1.
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
2.
Coma Berenices
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Coma Berenices is an ancient asterism in the northern sky which has been defined as one of the 88 modern constellations. It is located in the fourth quadrant, between Leo and Bootes, and is visible in both hemispheres. It was introduced to Western astronomy during the third century BC by Conon of Samos and its name means Berenices Hair in Latin and refers to Queen Berenice II of Egypt, who sacrificed her long hair as a votive offering. Coma Berenices is the modern constellation named for an historic figure. It was further corroborated as a constellation by Gerardus Mercator and Tycho Brahe, three of the constellations stars are visible to the naked eye, Alpha Comae Berenices, Beta Comae Berenices and Gamma Comae Berenices. They form a 45-degree triangle, from which Berenices imaginary tresses hang, the constellations brightest star is Beta Comae Berenices, a 4. 2-magnitude main sequence star similar to the Sun. Coma Berenices contains the North Galactic Pole and one of the richest known galaxy clusters, Galaxy Malin 1, in the constellation, is the first known giant low-surface-brightness galaxy. Supernova SN 2005ap discovered in Coma Berenices is the brightest known, the star FK Comae Berenices is the prototype of an eponymous class of variable stars. The constellation is the radiant of one meteor shower, Coma Berenicids, Coma Berenices has been recognized as an asterism since the Hellenistic period, and is the only modern constellation named for an historic figure. It was introduced to Western astronomy during the third century BC by Conon of Samos, Berenice vowed to sacrifice her long hair as a votive offering if Ptolemy returned safely from battle during the Third Syrian War. In Callimachus poem, Aetia, Berenice dedicated her tresses to all the gods, in the Latin translation of the poem by the Roman poet Catullus and in Hyginus De astronomica, she dedicated her tresses to Aphrodite and placed them in the temple of Arsinoe II at Zephyrium. According to De astronomica, by the morning the tresses had disappeared. Conon proposed that Aphrodite had placed the tresses in the sky as an acknowledgement of Berenices sacrifice, Callimachus called the asterism plokamos Berenikēs or bostrukhon Berenikēs in Greek, translated into Latin as Coma Berenices by Catullus. Eratosthenes called it Berenices Hair and Ariadnes Hair, considering it part of the constellation Leo, the astronomer Geminus recognized it as a distinct constellation. Astronomer Ptolemy considered it part of Leo, and called it Plokamos, Coma Berenices became popular during the 16th century. In 1515, a set of gores by Johannes Schöner labelled the asterism Trica, in 1536 it appeared on a celestial globe by Caspar Vopel, who is credited with the asterisms designation as a constellation. That year, it appeared on a celestial map by Petrus Apianus as Crines Berenices. In 1551, Coma Berenices appeared on a celestial globe by Gerardus Mercator with five Latin and Greek names, Cincinnus, caesaries, πλόκαμος, Berenicis crinis, mercators reputation as a cartographer ensured the constellations inclusion on Dutch sky globes beginning in 1589
3.
Cosmic distance ladder
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The cosmic distance ladder is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. A real direct distance measurement of an object is possible only for those objects that are close enough to Earth. The techniques for determining distances to more distant objects are all based on various measured correlations between methods that work at distances and methods that work at larger distances. Several methods rely on a candle, which is an astronomical object that has a known luminosity. The ladder analogy arises because no single technique can measure distances at all ranges encountered in astronomy, instead, one method can be used to measure nearby distances, a second can be used to measure nearby to intermediate distances, and so on. Each rung of the ladder provides information that can be used to determine the distances at the next higher rung, at the base of the ladder are fundamental distance measurements, in which distances are determined directly, with no physical assumptions about the nature of the object in question. The precise measurement of stellar positions is part of the discipline of astrometry, direct distance measurements are based upon the astronomical unit, which is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Historically, observations of transits of Venus were crucial in determining the AU, in the first half of the 20th century, observations of asteroids were also important. Keplers laws provide precise ratios of the sizes of the orbits of objects orbiting the Sun, radar is used to measure the distance between the orbits of the Earth and of a second body. From that measurement and the ratio of the two sizes, the size of Earths orbit is calculated. The Earths orbit is known with a precision of a few meters, the most important fundamental distance measurements come from trigonometric parallax. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the position of stars will appear to shift slightly against the more distant background. These shifts are angles in a triangle, with 2 AU making the base leg of the triangle. The amount of shift is small, measuring 1 arcsecond for an object at the 1 parsec distance of the nearest stars. Astronomers usually express distances in units of parsecs, light-years are used in popular media, because parallax becomes smaller for a greater stellar distance, useful distances can be measured only for stars whose parallax is larger than a few times the precision of the measurement. Parallax measurements typically have an accuracy measured in milliarcseconds, the Hubble telescope WFC3 now has the potential to provide a precision of 20 to 40 microarcseconds, enabling reliable distance measurements up to 5,000 parsecs for small numbers of stars. By the early 2020s, the GAIA space mission will provide similarly accurate distances to all bright stars. Stars have a velocity relative to the Sun that causes proper motion, for a group of stars with the same spectral class and a similar magnitude range, a mean parallax can be derived from statistical analysis of the proper motions relative to their radial velocities
4.
Galaxy morphological classification
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Galaxy morphological classification is a system used by astronomers to divide galaxies into groups based on their visual appearance. The Hubble sequence is a classification scheme for galaxies invented by Edwin Hubble in 1926. It is often known colloquially as the “Hubble tuning-fork” because of the shape in which it is traditionally represented, Hubble’s scheme divides galaxies into three broad classes based on their visual appearance, Elliptical galaxies have smooth, featureless light distributions and appear as ellipses in images. They are denoted by the letter E, followed by an integer n representing their degree of ellipticity on the sky. Spiral galaxies consist of a disk, with stars forming a spiral structure, and a central concentration of stars known as the bulge. They are given the symbol S, roughly half of all spirals are also observed to have a bar-like structure, extending from the central bulge. These barred spirals are given the symbol SB and these broad classes can be extended to enable finer distinctions of appearance and to encompass other types of galaxies, such as irregular galaxies, which have no obvious regular structure. The Hubble sequence is represented in the form of a two-pronged fork, with the ellipticals on the left. Lenticular galaxies are placed between the ellipticals and the spirals, at the point where the two meet the “handle”. To this day, the Hubble sequence is the most commonly used system for classifying galaxies, the de Vaucouleurs system for classifying galaxies is a widely used extension to the Hubble sequence, first described by Gérard de Vaucouleurs in 1959. In particular, he argued that rings and lenses are important structural components of spiral galaxies, the de Vaucouleurs system retains Hubble’s basic division of galaxies into ellipticals, lenticulars, spirals and irregulars. For example, a barred spiral galaxy with loosely wound arms. Visually, the de Vaucouleurs system can be represented as a version of Hubble’s tuning fork, with stage on the x-axis, family on the y-axis. De Vaucouleurs also assigned numerical values to each class of galaxy in his scheme, values of the numerical Hubble stage T run from −6 to +10, with negative numbers corresponding to early-type galaxies and positive numbers to late types. Elliptical galaxies are divided into three stages, compact ellipticals, normal ellipticals and late types, lenticulars are similarly subdivided into early, intermediate and late types. Irregular galaxies can be of type magellanic irregulars or compact, the use of numerical stages allows for more quantitative studies of galaxy morphology. Created by American astronomer William Wilson Morgan, together with Philip Keenan, Morgan developed the MK system for the classification of stars through their spectra. The Yerkes scheme uses the spectra of stars in the galaxy, the shape, real and apparent, thus, for example, the Andromeda Galaxy is classified as kS5. H
5.
Galaxy
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A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias, literally milky, Galaxies range in size from dwarfs with just a few billion stars to giants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxys center of mass. Galaxies are categorized according to their morphology as elliptical, spiral. Many galaxies are thought to have holes at their active centers. The Milky Ways central black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, has a four million times greater than the Sun. Recent estimates of the number of galaxies in the observable universe range from 200 billion to 2 trillion or more, most of the galaxies are 1,000 to 100,000 parsecs in diameter and separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs. The space between galaxies is filled with a gas having an average density of less than one atom per cubic meter. The majority of galaxies are organized into groups, clusters. At the largest scale, these associations are generally arranged into sheets and filaments surrounded by immense voids. In Greek mythology, Zeus places his son born by a mortal woman, the infant Heracles, on Heras breast while she is asleep so that the baby will drink her divine milk and will thus become immortal. Hera wakes up while breastfeeding and then realizes she is nursing a baby, she pushes the baby away, some of her milk spills and. In the astronomical literature, the capitalized word Galaxy is often used to refer to our galaxy, the Milky Way, to distinguish it from the other galaxies in our universe. The English term Milky Way can be traced back to a story by Chaucer c. 1380, See yonder, lo, the Galaxyë Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, For hit is whyt. However, the word Universe was later understood to mean the entirety of existence, so this expression fell into disuse and the objects instead became known as galaxies. Tens of thousands of galaxies have been catalogued, but only a few have well-established names, such as the Andromeda Galaxy, the Magellanic Clouds, the Whirlpool Galaxy, and the Sombrero Galaxy. Astronomers work with numbers from certain catalogues, such as the Messier catalogue, the NGC, the IC, the CGCG, all of the well-known galaxies appear in one or more of these catalogues but each time under a different number. For example, Messier 109 is a galaxy having the number 109 in the catalogue of Messier, but also codes NGC3992, UGC6937, CGCG 269-023, MCG +09-20-044. One of the arguments to do so is that these impressive objects deserve better than uninspired codes, for instance, Bodifee and Berger propose the informal, descriptive name Callimorphus Ursae Majoris for the well-formed barred galaxy Messier 109 in Ursa Major
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.
William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse
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William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse KP PRS was an Anglo-Irish astronomer who had several telescopes built. His 72-inch telescope, built in 1845 and colloquially known as the Leviathan of Parsonstown, was the worlds largest telescope, in terms of aperture size, from 1807 until 1841, he was styled as Baron Oxmantown. He was born in Yorkshire, England, in the city of York and he was educated, as Lord Oxmantown, at Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford Universitys Magdalen College, graduating with first-class honours in mathematics in 1822. He inherited an earldom and an estate in Kings County in Ireland when his father, Lawrence, 2nd Earl of Rosse. Lord Rosse married Mary Field, daughter of John Wilmer Field and they had a total of thirteen children, but only four sons survived to adulthood, Lawrence, 4th Earl of Rosse. The Hon. Richard Clere Parsons, apparently known for developing railways in South America, sir Charles Algernon Parsons, known for inventing the steam turbine. During the 1840s, he had the Leviathan of Parsonstown built, the 72-inch telescope replaced a 36-inch telescope that he had built previously. Details of the metal, casting, grinding and polishing of the 3-ton speculum were presented in 1844 at the Belfast Natural History Society, Rosses telescope was considered a marvellous technical and architectural achievement, and images of it were circulated widely within the British commonwealth. Building of the Leviathan began in 1842 and it was first used in 1845 and it was the worlds largest telescope, in terms of aperture size, until the early 20th century. Using this telescope Rosse saw and catalogued a number of nebulae. Lord Rosse performed astronomical studies and discovered the nature of some nebulas. Rosses telescope Leviathan was the first to reveal the structure of M51, a galaxy nicknamed later as the Whirlpool Galaxy. Rosse named the Crab Nebula, based on a drawing made with his older 36-inch telescope in which it resembled a crab. A few years later, when the 72-inch telescope was in service, he produced a drawing of considerably different appearance. A main component of Rosses nebular research was his attempt to resolve the nebular hypothesis, Rosse himself did not believe that nebulas were truly gaseous, arguing rather that they were made of such an amount of fine stars that most telescopes could not resolve them individually. Rosses primary opponent in this was John Herschel, who used his own instruments to claim that the Orion nebula was a true nebula, eventually, neither man could establish sufficiently scientific results to resolve the question. But the genius displayed in all the contrivances for wielding this mighty monster even surpasses the design, the telescope weighs sixteen tons, and yet Lord Rosse raised it single-handed off its resting place, and two men with ease raised it to any height. Lord Rosse had a variety of optical reflecting telescopes built, Rosses telescopes used cast speculum metal ground parabolically and polished
8.
Starburst galaxy
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As such, the starburst nature of a galaxy is a phase, and one that typically occupies a brief period of a galaxys evolution. The majority of starburst galaxies are in the midst of a merger or close encounter with another galaxy, Starburst galaxies include M82, NGC 4038/NGC4039, and IC10. Starburst galaxies are defined by three interrelated factors, The rate at which the galaxy is currently converting gas into stars. The available quantity of gas from which stars can be formed, a comparison of the timescale on which star formation will consume the available gas with the age or rotation period of the galaxy. Commonly used definitions include, Continued star-formation where the current SFR would exhaust the available gas reservoir in much less than the age of the Universe, Continued star-formation where the current SFR would exhaust the available gas reservoir in much less than the dynamical timescale of the galaxy. The current SFR, normalised by the past-averaged SFR, is greater than unity. This ratio is referred to as the birthrate parameter, Starburst galaxies feature a large amount of cool molecular gas in a small volume. Galaxies in the midst of a starburst also frequently show tidal tails, classifying types of starburst galaxies is difficult since starburst galaxies do not represent a specific type in and of themselves. Starbursts can occur in disk galaxies, and irregular galaxies often exhibit knots of starburst spread throughout the irregular galaxy, nevertheless, astronomers typically classify starburst galaxies based on their most distinct observational characteristics. Some of the include, Blue compact galaxies. These galaxies are often low mass, low metallicity, dust-free objects, because they are dust-free and contain a large number of hot, young stars, they are often blue in optical and ultraviolet colours. It was initially thought that BCGs were genuinely young galaxies in the process of forming their first generation of stars, however, old stellar populations have been found in most BCGs, and it is thought that efficient mixing may explain the apparent lack of dust and metals. Most BCGs show signs of recent mergers and/or close interactions, well-studied BCGs include IZw18, ESO338-IG04 and Haro11. Blue compact dwarf galaxies are small compact galaxies, green Pea galaxies are small compact galaxies resembling primordial starbursts. They were found by citizen scientists taking part in the Galaxy Zoo project and these galaxies are generally extremely dusty objects. The ultraviolet radiation produced by the obscured star-formation is absorbed by the dust and this explains the extreme red colours associated with ULIRGs. It is not known for sure that the UV radiation is produced purely by star-formation, Wolf-Rayet galaxies, galaxies where a large portion of the bright stars are Wolf-Rayet stars. The Wolf-Rayet phases is a relatively short-lived phase in the life of stars, typically 10% of the total life-time of these stars
9.
Star formation
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Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space, sometimes referred to as stellar nurseries or star-forming regions, fuse to form stars. It is closely related to formation, another branch of astronomy. Star formation theory, as well as accounting for the formation of a star, must also account for the statistics of binary stars. In June 2015, astronomers reported evidence for Population III stars in the Cosmos Redshift 7 galaxy at z =6.60, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way contains stars, stellar remnants, and a diffuse interstellar medium of gas and dust. The interstellar medium consists of 10−4 to 106 particles per cm3 and is composed of roughly 70% hydrogen by mass. This medium has been enriched by trace amounts of heavier elements that were ejected from stars as they passed beyond the end of their main sequence lifetime. Higher density regions of the interstellar medium form clouds, or diffuse nebulae, in the dense nebulae where stars are produced, much of the hydrogen is in the molecular form, so these nebulae are called molecular clouds. These giant molecular clouds have densities of 100 particles per cm3, diameters of 100 light-years, masses of up to 6 million solar masses. About half the mass of the galactic ISM is found in molecular clouds and in the Milky Way there are an estimated 6,000 molecular clouds. The nearest nebula to the Sun where massive stars are being formed is the Orion nebula,1,300 ly away, however, lower mass star formation is occurring about 400–450 light years distant in the ρ Ophiuchi cloud complex. A more compact site of formation is the opaque clouds of dense gas and dust known as Bok globules. These can form in association with collapsing molecular clouds or possibly independently, the Bok globules are typically up to a light year across and contain a few solar masses. They can be observed as dark clouds silhouetted against bright emission nebulae or background stars, over half the known Bok globules have been found to contain newly forming stars. An interstellar cloud of gas will remain in equilibrium as long as the kinetic energy of the gas pressure is in balance with the potential energy of the internal gravitational force. Mathematically this is expressed using the theorem, which states that, to maintain equilibrium. If a cloud is massive enough that the gas pressure is insufficient to support it, the mass above which a cloud will undergo such collapse is called the Jeans mass. The Jeans mass depends on the temperature and density of the cloud and this coincides with the typical mass of an open cluster of stars, which is the end product of a collapsing cloud. In triggered star formation, one of several events occur to compress a molecular cloud
10.
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
11.
Pinwheel Galaxy
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The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 21 million light-years away from earth in the constellation Ursa Major. First discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27,1781, it was communicated to Charles Messier who verified its position for inclusion in the Messier Catalogue as one of its final entries, the image was composed of 51 individual exposures, plus some extra ground-based photos. On August 24,2011, a Type Ia supernova, SN 2011fe, was discovered in M101 and it is difficult to distinguish when one lits the wires. Lord Rosse observed M101 in his 72-inch diameter Newtonian reflector during the half of the 19th century. He was the first to make note of the spiral structure. To observe the structure in modern instruments requires a fairly large instrument, very dark skies. M101 is a large galaxy comparable in size to the Milky Way, with a diameter of 170,000 light-years it is roughly equal the size of the Milky Way. It has a mass on the order of 100 billion solar masses. M101 is noted for its population of H II regions, many of which are very large. H II regions usually accompany the enormous clouds of high density molecular hydrogen gas contracting under their own gravitational force where stars form, H II regions are ionized by large numbers of extremely bright and hot young stars, those in M101 are capable of creating hot superbubbles. In a 1990 study,1264 H II regions were cataloged in the galaxy, three are prominent enough to receive New General Catalogue numbers - NGC5461, NGC5462, and NGC5471. M101 is asymmetrical due to the forces from interactions with its companion galaxies. These gravitational interactions compress interstellar hydrogen gas, which then triggers strong star formation activity in M101s spiral arms that can be detected in ultraviolet images and it received the designation M101 ULX-1. In 2005, Hubble and XMM-Newton observations showed the presence of an optical counterpart, further observations showed that the system deviated from expected models - the black hole is just 20 to 30 solar masses, and consumes material at a higher rate than theory suggests. M101 has five prominent companion galaxies, NGC5204, NGC5474, NGC5477, NGC5585, as stated above, the gravitational interaction between M101 and its satellites may have triggered the formation of the grand design pattern in M101. M101 has also probably distorted the companion galaxy NGC5474, M101 and its companion galaxies comprise most or possibly all of the M101 Group. On August 24,2011, a Type Ia supernova, SN 2011fe, the supernova was visual magnitude 17.2 at discovery and reached magnitude 9.9 at its peak. This was the fourth supernova recorded in M101, the first, SN 1909A, was discovered by Max Wolf in January 1909 and reached magnitude 12.1
. Bibcode:2005A&A...439..921V. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20041350.
