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Edwin Powell Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as "nebulae" were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way. He used the strong direct relationship between a classical Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period (discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt) for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances. Hubble provided evidence that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the Earth, a property now known as "Hubble's law", although it had been proposed two years earlier by Georges Lemaître. The Hubble law implies that the universe is expanding. A decade before, the American astronomer Vesto Slipher had provided the first evidence that the light from many of these nebulae was strongly red-shifte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johan Hagemeyer
Johan Hagemeyer (1 June 1884 21 May 1962) was a Dutch-born horticulturalist and vegetarian who is remembered primarily for being an early 20th century photographer and artistic intellectual. Life and work Hagemeyer was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His family came to California to grow fruit trees, but in 1916 he met photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who convinced him to devote his life to the then emerging world of artistic photography. In 1923 Hagemeyer opened a portrait studio in San Francisco, which he occupied primarily from October thru early April. In 1922 Hagemeyer built a spring-summer studio in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, at that time the largest art colony on the Pacific coast, and donated his photographs that December to a local fund-raising exhibit. It was here that Hagemeyer met Edward Weston, who encouraged him to further his career in photography. He moved his Carmel address in 1924 to a new "artfully designed studio" at the prominent junction of Mountain Vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newcomb Cleveland Prize
The Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is annually awarded to author(s) of outstanding scientific paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of ''Science''. Established in 1923, funded by Newcomb Cleveland who remained anonymous until his death in 1951, and for this period it was known as the AAAS Thousand Dollar Prize. "The prize was inspired by Mr. Cleveland's belief that it was the scientist who counted and who needed the encouragement an unexpected monetary award could give." The present rules were instituted in 1975, previously it had gone to the author(s) of noteworthy papers, representing an outstanding contribution to science, presented in a regular session, sectional or societal, during the AAAS Annual Meeting. It is now sponsored by the Fodor Family Trust and includes a prize of $25,000. Recipients List of winners Current rules Previous rules See also * AAAS Award for Science Diplomacy * AAA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Period-luminosity Relation
In astronomy, a period-luminosity relation is a relationship linking the bolometric luminosity, luminosity of pulsating variable stars with their pulsation period. The best-known relation is the direct proportionality law holding for Classical Cepheid variables, sometimes called the Leavitt law. Discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt, the relation established Cepheids as foundational Cosmic distance ladder#Galactic distance indicators, indicators of cosmic benchmarks for scaling cosmic distance ladder, galactic and extragalactic distances. The physical model explaining the Leavitt's law for classical cepheids is called ''kappa mechanism''. History Leavitt, a graduate of Radcliffe College, worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a "Human computer, computer", tasked with examining photographic plates in order to measure and catalog the brightness of stars. Observatory Director Edward Charles Pickering assigned Leavitt to the study of variable stars of the Small Magellan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term ''Milky Way'' is a translation of the Latin ', from the Greek ('), meaning "milky circle". 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 an estimated D25 isophotal diameter of , but only about 1,000 light years thick at the spiral arms (more at the bulg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galaxy
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. Galaxies, averaging an estimated 100 million stars, range in size from dwarfs with less than a hundred million stars, to the largest galaxies known – supergiants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass. Most of the mass in a typical galaxy is in the form of dark matter, with only a few percent of that mass visible in the form of stars and nebulae. Supermassive black holes are a common feature at the centres of galaxies. Galaxies are categorized according to their visual morphology as elliptical, spiral, or irregular. Many are thought to have supermassive black holes at their centers. The Milky Way's central black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, has a mass four million times greater than the Sun. As o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nebula
A nebula ('cloud' or 'fog' in Latin; pl. nebulae, nebulæ or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. 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 "clump" together to form denser regions, which attract further matter, and eventually will become dense enough to form stars. The remaining material is then thought to form planets and other planetary system objects. Most nebulae are of vast size; some are hundreds of light-years in diameter. A nebula that is visible to the human eye from Earth would appear larger, but no brighter, from close by. The Orion Nebula, the brightest nebula in the sky and occupying an area twice the angular diameter of the full Moon, can be viewed with the naked eye but was missed by early astronomers. Although denser than the space ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observational Cosmology
Observational cosmology is the study of the structure, the evolution and the origin of the universe through observation, using instruments such as telescopes and cosmic ray detectors. Early observations The science of physical cosmology as it is practiced today had its subject material defined in the years following the Shapley-Curtis debate when it was determined that the universe had a larger scale than the Milky Way galaxy. This was precipitated by observations that established the size and the dynamics of the cosmos that could be explained by Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. In its infancy, cosmology was a speculative science based on a very limited number of observations and characterized by a dispute between steady state theorists and promoters of Big Bang cosmology. It was not until the 1990s and beyond that the astronomical observations would be able to eliminate competing theories and drive the science to the "Golden Age of Cosmology" which was heralded by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extragalactic Astronomy
Extragalactic astronomy is the branch of astronomy concerned with objects outside the Milky Way galaxy. In other words, it is the study of all astronomical objects which are not covered by galactic astronomy. The closest objects in extragalactic astronomy include the galaxies of the Local Group, which are close enough to allow very detailed analyses of their contents (e.g. supernova remnants, stellar associations). As instrumentation has improved, distant objects can now be examined in more detail and so extragalactic astronomy includes objects at nearly the edge of the observable universe. Research into distant galaxies (outside of our local group) is valuable for studying aspects of the universe such as galaxy evolution and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) which give insight into physical phenomena (e.g. super massive black hole accretion and the presence of dark matter). It is through extragalactic astronomy that astronomers and physicists are able to study the effects of General ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Americans
Americans are the Citizenship of the United States, citizens and United States nationality law, nationals of the United States, United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many Multiple citizenship, dual citizens, expatriates, and green card, permanent residents could also legally claim American nationality. The United States is home to race and ethnicity in the United States, people of many racial and ethnic origins; consequently, culture of the United States, American culture and Law of the United States, law do not equate nationality with Race (human categorization), race or Ethnic group, ethnicity, but with citizenship and an Oath of Allegiance (United States), oath of permanent allegiance. Overview The majority of Americans or their ancestors Immigration to the United States, immigrated to the United States or are descended from people who were Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, brought as Slavery in the United States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legion Of Merit
The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight uniformed services of the United States Note: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps Amendments Act of 2012 amended the Legion of Merit to be awarded to any uniformed service. as well as to military and political figures of foreign governments. The Legion of Merit (Commander degree) is one of only two United States military decorations to be issued as a (the other being the |
Gold Medal Of The Royal Astronomical Society
The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awards have been given for "outstanding personal researches in the fields of astronomy and geophysics" as well as general contributions to astronomy and geophysics "that may be made through leadership in research programmes, through education and through scientific administration". It has been awarded both for research that has taken a lifetime (it has most frequently been given to recognise an extraordinary lifetime achievement), and for specific pieces of research. History The RAS was founded in 1820 and the first Gold Medals were awarded in 1824. Silver medals were also awarded in 1824 and 1827, but that practice was quickly abandoned, instead the RAS established other awards. In the early years, more than one medal was often awarded in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
