1963 In Science
The year 1963 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration * January 1 – Long-period comet C/1963 A1 (Ikeya) is discovered by a Japanese amateur. * January 4 – Soviet Luna E-6 No.2, Luna reaches Earth orbit but fails to reach the Moon. * May 15 – Mercury program: NASA launches the last mission of the program Mercury 9. (On June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb tells Congress the program is complete.) * July 26 – Roy Kerr submits for publication his discovery of the Kerr metric, an Exact solutions in general relativity, exact solution to the Einstein field equation of general relativity, predicting a rotating black hole. * October 18 – Aboard the French Véronique (rocket), Véronique AGI 47 sounding rocket, a bicolor cat designated C 341, later known as Félicette, becomes the first cat in space. * November 1 – The Arecibo Observatory, with the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Physical Review Letters
''Physical Review Letters'' (''PRL''), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. The journal is considered one of the most prestigious in the field of physics. Over a quarter of Physics Nobel Prize-winning papers between 1995 and 2017 were published in it. ''PRL'' is published both online and as a print journal. Its focus is on short articles ("letters") intended for quick publication. The Lead Editor is Hugues Chaté. The Managing Editor is Robert Garisto. History The journal was created in 1958. Samuel Goudsmit, who was then the editor of '' Physical Review'', the American Physical Society's flagship journal, organized and published ''Letters to the Editor of Physical Review'' into a new standalone journal'','' which became ''Physical Review Letters''. It was the first journal intended for the rapid publication of short articles, a format that eventually became popular in many other fiel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt (28 December 1929 – 17 September 2022) was a Dutch-born American astronomer who first measured the distances of quasars. He was the first astronomer to identify a quasar, and so was pictured on the March cover of ''Time'' magazine in 1966. Early life Schmidt was born in Groningen, The Netherlands, on 28 December 1929. His father, Wilhelm, worked as an accountant for the Dutch government; his mother, Annie Wilhelmina (Haringhuizen), was a housewife. Schmidt studied math and physics at the University of Groningen, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1949 before obtaining a master's degree the following year. He then commenced doctoral studies at Leiden University under Jan Oort. Schmidt was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from Leiden Observatory in 1956. Career After completing his doctorate, Schmidt resided in the United States for two years on a Carnegie Fellowship. He returned briefly to the Netherlands, but ultimately emigrated to the US on a perma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Astrophysical Journal
''The Astrophysical Journal'' (''ApJ'') is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy, established in 1895 by American astronomers George Ellery Hale and James Edward Keeler. The journal discontinued its print edition and became an electronic-only journal in 2015. Since 1953, ''The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series'' (''ApJS'') has been published in conjunction with ''The Astrophysical Journal'', with generally longer articles to supplement the material in the journal. It publishes six volumes per year, with two 280-page issues per volume. ''The Astrophysical Journal Letters'' (''ApJL''), established in 1967 by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar as Part 2 of ''The Astrophysical Journal'', is now a separate journal focusing on the rapid publication of high-impact astronomical research. The three journals were published by the University of Chicago Press for the American Astronomical Society until, in January 2009, publication was transferred to IOP Publis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thomas A
Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (other) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Apostle * Thomas (bishop of the East Angles) (fl. 640s–650s), medieval Bishop of the East Angles * Thomas (Archdeacon of Barnstaple) (fl. 1203), Archdeacon of Barnstaple * Thomas, Count of Perche (1195–1217), Count of Perche * Thomas (bishop of Finland) (1248), first known Bishop of Finland * Thomas, Earl of Mar (1330–1377), 14th-century Earl, Aberdeen, Scotland Geography Places in the United States * Thomas, Idaho * Thomas, Illinois * Thomas, Oklahoma * Thomas, Oregon * Thomas, South Dakota * Thomas, Virginia * Thomas, Washington * Thomas, West Virginia * Thomas County (other) * Thomas Township (other) Elsewhere * Thomas Glacier (Greenland) Arts and entertainment * ''Thomas'' (Burton novel), a 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Allan Sandage
Allan Rex Sandage (June 18, 1926 – November 13, 2010) was an American astronomer. He was Staff Member Emeritus with the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California. He determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble constant and the age of the universe. Career Sandage was one of the most influential astronomers of the 20th century. He was born in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1948. In 1953 he received a PhD from the California Institute of Technology; the German-born Wilson Observatory-based astronomer Walter Baade was his advisor. During this time Sandage was a graduate student assistant to cosmologist Edwin Hubble. He continued Hubble's research program after Hubble died in 1953. In 1952 Baade surprised his fellow astronomers by announcing (at the 1952 Conference of the International Astronomical Union, in Rome) his determination of two separate populations of Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Quasar
A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass ranging from millions to tens of billions of solar masses, surrounded by a gaseous Accretion disk, accretion disc. Gas in the disc falling towards the black hole heats up and releases energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The radiant energy of quasars is enormous; the most powerful quasars have luminosity, luminosities thousands of times greater than that of a galaxy such as the Milky Way. Quasars are usually categorized as a subclass of the more general category of AGN. The redshifts of quasars are of Expansion of the universe, cosmological origin. The term originated as a Contraction (grammar), contraction of "quasi-stellar ''[star-like]'' radio source"—because they were first identified during the 1950s as sources of radio-wave ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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3C 48
3C48 is a quasar discovered in 1960; it was the second source conclusively identified as such. 3C48 was the first source in the Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources for which an optical identification was found by Allan Sandage and Thomas A. Matthews in 1960 through interferometry. In 1963 Jesse L. Greenstein and Thomas Matthews found that it had a redshift of 0.367, making it one of the highest redshift sources then known. It was not until 1982 that the surrounding faint galactic "nebulosity" was confirmed to have the same redshift as 3C48, cementing its identification as an object in a distant galaxy. This was also the first solid identification of a quasar with a surrounding galaxy at the same redshift. 3C 48 is one of four primary calibrators used by the Very Large Array (along with 3C 138 and 3C 147, and 3C 286). Visibilities of all other sources are calibrated using observed visibilities of one of these four calibrators. Nomenclature The name of the object “ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Arecibo (; ) is a Arecibo barrio-pueblo, city and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Utuado, Puerto Rico, Utuado and Ciales, Puerto Rico, Ciales; east of Hatillo, Puerto Rico, Hatillo; and west of Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, Barceloneta and Florida, Puerto Rico, Florida. It is about west of San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan, the capital city. Arecibo is the largest municipality in Puerto Rico by area, and it is the core city of the Puerto Rico statistical areas, Arecibo Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the greater San Juan–Caguas–Guaynabo metropolitan area, San Juan–Bayamón, PR Combined statistical area, Combined Statistical Area. It is spread over 18 ''barrios'' and Arecibo barrio-pueblo, Arecibo Pueblo (the downtown area and the administrative center of the city). Its population in 2020 was 87,754. The Arecibo Observatory, which housed the Arecibo telescope, the wo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Radio Telescope
A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, just as optical telescopes are used to make observations in the visible light, visible portion of the spectrum in traditional optical astronomy. Unlike optical telescopes, radio telescopes can be used in the daytime as well as at night. Since astronomical radio sources such as planets, stars, nebulas and galaxy, galaxies are very far away, the radio waves coming from them are extremely weak, so radio telescopes require very large antennas to collect enough radio energy to study them, and extremely sensitive receiving equipment. Radio telescopes are typically large Parabolic antenna, parabolic ("dish") antennas similar to those employed in tracking and communicating with satellites an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arecibo Observatory
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The observatory's main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. On August 10 and November 6, 2020, two of the receiver's support cables broke and the NSF announced that it would decommission the telescope. The telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020. In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope will not be rebuilt, with an educational facility to be established on the site. T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Félicette
Félicette () was a stray Parisian cat that became the first feline launched into space on 18October 1963 as part of the French space program. She was one of 14 female cats trained for spaceflight. The cats had electrodes implanted into their skulls to monitor their neurological activity throughout the flight. During the flight, electrical impulses were applied to the brain and a leg to stimulate responses. The capsule was recovered 13 minutes after the rocket was ignited. Most of the data from the mission was of good quality, and Félicette survived the flight but was euthanised two months later for the examination of her brain. Félicette was designated C 341 before the flight, and after the flight, the media gave her the name Félix, after Félix the Cat. (CERMA) modified this to the feminine Félicette and adopted it as her official name. Postage stamps worldwide commemorated her, and a statue with her likeness is on display at the International Space University. Fra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |