonprofit organization. It is the largest general astronomy education society in the world, the ASPs goal is to promote public interest in and awareness of astronomy through its publications, web site, and many educational and outreach programs. The clubs have sky gazing events, solar viewings, and give presentations for the public, presidents of the ASP have included such notable astronomers as Edwin Hubble, George O. Abell, and Frank Drake. George Pardee, who later became Governor of the State of California, the society promotes astronomy education through several publications. Mercury, the ASPs quarterly on-line membership magazine, covers a range of astronomy topics, from history. First published in 1925 as the Leaflets of the ASP, Mercury is now disseminated to thousands of ASP members and schools, universities, libraries, observatories, the ASP also publishes the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific aimed at professional astronomers. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series is a series of over 400 volumes of professional astronomy conference proceedings. Started in 1988, the Conference Series has grown to become a prominent publication series in the world of professional astronomy publications, authors have included, Clyde Tombaugh, retelling the story of his discovery of the planet Pluto Michael E. The ASP makes several different awards annually, The Bruce Medal for lifetime contribution to astronomy research, the medal is named after Catherine Wolfe Bruce. This award is arguably the most prestigious award given in astronomy, the Klumpke-Roberts Award for outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy, named for Dorothea Klumpke-Roberts. The Amateur Achievement Award in recognition of significant contributions to astronomy by one not employed in the field of astronomy in a professional capacity, the Thomas Brennan Award for exceptional achievement related to the teaching of astronomy at the high school level. The Maria and Eric Muhlmann Award for recent significant observational results made possible by advances in astronomical instrumentation, software. The Robert J. Trumpler Award, named in honor of astronomer Robert J. Trumpler, the Richard Emmons Award is given for a lifetime of contributions to the teaching of astronomy to college non-science majors. The Arthur B. C. Walker II Award, first announced in 2016, for research and teaching with a substantial commitment to students from underrepresented groups. In July 1889 the ASP announced that a medal for the actual discovery of any unexpected comet would be awarded on the basis of a $500 gift by Joseph A. Donohoe of San Francisco. The first award was made in March 1890 to W. R. Brooks for the discovery of the now known as 16P/Brooks. After the 250th medal had been awarded in 1950 the award was discontinued because photography had enabled the discovery of too many comets
35.
American Geophysical Union
–
The American Geophysical Union is a 501 nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 62,000 members from 144 countries. AGUs activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of information in the interdisciplinary. The geophysical sciences involve four fundamental areas, atmospheric and ocean sciences, solid-Earth sciences, hydrologic sciences, the organizations headquarters is located on Florida Avenue in Washington, D. C. For more than 50 years, it operated as an affiliate of the National Academy of Sciences. On June 29,1972, AGU was incorporated in the District of Columbia, the AGU was intended to promote pure geophysics, exploration geophysics has its own society, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. In a March 1919 report by a committee chaired by Robert S, the AGU was organized under seven sections, Geodesy, Seismology, Meteorology, Terrestrial magnetism and electricity, Oceanography, Volcanology, and Geophysical chemistry. Hydrology was added in 1930 and Tectonophysics in 1940, in suggesting the latter name, Norman Bowen evoked a familiar theme, to designate this new borderline field between geophysics, physics and geology. for the solution of problems of tectonics. The first meeting of the AGU took place on April 23,1920, up to 1930, the number of members was restricted and members were elected. In 1932 the first annual dues US$2 were imposed, the membership grew to 4600 in 1950,13,000 in 1980, and 26,000 in 1990. As of 2013, it had 62,000 members from 144 countries, AGU publishes the weekly Eos newspaper and nineteen peer-reviewed scientific journals, The journal Radio Science is co-sponsored by the International Union of Radio Science. The journal Earth Interactions is published in partnership with the American Meteorological Society, in addition, International Journal of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy is no longer published and AGU distributes Chinese Journal of Geophysics and Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics. Many of the journals have high impact factors, with Paleoceanography having the highest within paleontology and Reviews of Geophysics the second highest within geochemistry, AGU has also been publishing books for more than 85 years. AGU co-published its first electronic journal, Earth Interactions, in 1997 and it started its own electronic journal, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, in December 1999. It made a transition to electronic publishing in 2001. For all its journals, the version became the publication of record. This was accompanied by a new scheme for articles that entirely did away with sequential page numbers. Instead, each article had a digital object identifier, as an example,10. 1029/2001GL014304 consists of the publisher identifier, the year, the journal code, and an article number. This new system was met with complaints from libraries and scientists, the article numbers provided no clue for libraries to find an article in printed versions, and even scientific databases were not set up to handle DOIs
36.
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory
–
It is located near Amado, Arizona on the slopes of Mount Hopkins. Research activities include imaging and spectroscopy of extragalactic, stellar, and planetary bodies, in 1966, roadwork began on the current site with funding granted for the Smithsonian Mt. Hopkins Observatory. The Whipple 10-meter gamma-ray telescope was constructed in 1968, Whipple observatory hosts the MMT Observatory, which is jointly run by SAO and the University of Arizona and houses a 6. 5-meter telescope. The observatory also has 1. 5- and 1. 2-meter reflectors, also on site is the HATNet network, the MEarth Project, and four 0. 7-meter telescopes of the automated MINiature Exoplanat Radial Velocity Array. The Whipple 10-meter is currently preparing to be decommissioned after forty years of service, in April 2007, VERITAS started full operations at the FLWO basecamp. Subsequently, in September 2009, after a 4-month effort, one of the telescopes was moved to a new position, making the array symmetric and increasing its sensitivity
37.
Mount Hopkins (Arizona)
–
Mount Hopkins is a 8,553 feet peak of the Santa Rita Mountains range, in Santa Cruz County, southern Arizona. The peak was named after Gilbert Hopkins, who was killed nearby during the Battle of Fort Buchanan in 1865 and it is in the Coronado National Forest and is bounded on three sides by the Mount Wrightson Wilderness. The Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory is located on the mountain, the prime mover for the mountains observatory was Fred Whipple, a professor at Harvard University who was in charge of a small 25 inch mirror telescope in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Cambridge the ambient light caused light pollution that limited the telescopes usefulness. That led to engineer Tom Hoffman being appointed by Whipple to search for a site in the U. S. that would provide a view of the sky at a high elevation. After searching many locations, southern Arizona with its dry air and high elevations, Whipple agreed, leaving the challenge of how to transport an 8 metres diameter glass mirror and build a telescope on an 8, 583-foot mountain that had no road
