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Mount Stromlo Observatory
Mount Stromlo Observatory located in the west of Canberra, Australia, is part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University (ANU). Australia's oldest telescope and several others at the observatory were destroyed by bushfire in 2003. History The observatory was established in 1924 as The Commonwealth Solar Observatory. The Mount Stromlo site had already been used for observations in the previous decade, a small observatory being established there by Pietro Baracchi using the Oddie telescope located there in 1911. The dome built to house the Oddie telescope was the first Commonwealth building constructed in the newly established Australian Capital Territory. In 1911 a delegation for an Australian Solar Observatory went to London seeking Commonwealth assistance. The League of the Empire sought subscriptions to assist raising funds. Survey work to determine the site's suitability had begun as soon as the idea of a new Capital was establi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Canberra
Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest inland city, and the list of cities in Australia by population, eighth-largest Australian city by population. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory at the northern tip of the Australian Alps, the country's highest mountain range. Canberra's estimated population was 473,855. The area chosen for the capital had been inhabited by Aboriginal Australians for up to 21,000 years, by groups including the Ngunnawal and Ngambri. history of Australia (1788–1850), European settlement commenced in the first half of the 19th century, as evidenced by surviving landmarks such as St John the Baptist Church, Reid, St John's Anglican Church and Blundells Cottage. On 1 January 1901, federation of the colonies of Australi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
2003 Canberra Bushfires
The 2003 Canberra bushfires caused severe damage to the suburbs and outer areas of Canberra, the capital city of Australia, during 18–22 January 2003. Almost 70% of the Australian Capital Territory's (ACT) pastures, pine plantations, and nature parks were severely damaged, and most of the Mount Stromlo Observatory was destroyed. After burning for a week around the edges of the ACT, the fires entered the suburbs of Canberra on 18 January 2003. Over the next ten hours, four people died, over 490 were injured, and 470 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, requiring a significant relief and reconstruction effort. Buildup to the event On 8 January 2003, lightning strikes started four fires in New South Wales, over the border but in close proximity to Canberra. Despite their proximity and very small initial sizes, low intensity, and low rate of spread, these fires were not extinguished or contained by New South Wales emergency services personnel. Subsequent inquiries int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Brian Schmidt
Brian Paul Schmidt (born 24 February 1967) is an American Australian astrophysics, astrophysicist at the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory and Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. He was the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) from January 2016 to January 2024. He is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmological probes. He previously held a Federation Fellowship and a Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Laureate Fellowship from the Australian Research Council, and was List of Fellows of the Royal Society elected in 2012, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2012. Schmidt shared both the 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for providing evidence that the accelerating universe, expansion of the universe is accelerating. Early life and education Schmidt, an only child, was born in Missoula, Montana, where his father Dana C. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered privately by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response to the detonation of the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb during the Cold War. It later became autonomous in 1971 and was designated a national laboratory in 1981. Lawrence Livermore Lab is primarily funded by the United States Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy and it is managed Privately held company, privately and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (a Public-private partnerships in the United States, partnership of the University of California, Bechtel, BW ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Charge-coupled Device
A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a major technology used in digital imaging. Overview In a CCD image sensor, pixels are represented by Doping (semiconductor), p-doped metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) capacitors. These MOS capacitors, the basic building blocks of a CCD, are biased above the threshold for inversion when image acquisition begins, allowing the conversion of incoming photons into electron charges at the semiconductor-oxide interface; the CCD is then used to read out these charges. Although CCDs are not the only technology to allow for light detection, CCD image sensors are widely used in professional, medical, and scientific applications where high-quality image data are required. In applications with less exacting quality demands, such as consumer and pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Great Melbourne Telescope
The Great Melbourne Telescope was built by the Grubb Telescope Company in Dublin, Ireland in 1868, and installed at the Melbourne Observatory in Melbourne, Australia in 1869. In 1945 that Observatory closed and the telescope was sold and moved to the Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra. It was rebuilt in the late 1950s. In 2003 the telescope, still in use as an observatory, was severely damaged in a bushfire. About 70% of the components were salvageable; a project to restore the telescope to working condition started in 2013. With a 48 inch (1.2 metre) diameter primary mirror, it was one of the largest telescopes of the late 19th century. This is a significant size even into the 21st century, although the lower reflecting ability of speculum metal mirrors (about 2/3 reflected) makes them inferior to later metal-on-glass designs or large refractors. This was significantly larger than the largest refractors of the period such as the James Lick telescope, Lick telescope and Yerkes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Magellanic Cloud
The Magellanic Clouds (''Magellanic system'' or ''Nubeculae Magellani'') are two irregular dwarf galaxies in the southern celestial hemisphere. Orbiting the Milky Way galaxy, these satellite galaxies are members of the Local Group. Because both show signs of a bar structure, they are often reclassified as Magellanic spiral galaxies. The two galaxies are the following: * Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), about away * Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), about away The Magellanic Clouds are visible to the unaided eye from the Southern Hemisphere, but cannot be observed from the most northern latitudes. History They may be the objects mentioned by the polymath Ibn Qutaybah (d. 889 CE), in his book on ''Al-Anwā̵’'' (the stations of the Moon in pre-Islamic Arabian culture): وأسفل من سهيل قدما سهيل . وفى مجرى قدمى سهيل، من خلفهما كواكب زهر كبار، لا ترى بالعراق، يسميها أهل تهامة الأعبار And be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gravitational Microlensing
Gravitational microlensing is an astronomical phenomenon caused by the gravitational lens effect. It can be used to detect objects that range from the mass of a planet to the mass of a star, regardless of the light they emit. Typically, astronomers can only detect bright objects that emit much light (stars) or large objects that block background light (clouds of gas and dust). These objects make up only a minor portion of the mass of a galaxy. Microlensing allows the study of objects that emit little or no light. When a distant star or quasar gets sufficiently aligned with a massive compact foreground object, the bending of light due to its gravitational field, as discussed by Albert Einstein in 1915, leads to two distorted images (generally unresolved), resulting in an observable magnification. The time-scale of the transient brightening depends on the mass of the foreground object as well as on the relative proper motion between the background 'source' and the foreground 'l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gravitational Lensing
A gravitational lens is matter, such as a galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's General relativity, general theory of relativity. If light is treated as Corpuscular theory of light, corpuscles travelling at the speed of light, Newtonian physics also predicts the bending of light, but only half of that predicted by general relativity. Orest Khvolson (1924) and Frantisek Link (1936) are generally credited with being the first to discuss the effect in print, but it is more commonly associated with Einstein, who made unpublished calculations on it in 1912 and published an article on the subject in 1936. In 1937, Fritz Zwicky posited that galaxy clusters could act as gravitational lenses, a claim confirmed in 1979 by observation of the Twin QSO SBS 0957+561. Description Unlike an lens (optics), optical lens, a point-li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
MACHO
Machismo (; ; ; ) is the sense of being " manly" and self-reliant, a concept associated with "a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity". Machismo is a term originating in the early 1940s and 1950s and its use more widespread in popular culture in the 60s. While the term is associated with "a man's responsibility to provide for, protect, and defend his family", machismo is strongly and consistently associated with dominance, aggression, grandstanding, and an inability to nurture. Machismo is found to be deeply rooted in family dynamics and culture in Latin America and is exclusive to the region. The word has a long history both in Spain and Portugal, including the Spanish and Portuguese languages. in Portuguese and Spanish is a strictly masculine term, derived from the Latin ''mascŭlus'', which means "male". It was originally associated with the ideal societal role men were expected to play in their communities, most particularly Iberian language- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles H. Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow and the optical amplifier patented by Gordon Gould. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light that is coherence (physics), ''coherent''. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling uses such as optical communication, laser cutting, and Photolithography#Light sources, lithography. It also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances (collimated light, collimation), used in laser pointers, lidar, and free-space optical communication. Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which permits them to emit light ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Adaptive Optics
Adaptive optics (AO) is a technique of precisely deforming a mirror in order to compensate for light distortion. It is used in Astronomy, astronomical telescopes and laser communication systems to remove the effects of Astronomical seeing, atmospheric distortion, in microscopy, optical fabrication and in retinal imaging systems to reduce optical aberrations. Adaptive optics works by measuring the distortions in a wavefront and compensating for them with a device that corrects those errors such as a deformable mirror or a liquid crystal array. Adaptive optics should not be confused with active optics, which work on a longer timescale to correct the primary mirror geometry. Other methods can achieve resolving power exceeding the limit imposed by atmospheric distortion, such as speckle imaging, aperture synthesis, and lucky imaging, or by moving outside the atmosphere with space-based telescope, space telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. History Adaptive optics was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
