Astronomy.: 2010

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Parkes Radio Telescope.

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Parkes Radio Telescope is the best known astronomical observatory in Australia that was completed in 1961. It is the second largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere and is one of the first large movable discs in the world. This particular telescope is 64 meters and has a 18 meter antenna. The Parkes radio Telescope has been operating almost everyday since it has been completed. It has been used to track many space missions such as Mariner 2, Mariner 4, Voyager, Giotto, Galileo and Cassini -Huygens probes.

The Parkes Radio Telescope was upgraded by putting metal plates to the center part of the telescope to provide focusing capability for centimetre and millimetre length microwaves. It also has a receiving cabin that has many radio and microwave detectors. NASA copied the basic design of the Parkes Radio Telescope in their deep space mission due to all the success it has had.

Bruce Window led a team to support the Apollo 11 using the Parkes Radio Telescope. This telescope was the reason why we have pictures of the first time man walked on the moon. In 2000 the observatory and telescope were featured in the movie "the dish" , a fictional movie based on the Apollo 11 mission to land and walk on the moon.

Yoda

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Yoda is a powerful Jedi Master in the Star Was series. Yoda is a "species unknown", no one knows about his race and home world. Yoda always speaks in object subject verb word order. He has trained many Jedi's, including Count Dooku, Mace Windu, Obi Won-Kenobi, Ki-Adi Mundi, Kit fisto and Luke Skywalker.

Yoda's first on screen appreance in Star Wars Episode V: The empire Strikes back when he was responsible for training Luke Skywalker as a Jedi. His final appearance was in the star wars episode VI: Return of the Jedi where he dies around 900 years old.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Sergei Krikalev

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Sergei Krikalev was born in 1958. He is a Russian consonant and mechanical engineer.
When he was younger he always dreamed about become a consonant but his mom wanted him to become a doctor. He enjoys swimming, skiing, cycling, aerobatic flying, and amateur radio operations, particularly from space. Sergei Kirkalev graduated from high school in 1975 and 6 years later he received mechanical engineering degree. He was a member of the Russian and Soviet national aerobatic flying team and was the champion of Moscow in 1983 and the champion of the soviet union in 1986.

He was awarded the title of Hero of the Society Union, the Order of Lenin, the French title of Officier de la Légion d'honneau and the new title of Hero of the Russian Federation, and he was awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal. He has currently spent more time in space than any other human. August 16, 2005 he broke the record of 748 days held by Sergei Avadeyev and has now spent a total of 803 days and 9 hours and 39 minutes in space. On February 15, 2007 he was appointed vice President of the S.P Korolev Rocket and space corporation Energia.

Laika the dog.

http://www.cynical-c.com/archives/bloggraphics/Laika.jpg

Laika lived a short life from 1954-1957. She was a soviet space dog and was the first to orbit around the earth. She was a stray dog that scientist found and put into training with other dogs so they would be able to survive in space. They were trained to stay still for a long period of time.

Scientist thought that they would be able to endure the long period of time without activity better then other animals. Laika was chosen out of 3 dogs to go into space on the soviet space craft sputnik 2. She was launched November 3, 1957 and died within hours from over heating. They had said that her oxygen tank had ran out until 2002 when scientist's told the truth about Laika's death.

Laika wasn't the only dog to be launch into space to make sure it was safe for humans. September 1951 two unnamed dogs died during their flight. From 1951- 1952 nine dogs successfully flew rocket series, and 3 of these dogs flew two missions. Smelaya and Malyshka were scheduled to for a flight but the day before Smelaya ran away. April 11, 2008 Russian officials unveiled a monument for Laika, of a dog on top of a rocket.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Olmypus Mons

http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/niel/astro1/slideshows/class37/011-mars-olympus-mons.jpg

Olympus Mons is a volcano located on Mars. It is approximately 3 times the size of Mount Everest and is the tallest known volcano in the solar system. It was formed just like the volcanoes in Mexico. Olympus Mons was known as the Nix Olmpica. ( Latin for "Snow of Olympus") Olympus Mons is 21 kilometers above the surface of mars, and it is 55o kilometers wide with steep cliffs and it has a caldera complex that is 85 kilometers long, 60 kilometers wide, and 3 kilometers deep with six overlapping craters.

The top of Olympus Mons is above the Martian atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure at the top of Olympus Mons is less then 1% of what is seen on earth, mars has much lower gravity which allows the atmosphere to go higher. It is a shield volcano, it is much wider than it is tall and has lava flowing our of the volcano vents over a long period of time. The craters and lava flow shows us that it is 115 years old but the region is only 2 billion years old.

Olympus Mons is located in a region that has many large volcanic features and numerous other shield volcanoes that look really small compared to the size of the Olympus Mons, they are known as Tharsis Montes, Arsia Mons Pavonis Mons and Ascraeus Mons. The volcano is surrounded by a region known as the Olympus Mons aureole ("circle of life") with huge ridges and blocks 1,000 kilometers from the top. Olympus Mons is now an Extinct volcano.

Clyde Tombaugh.

http://web.educastur.princast.es/proyectos/grupotecne/archivos/investiga/182tombaugh.jpg

Clyde Tombaugh was born in Streator Illinois, 1907. When he was 15 his family moved to Kansas farm and three years later he graduated from Berdett High School. In 1926 he built his first telescope, and the year after he built a 9 inch telescope on his fathers farm. He used his telescope to draw planets and sent them to Lowell observatory and was hired working with the photographic camera.

He discovered Pluto in 1930 and that next year he received the Edwin Emory Slosson Scholarship to the University of Kansas. He continued searching for more planets at Lowell Observatory for 13 years, also taking time out for a college education but no more planets were found but he did discover six star clusters, two comets, hundreds of asteroids, several dozen clusters of galaxies and the super-cluster of galaxies stretching from Andromeda to Perseus. In 1932 he discovered a nova in Corvus that had exploded the year before. In 1932 Clyde got married to Patricia Edson and had two Children, Annette who was born in 1940 and Alden who was born in 1945. During the years 1943 -45 he taught at Arizona state.

In 1951 he Founded Las Cruses Astronomical Society with Jed Durrenberger, Walter Haas, and was its first president. Seven years later he led the photographic planetary patrol of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In 1959 he moved from MNSU to NMSU and studied the geology of Mars. The next year Clyde received honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University. In the year 1973 he retired from New Mexico State University. Later he conducted a national speaking tour to fund raise for Tombaugh Scholars, and then he died at the age of 90 in 1997 at home in Las Cruses on Jan 17.