1.
Hubble Space Telescope
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The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, with a 2. 4-meter mirror, Hubbles four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. Hubbles orbit outside the distortion of Earths atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images, Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining the rate of expansion of the universe. The HST was built by the United States space agency NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute selects Hubbles targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center controls the spacecraft. Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923, Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, Hubbles main mirror was found to have been ground incorrectly, the optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993. Hubble is the telescope designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. After launch by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, five subsequent Space Shuttle missions repaired, upgraded, the fifth mission was canceled on safety grounds following the Columbia disaster. However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved the fifth servicing mission, the telescope is operating as of 2017, and could last until 2030–2040. Its scientific successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled for launch in 2018, the history of the Hubble Space Telescope can be traced back as far as 1946, to the astronomer Lyman Spitzers paper Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory. In it, he discussed the two advantages that a space-based observatory would have over ground-based telescopes. First, the resolution would be limited only by diffraction, rather than by the turbulence in the atmosphere. Second, a telescope could observe infrared and ultraviolet light. Spitzer devoted much of his career to pushing for the development of a space telescope, space-based astronomy had begun on a very small scale following World War II, as scientists made use of developments that had taken place in rocket technology. An orbiting solar telescope was launched in 1962 by the United Kingdom as part of the Ariel space program, oAO-1s battery failed after three days, terminating the mission. It was followed by OAO-2, which carried out observations of stars and galaxies from its launch in 1968 until 1972. The continuing success of the OAO program encouraged increasingly strong consensus within the community that the LST should be a major goal
2.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
3.
European Space Agency
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The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states, dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a staff of about 2,000. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching, after World War II, many European scientists left Western Europe in order to work with the United States. The meeting was attended by representatives from eight countries, including Harrie Massey. The Western European nations decided to have two different agencies, one concerned with developing a system, ELDO, and the precursor of the European Space Agency. The latter was established on 20 March 1964 by an agreement signed on 14 June 1962, from 1968 to 1972, ESRO launched seven research satellites. ESA in its current form was founded with the ESA Convention in 1975, ESA has 10 founding member states, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. These signed the ESA Convention in 1975 and deposited the instruments of ratification by 1980, during this interval the agency functioned in a de facto fashion. ESA launched its first major scientific mission in 1975, Cos-B, ESA joined NASA in the IUE, the worlds first high-orbit telescope, which was launched in 1978 and operated very successfully for 18 years. A number of successful Earth-orbit projects followed, and in 1986 ESA began Giotto, its first deep-space mission, to study the comets Halley and Grigg–Skjellerup. Hipparcos, a mission, was launched in 1989 and in the 1990s SOHO, Ulysses. Recent scientific missions in co-operation with NASA include the Cassini–Huygens space probe, as the successor of ELDO, ESA has also constructed rockets for scientific and commercial payloads. Ariane 1, launched in 1979, brought mostly commercial payloads into orbit from 1984 onward, the successor launch vehicle of Ariane 5, the Ariane 6 is already in the definition stage and is envisioned to enter service in the 2020s. The beginning of the new millennium saw ESA become, along with agencies like NASA, JAXA, ISRO, CSA and Roscosmos, one of the major participants in scientific space research. Although ESA had relied on co-operation with NASA in previous decades, especially the 1990s, changed circumstances led to decisions to rely more on itself, a 2011 press issue thus stated, Russia is ESAs first partner in its efforts to ensure long-term access to space. ESA maintains its scientific and research projects mainly for astronomy-space missions such as Corot, launched on 27 December 2006 and this is the reason space exploration is an integral part of overall space activities. It has always been so, and it will be more important in the future. ESA describes its work in two overlapping ways, For the general public the various fields of work are described as Activities, Member states participate to varying degrees in the mandatory and optional space programmes
4.
Constellation
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A constellation is formally defined as a region of the celestial sphere, with boundaries laid down by the International Astronomical Union. The constellation areas mostly had their origins in Western-traditional patterns of stars from which the constellations take their names, in 1922, the International Astronomical Union officially recognized the 88 modern constellations, which cover the entire sky. They began as the 48 classical Greek constellations laid down by Ptolemy in the Almagest, Constellations in the far southern sky are late 16th- and mid 18th-century constructions. 12 of the 88 constellations compose the zodiac signs, though the positions of the constellations only loosely match the dates assigned to them in astrology. The term constellation can refer to the stars within the boundaries of that constellation. Notable groupings of stars that do not form a constellation are called asterisms, when astronomers say something is “in” a given constellation they mean it is within those official boundaries. Any given point in a coordinate system can unambiguously be assigned to a single constellation. Many astronomical naming systems give the constellation in which an object is found along with a designation in order to convey a rough idea in which part of the sky it is located. For example, the Flamsteed designation for bright stars consists of a number, the word constellation seems to come from the Late Latin term cōnstellātiō, which can be translated as set of stars, and came into use in English during the 14th century. It also denotes 88 named groups of stars in the shape of stellar-patterns, the Ancient Greek word for constellation was ἄστρον. Colloquial usage does not draw a distinction between constellation in the sense of an asterism and constellation in the sense of an area surrounding an asterism. The modern system of constellations used in astronomy employs the latter concept, the term circumpolar constellation is used for any constellation that, from a particular latitude on Earth, never sets below the horizon. From the North Pole or South Pole, all constellations south or north of the equator are circumpolar constellations. In the equatorial or temperate latitudes, the term equatorial constellation has sometimes been used for constellations that lie to the opposite the circumpolar constellations. They generally include all constellations that intersect the celestial equator or part of the zodiac, usually the only thing the stars in a constellation have in common is that they appear near each other in the sky when viewed from the Earth. In galactic space, the stars of a constellation usually lie at a variety of distances, since stars also travel on their own orbits through the Milky Way, the star patterns of the constellations change slowly over time. After tens to hundreds of thousands of years, their familiar outlines will become unrecognisable, the terms chosen for the constellation themselves, together with the appearance of a constellation, may reveal where and when its constellation makers lived. The earliest direct evidence for the constellations comes from inscribed stones and it seems that the bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BC
5.
Globular cluster
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A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes, the name of this category of star cluster is derived from the Latin globulus—a small sphere. A globular cluster is known more simply as a globular. Globular clusters are found in the halo of a galaxy and contain considerably more stars and are older than the less dense open clusters. Globular clusters are common, there are about 150 to 158 currently known globular clusters in the Milky Way. These globular clusters orbit the Galaxy at radii of 40 kiloparsecs or more, larger galaxies can have more, Andromeda Galaxy, for instance, may have as many as 500. Some giant elliptical galaxies such as M87, have as many as 13,000 globular clusters, every galaxy of sufficient mass in the Local Group has an associated group of globular clusters, and almost every large galaxy surveyed has been found to possess a system of globular clusters. The Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy and the disputed Canis Major Dwarf galaxy appear to be in the process of donating their associated globular clusters to the Milky Way and this demonstrates how many of this galaxys globular clusters might have been acquired in the past. Although it appears that globular clusters contain some of the first stars to be produced in the galaxy, their origins, the first known globular cluster, now called M22, was discovered in 1665 by Abraham Ihle, a German amateur astronomer. However, given the small aperture of early telescopes, individual stars within a cluster were not resolved until Charles Messier observed M4 in 1764. The first eight globular clusters discovered are shown in the table, subsequently, Abbé Lacaille would list NGC104, NGC4833, M55, M69, and NGC6397 in his 1751–52 catalogue. The M before a number refers to Charles Messiers catalogue, while NGC is from the New General Catalogue by John Dreyer, when William Herschel began his comprehensive survey of the sky using large telescopes in 1782 there were 34 known globular clusters. Herschel discovered another 36 himself and was the first to virtually all of them into stars. He coined the term globular cluster in his Catalogue of a Second Thousand New Nebulae, the number of globular clusters discovered continued to increase, reaching 83 in 1915,93 in 1930 and 97 by 1947. A total of 152 globular clusters have now discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. These additional, undiscovered globular clusters are believed to be hidden behind the gas, beginning in 1914, Harlow Shapley began a series of studies of globular clusters, published in about 40 scientific papers. He examined the RR Lyrae variables in the clusters and would use their period–luminosity relationship for distance estimates, later, it was found that RR Lyrae variables are fainter than Cepheid variables, which caused Shapley to overestimate the distance to the clusters. Of the globular clusters within the Milky Way, the majority are found in a halo around the core
6.
Charles Messier
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Charles Messier was a French astronomer most notable for publishing an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae and star clusters that came to be known as the 110 Messier objects. The purpose of the catalogue was to help astronomical observers, in particular comet hunters such as himself, Messier was born in Badonviller in the Lorraine region of France, being the tenth of twelve children of Françoise B. Grandblaise and Nicolas Messier, a Court usher, six of his brothers and sisters died while young and in 1741, his father died. Charles interest in astronomy was stimulated by the appearance of the spectacular, great six-tailed comet in 1744, in 1751 he entered the employ of Joseph Nicolas Delisle, the astronomer of the French Navy, who instructed him to keep careful records of his observations. Messiers first documented observation was that of the Mercury transit of 6 May 1753, according to Meyer, Messier is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, in Section 11. Messiers occupation as a comet hunter led him to come across fixed diffuse objects in the night sky which could be mistaken for comets. He compiled a list of them, in collaboration with his friend and assistant Pierre Méchain, the entries are now known to be galaxies, planetary nebulae, other types of nebulae, and star clusters. Messier did his observing with a 100 mm refracting telescope from Hôtel de Cluny, in downtown Paris, the list he compiled contains only objects found in the area of the sky he could observe, from the north celestial pole to a declination of about −35. 7°. They are not organized scientifically by object type, or even by location, the first version of Messiers catalogue contained 45 objects and was published in 1774 in the journal of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. In addition to his own discoveries, this version included objects previously observed by other astronomers, by 1780 the catalog had increased to 80 objects. The final version of the catalogue was published in 1781, in the 1784 issue of Connaissance des Temps, the final list of Messier objects had grown to 103. These seven objects, M104 through M110, are accepted by astronomers as official Messier objects, the crater Messier on the Moon and the asteroid 7359 Messier were named in his honor. Deep sky object List of Messier objects Messier object Messier marathon Caldwell catalogue OMeara, deep Sky Companions, The Messier Objects. Charles Messier Biography at Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, retrieved July 2007 Short biography of Charles Messier and history of the Messier Object Catalog by Jon Zander at OurDarkSkies. com. Retrieved July 2007 Life of a Comet Hunter, Messier and Astrobiology Professor Mark Brake and Martin Griffiths, Astrobiology Magazine European Edition, retrieved July 2007 Interactive Messier Catalog Greenhawk Observatory Amateur Photos of Charles Messier Objects Biography - Messier website. Messier Marathon Attempts to find as many Messier objects as possible in one night, retrieved July 2007 Clickable table of Messier objects Charles Messier explains his catalog on YouTube
7.
Antares
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Distinctly reddish when viewed with the unaided eye, Antares is a red supergiant of spectral type M1. 5Iab and is one of the largest known stars. It is an irregular variable star with a quoted magnitude range of +0.6 to +1.6. Antares is the brightest, most massive, and most evolved stellar member of the nearest OB association, Antares is a member of the Upper Scorpius subgroup of the Scorpius–Centaurus Association, which contains thousands of stars with mean age 11 million years at a distance of approximately 145 parsecs. Antares is a supergiant star with a classification of M1. 5Iab. Based upon parallax measurements, Antares is approximately 550 light-years from the Sun, the mass of the star has been calculated to be in the range of 15 to 18 solar masses. The size of Antares may be calculated using its parallax and angular diameter, the parallax angle is given in the adjacent box, and the angular diameter is known from lunar occultation measurements. This implies a radius of 890 ±150 solar radii at this distance, by analysing its radial velocity from its spectrum, Pugh and colleagues calculated a period of 5.93 ±0.01 years and considered whether this change was orbital or pulsational. If the latter, then the radius of the changes by 165 ±22 solar radii. However, if this were the case, Antares brightness would vary by a greater amount, Antares is a type LC slow irregular variable star, whose apparent magnitude slowly varies from +0.6 to +1.6. Antares is visible in the sky all night around May 31 of each year, at this time, Antares rises at dusk and sets at dawn as seen at the equator. Antares is one of the four first magnitude stars that lies within 5° of the ecliptic and therefore can be occulted by the Moon and, though rarely, by Venus. The last occultation of Antares by Venus took place on September 17,525 BC, on 31 July 2009, Antares was occulted by the Moon. The event was visible in much of southern Asia and the Middle East, every year around December 2 the Sun passes 5° north of Antares. Antares has a magnitude 5.5 companion star, Antares B and it was first observed by Scottish astronomer James William Grant FRSE while in India on 23 July 1844. The last is equal to a separation of about 529 astronomical units at the estimated distance of Antares. Spectroscopic examination of the states in the outflow of matter from the companion star suggests that it is about 224 au beyond the primary. Antares B is a blue-white main-sequence star of spectral type B2. 5V, the companion star is normally difficult to see in small telescopes due to glare from Antares A, but can sometimes be seen in apertures over 150 millimetres. Antares B can sometimes be observed with a telescope for a few seconds during lunar occultations while Antares A is hidden by the Moon
8.
Milky Way
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The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. The descriptive milky is derived from the appearance from Earth of the galaxy – a band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610, until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies, the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter between 100,000 light-years and 180,000 light-years. The Milky Way is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars, there are probably at least 100 billion planets in the Milky Way. The Solar System is located within the disk, about 26,000 light-years from the Galactic Center, on the edge of one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas. The stars in the inner ≈10,000 light-years form a bulge, the very center is marked by an intense radio source, named Sagittarius A*, which is likely to be a supermassive black hole. Stars and gases at a range of distances from the Galactic Center orbit at approximately 220 kilometers per second. The constant rotation speed contradicts the laws of Keplerian dynamics and suggests much of the mass of the Milky Way does not emit or absorb electromagnetic radiation. This mass has been termed dark matter, the rotational period is about 240 million years at the position of the Sun. The Milky Way as a whole is moving at a velocity of approximately 600 km per second with respect to frames of reference. The oldest stars in the Milky Way are nearly as old as the Universe itself, the Milky Way has several satellite galaxies and is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which is a component of the Virgo Supercluster, which is itself a component of the Laniakea Supercluster. The Milky Way can be seen as a band of white light some 30 degrees wide arcing across the sky. Dark regions within the band, such as the Great Rift, the area of the sky obscured by the Milky Way is called the Zone of Avoidance. The Milky Way has a low surface brightness. Its visibility can be reduced by background light such as light pollution or stray light from the Moon. The sky needs to be darker than about 20.2 magnitude per square arcsecond in order for the Milky Way to be seen and it should be visible when the limiting magnitude is approximately +5.1 or better and shows a great deal of detail at +6.1
9.
Nebula
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A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. Originally, nebula was a name for any diffuse astronomical object, the Andromeda Galaxy, for instance, was once referred to as the Andromeda Nebula before the true nature of galaxies was confirmed in the early 20th century by Vesto Slipher, Edwin Hubble and others. Most nebulae are of vast size, even millions of years in diameter. The Orion Nebula, the brightest nebula in the sky that occupies a region twice the diameter of the full Moon, can be viewed with the naked eye but was missed by early astronomers. Many nebulae are visible due to their fluorescence caused by the hot stars, while others are so diffuse they can only be detected with long exposures. Some nebulae are variably illuminated by T Tauri variable stars, Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. In these regions the formations of gas, dust, and other materials together to form denser regions, which attract further matter. The remaining material is believed to form planets and other planetary system objects. Around 150 AD, Claudius Ptolemaeus recorded, in books VII–VIII of his Almagest and he also noted a region of nebulosity between the constellations Ursa Major and Leo that was not associated with any star. The first true nebula, as distinct from a cluster, was mentioned by the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi. He noted a little cloud where the Andromeda Galaxy is located and he also cataloged the Omicron Velorum star cluster as a nebulous star and other nebulous objects, such as Brocchis Cluster. The supernova that created the Crab Nebula, the SN1054, was observed by Arabic, in 1610, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc discovered the Orion Nebula using a telescope. This nebula was observed by Johann Baptist Cysat in 1618. However, the first detailed study of the Orion Nebula was not performed until 1659 by Christiaan Huygens, in 1715, Edmund Halley published a list of six nebulae. This number steadily increased during the century, with Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux compiling a list of 20 in 1746, from 1751 to 1753, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille cataloged 42 nebulae from the Cape of Good Hope, most of which were previously unknown. Charles Messier then compiled a catalog of 103 nebulae by 1781, his interest was detecting comets, the number of nebulae was then greatly expanded by the efforts of William Herschel and his sister Caroline Herschel. Their Catalogue of One Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars was published in 1786, a second catalog of a thousand was published in 1789 and the third and final catalog of 510 appeared in 1802. During much of their work, William Herschel believed that these nebulae were merely unresolved clusters of stars, in 1790, however, he discovered a star surrounded by nebulosity and concluded that this was a true nebulosity, rather than a more distant cluster
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Media related to Messier 80 at Wikimedia Commons
16h 17m 02.51s, −22° 58′ 30.4″
