1.
William Herschel
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Frederick William Herschel, KH, FRS was a British astronomer and composer of German origin, and brother of fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel, with whom he worked. Born in the Electorate of Hanover, Herschel followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, Herschel constructed his first large telescope in 1774, after which he spent nine years carrying out sky surveys to investigate double stars. The resolving power of the Herschel telescopes revealed that the nebulae in the Messier catalogue were clusters of stars, Herschel published catalogues of nebulae in 1802 and in 1820. In the course of an observation on 13 March 1781, he realized that one celestial body he had observed was not a star and this was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity and Herschel became famous overnight. As a result of this discovery, George III appointed him Court Astronomer and he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and grants were provided for the construction of new telescopes. Herschel pioneered the use of astronomical spectrophotometry as a tool, using prisms. Other work included a determination of the rotation period of Mars, the discovery that the Martian polar caps vary seasonally. In addition, Herschel discovered infrared radiation, Herschel was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1816. He was the first President of the Royal Astronomical Society when it was founded in 1820 and he died in August 1822, and his work was continued by his only son, John Herschel. Herschel was born in the Electorate of Hanover in Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire and his father was an oboist in the Hanover Military Band. In 1755 the Hanoverian Guards regiment, in whose band Wilhelm, at the time the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover were united under King George II. As the threat of war with France loomed, the Hanoverian Guards were recalled from England to defend Hanover, after they were defeated at the Battle of Hastenbeck, Herschels father Isaak sent his two sons to seek refuge in England in late 1757. Although his older brother Jakob had received his dismissal from the Hanoverian Guards, Wilhelm, nineteen years old at this time, was a quick student of the English language. In England he went by the English rendition of his name, in addition to the oboe, he played the violin and harpsichord and later the organ. He composed numerous works, including 24 symphonies and many concertos. Six of his symphonies were recorded in April 2002 by the London Mozart Players, Herschel moved to Sunderland in 1761 when Charles Avison immediately engaged him as first violin and soloist for his Newcastle orchestra, where he played for one season. In ‘Sunderland in the County of Durh, apprill 20th 1761’ he wrote his Symphony No.8 in C Minor. He was head of the Durham Militia band 1760–61 and visited the home of Sir Ralph Milbanke at Halnaby Hall in 1760, after Newcastle he moved to Leeds and Halifax where he was the first organist at St John the Baptist church
2.
John Herschel
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Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH FRS was an English polymath, mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, and experimental photographer, who also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of Mary Baldwin and astronomer William Herschel, nephew of astronomer Caroline Herschel, Herschel originated the use of the Julian day system in astronomy. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus, Herschel was born in Slough, Buckinghamshire, the son of Mary Baldwin and William Herschel. He studied shortly at Eton College and St Johns College, Cambridge and it was during his time as an undergraduate that he became friends with Charles Babbage and George Peacock. He left Cambridge in 1816 and started working with his father and he took up astronomy in 1816, building a reflecting telescope with a mirror 18 inches in diameter and with a 20-foot focal length. Between 1821 and 1823 he re-examined, with James South, the stars catalogued by his father. He was one of the founders of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1820, Herschel was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1831. He served as President of the Royal Astronomical Society three times, 1827–29, 1839–41 and 1847–49, a further complementary volume was published posthumously, as the General Catalogue of 10,300 Multiple and Double Stars. His views were published in an article entitled Light in 1828, the voyage to South Africa was made in order to catalogue the stars, nebulae, and other objects of the southern skies. This was to be a completion as well as extension of the survey of the northern heavens undertaken initially by his father William Herschel. He arrived in Cape Town on 15 January 1834 and set up a private 21 ft telescope at Feldhausen at Claremont, amongst his other observations during this time was that of the return of Comet Halley. Herschel collaborated with Thomas Maclear, the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, during this time, he also witnessed the Great Eruption of Eta Carinae. While in southern Africa, he engaged in a variety of scientific pursuits free from a sense of strong obligations to a larger scientific community. It was, he recalled, probably the happiest time in his life. Herschel used a camera lucida to obtain accurate outlines of the specimens, some 112 of the 132 known flower studies were collected and published as Flora Herscheliana in 1996. As their home during their stay in the Cape, the Herschels had selected Feldhausen, here John set up his reflector to begin his survey of the southern skies. — we must not impugn the Scripture Chronology, but we must interpret it in accordance with whatever shall appear on fair enquiry to be the truth for there cannot be two truths. And really there is enough, for the lives of the Patriarchs may as reasonably be extended to 5000 or 50000 years apiece as the days of Creation to as many thousand millions of years
3.
Planetary nebula
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A planetary nebula, often abbreviated as PN or plural PNe, is a kind of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from old red giant stars late in their lives. Herschels name for these objects was popularly adopted and has not been changed and they are a relatively short-lived phenomenon, lasting a few tens of thousands of years, compared to a typical stellar lifetime of several billion years. After most of the red giants atmosphere is dissipated, the radiation of the hot luminous core, called a planetary nebula nucleus. Absorbed ultraviolet light energises the shell of gas around the central star. Planetary nebulae likely play a role in the chemical evolution of the Milky Way by expelling elements to the interstellar medium from stars where those elements were created. Planetary nebulae are also observed in distant galaxies, yielding useful information about their chemical abundances. Starting from the 1990s, Hubble Space Telescope images have revealed many planetary nebulae to have extremely complex, about one-fifth are roughly spherical, but the majority are not spherically symmetric. The mechanisms that produce such a variety of shapes and features are not yet well understood. The first planetary nebula discovered was the Dumbbell Nebula in the constellation of Vulpecula and it was observed by Charles Messier in 1764 and listed as M27 in his catalogue of nebulous objects. To early observers with telescopes, M27 and subsequently discovered planetary nebulae resembled the giant planets like Uranus. William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus, eventually coined the term planetary nebula, the nature of planetary nebulae was unknown until the first spectroscopic observations were made in the mid-19th century. Using a prism to disperse their light, William Huggins was one of the earliest astronomers to study the spectra of astronomical objects. On August 29,1864, Huggins was the first to analyze the spectrum of a planetary nebula when he observed Cats Eye Nebula and his observations of stars showed that their spectra consisted of a continuum of radiation with many dark lines superimposed. He later found that many objects such as the Andromeda Nebula had spectra that were quite similar. Those nebulae were later shown to be collections of stars now called galaxies, however, when Huggins looked at the Cats Eye Nebula, he found a very different spectrum. Rather than a strong continuum with absorption lines superimposed, the Cats Eye Nebula, the brightest of these was at a wavelength of 500.7 nanometres, which did not correspond with a line of any known element. At first, it was hypothesized that the line might be due to an unknown element, a similar idea had led to the discovery of helium through analysis of the Suns spectrum in 1868. While helium was isolated on Earth soon after its discovery in the spectrum of the Sun, nebulium was not
4.
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
5.
Star cluster
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Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars. Star clusters visible to the eye include Pleiades, Hyades. Globular clusters, or GC, are roughly spherical groupings of from 10,000 to several million stars packed into regions of from 10 to 30 light years across. They commonly consist of very old Population II stars—just a few hundred years younger than the universe itself—which are mostly yellow and red. Such stars predominate within clusters because hotter and more stars have exploded as supernovae. Yet a few rare blue stars exist in globulars, thought to be formed by mergers in their dense inner regions. In our galaxy, globular clusters are distributed roughly spherically in the halo, around the galactic centre. Super star clusters, such as Westerlund 1 in the Milky Way, may be the precursors of globular clusters. Our galaxy has about 150 globular clusters, some of which may have captured from small galaxies disrupted by the Milky Way. Some galaxies are much richer in globulars, the giant elliptical galaxy M87 contains over a thousand. A few of the brightest globular clusters are visible to the eye, with the brightest, Omega Centauri, having been known since antiquity. The best known globular cluster in the northern hemisphere is M13, in 2005, astronomers discovered a completely new type of star cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy, which is, in several ways, very similar to globular clusters. Currently, there are not any intermediate clusters discovered in the Milky Way, the three discovered in Andromeda Galaxy are M31WFS C1 M31WFS C2, and M31WFS C3. These new-found star clusters contain hundreds of thousands of stars, a number of stars that can be found in globular clusters. The clusters also share characteristics with globular clusters, e. g. the stellar populations. What distinguishes them from the clusters is that they are much larger – several hundred light-years across –. The distances between the stars are, therefore, much greater within the newly discovered extended clusters, parametrically, these clusters lie somewhere between a globular cluster and a dwarf spheroidal galaxy. How these clusters are formed is not yet known, but their formation might well be related to that of globular clusters, why M31 has such clusters, while the Milky Way has not, is not yet known
6.
Dark nebula
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A dark nebula or absorption nebula is a type of interstellar cloud that is so dense that it obscures the light from objects behind it, such as background stars and emission or reflection nebulae. The extinction of the light is caused by interstellar dust grains located in the coldest, densest parts of molecular clouds. Clusters and large complexes of dark nebulae are associated with Giant Molecular Clouds, isolated small dark nebulae are called Bok globules. Like other interstellar dust or material, things it obscures are only visible using radio waves in radio astronomy or infrared in infrared astronomy. Dark clouds appear so because of sub-micrometre-sized dust particles, coated with carbon monoxide and nitrogen. Also present are molecular hydrogen, atomic helium, C18O, CS, NH3, H2CO, c-C3H2 and these clouds are the spawning grounds of stars and planets, and understanding their development is essential to understanding star formation. The form of dark clouds is very irregular, they have no clearly defined outer boundaries and sometimes take on convoluted serpentine shapes. The largest dark nebulae are visible to the eye, appearing as dark patches against the brighter background of the Milky Way like the Coalsack Nebula. These naked-eye objects are known as dark cloud constellations and take on a variety of names. In the inner outer molecular regions of dark nebulae, important events take place, list of dark nebulae Bok globule
7.
Royal Astronomical Society
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The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research. It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV, a Supplemental Charter in 1915 opened up the fellowship to women. Meetings are held in Burlington House, in Piccadilly, London and they are involved in the production of astronomical journals and periodicals. The society has over 3000 members, around a third of whom live outside the UK, in addition, those members of the public who have an interest in astronomy and geophysics and wish to support the work of the society may become Friends of the RAS. One of the activities of the RAS is publishing refereed journals. It publishes two primary research journals, the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in astronomy and the Geophysical Journal International in geophysics and it also publishes the magazine A&G which includes reviews and other articles of wide scientific interest in a glossy format. Fellowship is open to anyone over the age of 18 who is considered acceptable to the society, as a result of the societys foundation in a time before there were many professional astronomers, no formal qualifications are required. However, around three quarters of fellows are professional astronomers or geophysicists, the society acts as the professional body for astronomers and geophysicists in the UK and fellows may apply for the Science Councils Chartered Scientist status through the society. The fellowship passed 3,000 in 2003, in 2009 an initiative was launched for those with an interest in astronomy and geophysics but without professional qualifications or specialist knowledge in the subject. Such people may join the Friends of the RAS, which offers popular talks, visits, ordinary meetings featuring lectures about research topics in astronomy and geophysics are normally held in Burlington House in London on the second Friday of every month from October through to May. Reports of the meetings appear in The Observatory magazine, scientific discussion meetings about particular research topics are held on the day of the ordinary meetings. These allow several speakers to present new research results and experts to present reviews of scientific fields, discussion meetings on two different topics within astronomy and geophysics frequently take place in parallel at different locations within Burlington House. The Society occasionally hosts meetings in other parts of the United Kingdom, the Society also sponsors the National Astronomy Meeting, a week-long general conference of professional astronomers, normally held each spring at a university campus in the United Kingdom. The Society holds occasional lunchtime public lectures in Central London aimed at a general, non-specialist, the Royal Astronomical Society has a more comprehensive collection of books and journals in astronomy and geophysics than the libraries of most universities and research institutions. The library receives some 300 current periodicals in astronomy and geophysics and its collection of astronomical rare books is second only to that of the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh in the UK. The RAS library is a resource not just for the society but also the wider community of astronomers, geophysicists. The society promotes astronomy to members of the public through their outreach pages for students, teachers. The RAS has a role in relation to UK public examinations, such as GCSEs
8.
Photography
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Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. With an electronic sensor, this produces an electrical charge at each pixel. A negative image on film is used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print. The word photography was created from the Greek roots φωτός, genitive of φῶς, light and γραφή representation by means of lines or drawing, several people may have coined the same new term from these roots independently. Johann von Maedler, a Berlin astronomer, is credited in a 1932 German history of photography as having used it in an article published on 25 February 1839 in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung. Both of these claims are now widely reported but apparently neither has ever been confirmed as beyond reasonable doubt. Credit has traditionally given to Sir John Herschel both for coining the word and for introducing it to the public. Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries, later Greek mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid also independently described a pinhole camera in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Daniele Barbaro described a diaphragm in 1566, wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals in 1694. The fiction book Giphantie, published in 1760, by French author Tiphaigne de la Roche, the discovery of the camera obscura that provides an image of a scene dates back to ancient China. Leonardo da Vinci mentions natural camera obscura that are formed by dark caves on the edge of a sunlit valley, a hole in the cave wall will act as a pinhole camera and project a laterally reversed, upside down image on a piece of paper. So the birth of photography was primarily concerned with inventing means to capture, renaissance painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical rendering in color that dominates Western Art. The camera obscura literally means dark chamber in Latin and it is a box with a hole in it which allows light to go through and create an image onto the piece of paper. Around the year 1800, British inventor Thomas Wedgwood made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance and he used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. The shadow images eventually darkened all over, the first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from it. Niépce was successful again in 1825, in 1826 or 1827, he made the View from the Window at Le Gras, the earliest surviving photograph from nature. Because Niépces camera photographs required a long exposure, he sought to greatly improve his bitumen process or replace it with one that was more practical. With an eye to eventual commercial exploitation, the partners opted for total secrecy, Daguerres efforts culminated in what would later be named the daguerreotype process
9.
Orion (constellation)
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Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky and it was named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. Its brightest stars are Rigel and Betelgeuse, a blue-white and a red supergiant, the earliest depiction that has been linked to the constellation of Orion is a prehistoric mammoth ivory carving found in a cave in the Ach valley in West Germany in 1979. Archaeologists have estimated it to have been fashioned approximately 32,000 to 38,000 years ago, the distinctive pattern of Orion has been recognized in numerous cultures around the world, and many myths have been associated with it. It has also used as a symbol in the modern world. The Babylonian star catalogues of the Late Bronze Age name Orion MULSIPA. ZI. AN. NA, the Babylonian constellation was sacred to Papshukal and Ninshubur, both minor gods fulfilling the role of messenger to the gods. In ancient Egypt, the stars of Orion were regarded as a god, because Orion rises before Sirius, the star whose heliacal rising was the basis for the Solar Egyptian calendar, Sah was closely linked with Sopdet, the goddess who personified Sirius. The god Sopdu was said to be the son of Sah, Sah was syncretized with Osiris, while Sopdet was syncretized with Osiris mythological wife, Isis. In the Pyramid Texts, from the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, the Armenians identified their legendary patriarch and founder Hayk with Orion. Hayk is also the name of the Orion constellation in the Armenian translation of the Bible, the Bible mentions Orion three times, naming it Kesil. e. Job 9,9, Job 38,31, and Amos 5,8, in ancient Aram, the constellation was known as Nephîlā′, the Nephilim may have been Orions descendants. One myth recounts Gaias rage at Orion, who dared to say that he would kill every animal on the planet, the angry goddess tried to dispatch Orion with a scorpion. This is given as the reason that the constellations of Scorpius, however, Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, revived Orion with an antidote. This is said to be the reason that the constellation of Ophiuchus stands midway between the Scorpion and the Hunter in the sky. The constellation is mentioned in Horaces Odes, Homers Odyssey and Iliad, and Virgils Aeneid In medieval Muslim astronomy, Orion was known as al-jabbar, Orions sixth brightest star, Saiph, is named from the Arabic, saif al-jabbar, meaning sword of the giant. In China, Orion was one of the 28 lunar mansions Sieu （宿） and it is known as Shen （參）, literally meaning three, for the stars of Orions Belt. The Rig Veda refers to the Orion Constellation as Mriga, the Mriga means Deer, locally known as Harnu in folk parlance. There are many folk songs narrating the Harnu, the Malay called Orion Belt Bintang Tiga Beradik
10.
Cambridge University Press
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Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the worlds oldest publishing house and it also holds letters patent as the Queens Printer. The Presss mission is To further the Universitys mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, Cambridge University Press is a department of the University of Cambridge and is both an academic and educational publisher. With a global presence, publishing hubs, and offices in more than 40 countries. Its publishing includes journals, monographs, reference works, textbooks. Cambridge University Press is an enterprise that transfers part of its annual surplus back to the university. Cambridge University Press is both the oldest publishing house in the world and the oldest university press and it originated from Letters Patent granted to the University of Cambridge by Henry VIII in 1534, and has been producing books continuously since the first University Press book was printed. Cambridge is one of the two privileged presses, authors published by Cambridge have included John Milton, William Harvey, Isaac Newton, Bertrand Russell, and Stephen Hawking. In 1591, Thomass successor, John Legate, printed the first Cambridge Bible, the London Stationers objected strenuously, claiming that they had the monopoly on Bible printing. The universitys response was to point out the provision in its charter to print all manner of books. In July 1697 the Duke of Somerset made a loan of £200 to the university towards the house and presse and James Halman, Registrary of the University. It was in Bentleys time, in 1698, that a body of scholars was appointed to be responsible to the university for the Presss affairs. The Press Syndicates publishing committee still meets regularly, and its role still includes the review, John Baskerville became University Printer in the mid-eighteenth century. Baskervilles concern was the production of the finest possible books using his own type-design, a technological breakthrough was badly needed, and it came when Lord Stanhope perfected the making of stereotype plates. This involved making a mould of the surface of a page of type. The Press was the first to use this technique, and in 1805 produced the technically successful, under the stewardship of C. J. Clay, who was University Printer from 1854 to 1882, the Press increased the size and scale of its academic and educational publishing operation. An important factor in this increase was the inauguration of its list of schoolbooks, during Clays administration, the Press also undertook a sizable co-publishing venture with Oxford, the Revised Version of the Bible, which was begun in 1870 and completed in 1885. It was Wright who devised the plan for one of the most distinctive Cambridge contributions to publishing—the Cambridge Histories, the Cambridge Modern History was published between 1902 and 1912
11.
Goddard Space Flight Center
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The Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1,1959 as NASAs first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D. C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. GSFC, one of ten major NASA field centers, is named in recognition of Dr. Robert H. Goddard, GSFC is a major U. S. laboratory for developing and operating unmanned scientific spacecraft. GSFC conducts scientific investigation, development and operation of space systems, Goddard scientists can develop and support a mission, and Goddard engineers and technicians can design and build the spacecraft for that mission. Mather shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on COBE, past missions managed by GSFC include the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, SMM, COBE, IUE, and ROSAT. Goddard is NASAs first, and oldest, space center and its original charter was to perform five major functions on behalf of NASA, technology development and fabrication, planning, scientific research, technical operations, and project management. The center is organized into directorates, each charged with one of these key functions. Until May 1,1959, NASAs presence in Greenbelt, Maryland was known as the Beltsville Space Center and it was then renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center, after Dr. Robert H. Goddard. Goddard Space Flight Center contributed to Project Mercury, Americas first manned flight program. The Center assumed a role for the project in its early days and managed the first 250 employees involved in the effort. However, the size and scope of Project Mercury soon prompted NASA to build a new Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Johnson Space Center, in Houston,
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