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Solar Tower (astronomy)
A solar tower, in the context of astronomy, is a structure used to support equipment for studying the Sun, and is typically part of solar telescope designs. Generically, the term solar tower has many more uses especially for a type of power production using Earth's Sun. Solar tower observatories are also called vacuum tower telescopes. Solar towers are used to raise the observation equipment above atmospheric turbulence caused by solar heating of the ground and the radiation of the heat into the atmosphere. Traditional observatories do not have to be placed high above ground level, as they do most of their observation at night, when ground radiation is at a minimum. The horizontal Snow solar observatory was built on Mount Wilson in 1904. It was soon found that heat radiation was disrupting observations. Almost as soon as the Snow Observatory opened, plans were started for a tower that opened in 1908 followed by a tower in 1912. The tower is currently used to study helio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest include planets, natural satellite, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxy, galaxies, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole. Astronomy is one of the oldest natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history made methodical observations of the night sky. These include the Babylonian astronomy, Babylonians, Greek astronomy, Greeks, Indian astronomy, Indians, Egyptian astronomy, Egyptians, Chinese astronomy, Chinese, Maya civilization, Maya, and many anc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Solar Observatory
The National Solar Observatory (NSO) is a United States public research institute to advance the knowledge of the physics of the Sun. NSO studies the Sun both as an astronomical object and as the dominant external influence on Earth. NSO is headquartered in Boulder and operates facilities at two locations - at the 4-meter Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in the Haleakala Observatory on the island of Maui, and at Sacramento Peak near Sunspot in New Mexico. NSO provides its observations to the scientific community. It operates facilities, develops advanced instrumentation both in-house and through partnerships, conducts solar research, and carries out educational and public outreach. Visiting the observatories The National Solar Observatory HQ is located on the campus of the University of Colorado, Boulder. It also has some staff on Maui, and Sacramento Peak. Telescopes operated by the observatory Haleakala Observatory * Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope Sacramento Peak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Telescope
A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, the visible spectrum. Obsolete names for Sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph. Professional solar telescopes Solar telescopes need optics large enough to achieve the best possible diffraction limit but less so for the associated light-collecting power of other astronomical telescopes. However, recently newer narrower filters and higher framerates have also driven solar telescopes towards photon-starved operations. Both the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope as well as the proposed European Solar Telescope (EST) have larger apertures not only to increase the resolution, but also to increase the light-collecting power. Because solar telescopes operate during the day, seeing is generally worse than for night-time telescopes, because the ground around the telescope is heated which causes turbulence and degrades the res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atmospheric Turbulence
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere is the outer region of a star, which includes the layers above the opaque photosphere; stars of low temperature might have outer atmospheres containing compound molecules. The atmosphere of Earth is composed of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (0.9%), carbon dioxide (0.04%) and trace gases. Most organisms use oxygen for respiration; lightning and bacteria perform nitrogen fixation to produce ammonia that is used to make nucleotides and amino acids; plants, algae, and cyanobacteria use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. The layered composition of the atmosphere minimises the harmful effects of sunlight, ultraviolet radiation, the solar wind, and cosmic rays to protect organisms from genetic damage. The current compositi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Wilson Observatory
The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson, a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The observatory contains two historically important telescopes: the Hooker telescope, which was the largest aperture telescope in the world from its completion in 1917 to 1949, and the 60-inch telescope which was the largest operational telescope in the world when it was completed in 1908. It also contains the Snow solar telescope completed in 1905, the 60 foot (18 m) solar tower completed in 1908, the 150 foot (46 m) solar tower completed in 1912, and the CHARA array, built by Georgia State University, which became fully operational in 2004 and was the largest optical interferometer in the world at its completion. Due to the inversion layer that traps warm air and smog over Los Angeles, Mount Wilson has steadier air than any other location in Nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helioseismology
Helioseismology, a term coined by Douglas Gough, is the study of the structure and dynamics of the Sun through its oscillations. These are principally caused by sound waves that are continuously driven and damped by convection near the Sun's surface. It is similar to geoseismology, or asteroseismology (also coined by Gough), which are respectively the studies of the Earth or stars through their oscillations. While the Sun's oscillations were first detected in the early 1960s, it was only in the mid-1970s that it was realized that the oscillations propagated throughout the Sun and could allow scientists to study the Sun's deep interior. The modern field is separated into global helioseismology, which studies the Sun's resonant modes directly, and local helioseismology, which studies the propagation of the component waves near the Sun's surface. Helioseismology has contributed to a number of scientific breakthroughs. The most notable was to show the predicted neutrino flux from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California State Normal School (now San José State University). This school was absorbed with the official founding of UCLA as the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the second-oldest of the 10-campus University of California system (after UC Berkeley). UCLA offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines, enrolling about 31,600 undergraduate and 14,300 graduate and professional students. UCLA received 174,914 undergraduate applications for Fall 2022, including transfers, making the school the most applied-to university in the United States. The university is organized into the College of Letters and Science and 12 professional schools. Six of the schools offer undergraduate degre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
STACEE
The Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment (STACEE), is a gamma ray detector located near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Observations with STACEE began in and concluded in . Gamma rays were observed from objects such as the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant, and Markarian 421, a blazar. STACEE uses the heliostats and space on the receiver tower of the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) operated by the Sandia National Laboratories on the grounds of the Kirtland Air Force Base. In the daytime, the facility is used for solar energy research. During the night STACEE uses the heliostats to reflect the brief flashes of Čerenkov radiation caused by gamma rays hitting the upper atmosphere to photodetectors mounted in the tower. STACEE is a nonimaging telescope, meaning that it detects the light from a portion of the sky, but does not resolve the light into an image. The detector is operated in consortium with several universities, including McGill University, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weizmann Institute
The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli universities in that it offers only postgraduate degrees in the natural and exact sciences. It is a multidisciplinary research center, with around 3,800 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and scientific, technical, and administrative staff working at the institute. As of 2019, six Nobel laureates and three Turing Award winners have been associated with the Weizmann Institute of Science. History Founded in 1934 by Chaim Weizmann and his first team, among them Benjamin M. Bloch, as the Daniel Sieff Research Institute. Weizmann had offered the post of director to Nobel Prize laureate Fritz Haber, but took over the directorship himself after Haber's death en route to Palestine. Before he became President of the State ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Power Tower
A solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plant or 'heliostat' power plant, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's rays upon a collector tower (the target). Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems are seen as one viable solution for renewable, pollution-free energy. Early designs used these focused rays to heat water, and used the resulting steam to power a turbine. Newer designs using liquid sodium have been demonstrated, and systems using molten salts (40% potassium nitrate, 60% sodium nitrate) as the working fluids are now in operation. These working fluids have high heat capacity, which can be used to store the energy before using it to boil water to drive turbines. These designs also allow power to be generated when the sun is not shining. Cost In 2021, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimated cost of electricity from concent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Solar Telescopes
This is a list of solar telescopes built in various countries around the world. A solar telescope is a specialized telescope that is used to observe the Sun. This list contains ground-based professional observatory telescopes at optical wavelengths in chronological order. Solar telescopes often have multiple focal lengths, and use a various combination of mirrors such as coelostats, lenses, and tubes for instruments including spectrographs, cameras, or coronagraphs. There are many types of instruments that have been designed to observe Earth's Sun, for example, in the 20th century solar towers were common. Ground telescopes Optical telescopes Telescopes for the Sun have existed for hundreds of years, this list is not complete and only goes back to 1900. Potential future optical telescopes Radio telescopes Other types of solar telescopes There are much smaller commercial and/or amateur telescopes such as ''Coronado Filters'' from founder and designer David Lunt, bought by Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
