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October 2006 and beyond...
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Future events or events in progress. |
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Events listed below, are mostly of general or scientific interest.
They are events people can often be part of them. |
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| September 19-21 |
conference on the societal impact of spaceflight (history.nasa.gov). It will be held in Washington, D.C |
| September 22 |
RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California). |
| September 23 |
ASOD Star party (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Sawmill Trailhead. |
| October 7 |
RAS Meeting (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California). |
| October 13 |
ASOD Meeting (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). |
| October 13-14 |
Starry Nights Festival (yucca-valley.org). |
| October 19-22 |
Nightfall(RTMC/RAS star party) in Borrego springs (Anza Borrego). |
| October 21 |
ASOD Star party (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Sawmill Trailhead. |
| November 4 |
RAS Meeting (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California). |
| November 10 |
ASOD Meeting (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). |
| November 17 |
RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California). |
| November 18 |
ASOD Star party ASOD (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Coachella Valley Preserve. |
| December 2 |
RAS Meeting (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California). |
| December 8 |
ASOD Meeting ASOD (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). |
| December 15 |
RAS Star Party (Riverside Astronomy Society, Riverside California). |
| December 16 |
ASOD Star party ASOD (Astronomy Society of the Desert, Coachella Valley, California). Location: Coachella Valley Preserve. |
Solar system |
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| Object: Earth Moon. Date and Time standard: PST (Pacific Standard Time). Year: 2006 |
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| Month: |
1st quarter: |
full moon: |
latest quarter: |
new moon: |
| January |
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| February |
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| March |
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| April |
5 |
13 |
20 |
27 |
| May |
4 |
12 |
20 |
26 |
| June |
4 |
11 |
18 |
25 |
| July |
3 |
10 |
17 |
24 |
| August |
2 |
9 |
15 |
23 |
| August |
31 |
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| September |
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7 |
14 |
22 |
| September |
30 |
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| October |
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6 |
13 |
21 |
| October |
29 |
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| November |
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5 |
12 |
20 |
| November |
27 |
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| December |
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4 |
12 |
20 |
| December |
27 |
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| Date: |
what time: |
Events: |
Where: |
good chances of observation with: |
May last a few days: |
| Naked eyes |
Bino
culars |
Tele
scopes |
| 6 |
early evening |
Harvest moon.
A harvest moon, is the full moon the closest to the autumnal equinox.
The moon will be low on the Horizon, it will seem big and orange in color, a reason for the color is dust in the atmosphere.
At that time of the year, the moon rise around sunset, for several nights.
(science.nasa.gov).
Strange Moonlight (science.nasa.gov) (2006).
Harvest moon (wikipedia.org).
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x |
x |
x |
| 10 |
evening |
The moon is crossing the constellation of pleiades. |
East North-East |
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x |
x |
| 15 |
night |
Orion become visible again. Around 22:00 for that day, earlier for later days. |
East North-East |
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x |
x |
x |
| 16 |
evening |
Saturn welcome a thin cressant of the moon. |
East |
x |
x |
x |
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| 17 |
evening |
The moon pass near Regulus of the constellation Leo. |
East |
x |
x |
x |
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| 17 |
evening |
Mercury is at its greatest Eastern elongation. |
East |
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x |
x |
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| 20 |
evening |
A last thin cressant of the moon. |
East |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| 21 |
night |
Observing (comets.amsmeteors.org) the Orionids meteor shower.
Halley's Comet Returns... in Bits and Pieces (science.nasa.gov) (2001).
Orionid (astrogeology.usgs.gov) meteor shower.
IMO (imo.net) International Meteor Organization.
October to December 2006 (imo.net)
Meteors (wikipedia.org) are small fragments of cosmic debris entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speed, leaving a streak of light that very quickly disappears. When the number of meteors is large, it is called a meteor shower or meteor storm.
List (wikipedia.org) of meteor showers.
(science.nasa.gov) (2004).
click on image for a bigger image (linuxastronomy.org).
Image created using the sky chart program "KStars", then modified using the image manipulation program "GIMP".
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East |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| 26 |
evening |
Thin cressant of the moon. |
South-West |
x |
x |
x |
x |
| 29 |
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End of Daylight Savings Time. |
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Today in history. Some interesting events. |
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Historical events, as well as future historical events, such as spacecrafts journey. |
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Date: |
History events (sorted by year, month, day): |
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2006 October 12 |
It will be the fourth ESA launch (esa.int) of the year using an Ariane 5 vehicule launcher to bring 2 satellites and an auxiliary payload (esa.int) into orbit.
Optus D1 is a geosynchronous (GEO) communications satellite (Australia / New Zeland), DIRECTV 9S television broadcast satellite (USA) as well as LDREX-2 auxiliary payload (Japan).
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(esa.int).
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Optus (en.wikipedia.org) fleet of satellites.
Optus D1 will replace Optus B1, who "misteriously" stopped working and nothing accurate seems to be known about it, at least according to the company in charge of its operation.
Some more or less "bogus" press release seems to claim the satellite has stopped working because of a solar eclipse, which after verification, was a day earlier and in the opposite direction, so it should not have affected the operation at all.
It seems it may have been lost during a routine positioning procedure.
Earlier to that event on May 21 2005, its primary "Satellite Control Processor" failed, the satellite had been put into backup mode.
Opus B class of satellites were made by "Hughes".
LDREX-2 (jaxa.jp) which stand for: "Large Deployable Reflector Small-sized Partial Model 2", is a smaller scale of a future satellite. Its goal will be to test the deployment of a smaller scale of what should become later the world biggest deployable antenna.
The antenna will be later installed at a full scale on a satellite named ETS-VIII (jaxa.jp).
The antenna deployment should take about 45 minutes in a few steps. Information about the progress of the experiment, will be sent in real time to a tracking station in Malindi, Kenya.
A first preliminary test had already been effectued in December 2000 for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency using a Ariane 5 vehicule launch.
Info from Ariane Espace (arianespace.com) regarding LDREX-2.
article to be written about LDREX-2 (de.wikinews.org) (german).
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1992 October 31 |
The Vatican admited its errors in the trial of Galileo (1633).
A few points regarding the "Galileo affair" (wikipedia.org).
- At that time, scientists were phylosophers, they were no clear separation yet between them.
- Galileo brought a theory so new, that it was still "imcomplete". It needed work, not everything that Galileo brought on the table was correct. As in any new scientific breakthrough, part of it need to be reworked or studied more, often by others scientists.
- Not everybody in the church, disagree with Galileo. Several people were interested, a few even supported the heliocentric (wikipedia.org) idea.
- It was embarassing to have to modify the church existing theory, to adapt it to Galileo Copernicus point of view.
- People who disliked Galileo theory were becoming so vocals, Galileo decided to go himself to Rome to explain his finding, with for goal to clear its name from any problem.
Unfortunately Rome reply was not to friendly to Galileo...
The idea that the Sun is stationary is "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts many places the sense of Holy Scripture...".
- It is interesting to notice, the church seems to have taken a lesson from the Galileo error.
Galileo punishments seems not to have been enforced too seriously. Depending who was in charge, it has been better at time than others, his book ban has not been enforced or poorly.
- Today church (20th century) seems to let science to scientists to avoid any other possible embarassing mistake.
Big Bang theory, or age of earth as of being a few billions years old seems not to be a problem anymore.
- Recently, the Vatican did not endorsed but seems to have condamned the "Intelligent Design" theory.
Vatican's chief astronomer, Fr. George Coyne, issued a statement (wikipedia.org) on 18 November 2005 saying that "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.
Evolution (wikipedia.org) and the Roman Catholic Church.
Galileo Galilei (wikipedia.org).
Modern History Sourcebook: The Crime of Galileo: (fordham.edu) Indictment and Abjuration of 1633.
Galileo's Four Depositions (law.umkc.edu).
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1983 October 10 - 14 |
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Spacecraft
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Launch
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reached orbit
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Venera 15
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1983 June 2
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1983 October 10
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Venera 16
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1983 June 7
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1982 October 14
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Both spacecrafts were identical, they managed to image about 25 percent of Venus surface, in about 8 months of operation. They had a computer on board to hold the images while the spacecraft was passing behind the Sun, as no communication was possible while behind the Sun. They used radar technology to be able to go thorough the thick layer of venussian clouds.
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The venera program has been a very successful program. It has been improved by trial and error, meaning the later venera craft were more advanced than the previous ones.
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Venera 15 (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov).
Venera 16 (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov).
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Venera Missions (library.thinkquest.org).
Soviet Missions to Venus (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov).
Venera 15 and 16 (wikipedia.org).
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1981 October 30 |
Launch of Venera 13 (heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov). Similar to others Venera launch, it was a two identical spacecrafts program.
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Spacecraft
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Launch
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Landed
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Venera 13
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1981 October 30
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1982 March 1
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Venera 14
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1981 November 4
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1982 March 5
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They were two main scientific experiments on board of each spacecraft and some smaller ones. Among other thing they were looking for cosmic gamma-ray events, which they succeded.
One of the experiment was a continuation of french-soviet collaboration, started in previous Venera missions.
Venera 13 (wikipedia.org). Venera 13 was the first mission to send to earth color images, from Venus soil. the window opening for the camera was made of quartz. It seems it was also the first and perhaps still the only mission that try to record sound on another planet.
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1971 October 28 |
Great-Britain launched its first satellite Prospero X-3 into space, using its own rocket.
Great Britain became the 6th nation (after the USSR, USA, France, Japan and China) to successfully launch a satellite into space (not including Canadian first satellite, which was launched using a NASA rocket).
The rocket used was a "Black Arrow" (wikipedia.org) model. They were 4 launches, 2 successful and 2 failures.
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1958 October 1 |
Establishment of NASA.
NASA establishment was a response to the total surprise (to the Western world) and success of "Sputnik 1".
A wind of panic flew in Washington D.C. USA and spread quickly among the US Congress.
This crisis is known as the "Sputnik Shock".
Following "Sputnik 1" success they were a perception of USSR technological leadership and treat to the security of USA.
On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
NASA began operations on October 1, 1958.
Research & development and education funding by the government was increase to a level not seen before.
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NASA was constitued of a several previously existing organizations :
- National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics intact: its 8,000 employees, annual budget of $100 million.
- Langley Aeronautical Laboratory.
- Ames Aeronautical Laboratory.
- Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory.
- two others smaller test facilities.
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Later other organizations joined the new agency. Among them :
- Space science group of the Naval Research Laboratory in Maryland.
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed by the California Institute of Technology for the Army.
- Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama, where Wernher von Braun's team of engineers were engaged in the development of large rockets.
The German Wernher von Braun is considered the father of the US space program.
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The Historical Importance of the NDEA and the Establishment of NASA (cshe.berkeley.edu) (National Defense Education Act of 1958), (several images).
A brief history of NASA (hq.nasa.gov).
NASA's origins and the dawn of space age (hq.nasa.gov).
Celebrating NASA's 40 anniversary (hq.nasa.gov) 1958-1998.
NASA (wikipedia.org) .
Birth of NASA (space.ed).
Space Exploration (space.edu).
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1957 October 4 |
Sputnik 1 Launch into Earth orbit...
Sputnik 1 launch was a total success, but also a total surprise to the world. It started the "Space race". It was the first human technological creation to orbit earth.
However, the space race really started around 1955. On the American side, people were convinced the USSR had too outdated technology to accomplish such a delicate task. On the USSR side, some people worried that USA would be ready much before them.
Both super-power planned to have something flying for the International Geophysical Year. The USSR had plan to launch a heavy satellite with several scientific experiments. The day they found out USA was just planning to launch a very simple satellite with almost nothing on it, they put their heavy satellite project on hold and installed a small unsophisticated satellite instead.
Both countries were fortunate to have found people with a good vision of space exploration to start their space program. The German scientist V-2 designer Wernher Von Braun is considered the father of the USA space program.
While Sergey Korolyov (sometimes writen Korolev), was the father of the USSR space program.
In the western world Wernher, Von Braun was a popular person (for good and less good reasons, such as his past in world war II), Sergey Korolyov on the other hand, is not a familliar name. One reason is, people working on the USSR space program were refered to by title not by name, example "chief designer" instead of the person name, sometimes they also published articles under fictif names. It was in a time called "Cold War".
All of this to protect the USSR space program from sabotage and prevent the disappearance or killing of the people working on the space project.
Key people at the head of the communist party had little interest in purely scientific project, they seemed to be more interested by intercontinental ballistic missiles or project that could impress the western world.
It has been a frustrating time for Sergey Korolyov, to bring the idea of space program to these people.
At first Party communist leaders, had little interest to finance a satellite project, even if it would be the first artificial satellite. They did not share the vision of Sergey Korolyov at all.
It took several years to Sergey Korolyov, to be able to squeze some scientifics project into the accepted projects.
On July 29 1955 the press secretary of president Dwight D. Eisenhower, James C. Hagerty announced that USA could launch "small Earth-circling satellites" for the the International Geophysical Year.
This statement started competition, between the 2 countries. Sergey Korolyov had good points to present to support his cause.
USSR had to reply with a press conference stating they should be able to launch a satellite orbiting the earth in the next two years.
Sergey Korolyov did not want to work on a satellite project with a big group, he tried to work only with a few people about 35 (however I am not sure how many ended-up working on this project) to be able to accomplish his goal and not being too distracted by the heavy administration.
Every day was a new challenge, he had to convince people this satellite project would be a good thing for the USSR image abroad, to the member of the communist party, but not everyone could understand the impact of it.
Several missiles launch failed, the pressure was high on Sergey Korolyov, until the last minute his satellite project was in limbo.
Finaly an intercontinental ballistic missiles succeeded. The TASS press agency published an article, which failed to impress the USA. The article has been ignored or labeled as propaganda.
It is only 38 days later that the world understood a new age has arrived.
With this success launch, Sergey Korolyov received the ok to launch his small satellite. It was not an easy task, as several leaders could still see no advantage for the communist party. He went to Mosow a few time to defend his project, even it has been already approved.
He had so much pressure and was so stress the USA would launch a satellite just ahead of them, he tried unsuccessfully to change the launch date a few time, until a just few days prior to the approved launch date.
He was anxious the USA would launch a Vangard satellite ahead of the USSR.
On September 29 he flew to the launch site, On October 3 the R-7 rocket was moved to the launch pad, he escorted it as well as supervised every operation until the launch.
While he was under extreme pressure, he realized a rush job could be the end of his career.
He knew, only a success will awake the party leaders so much against anything that do not promote the party guideline.
Most people working on the launch preparation, worked well, meanwhile, not many could understand yet the impact to the world if the launch succeed. Even the day of the launch...
In the bunker used for command control Sergey Korolyov was still overlooking every step of the preparation.
The launch countdown last preparation was done by a civilian and a military. Everybody was extremely anxious until lift-off.
Once the launch happened, only silence seems to have been present until the Kamchatka station (Eastern USSR) received some beep-beep signal from sputnik. Sergey Korolyov asked everybody at all the stations to not celebrate to quickly, but to wait at least one orbit. After confirmation, the signal received was the right one and sputnik 1 was really orbiting the earth, they waited for a second orbit to telephone to the USSR party leader Nikita S. Khrushchev.
Khrushchev reply to the announcement, show clearly, that him like several others party leaders, did not realize the propaganda impact that this little scientific experiment would have.
He congratulate everybody and went back to bed...
The next day edition of the Pravda newspaper, had a simple article, similar to any other launch.
It is only when the communist party leaders heard the reaction of the Western world, that they began to realize something big had happen.
On October 9 finaly the Pravda newspaper, had an impressive article, writen by Sergey Korolyov and his fellow designers.
Sputnik 1 has made history...
Today a Sputnik sample is exposed over the entrance hall of the United Nations in New-York city.
Replica or extra sample are visible in others places, in Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. as well as in a few museums around the world.
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(nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov)
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As soon as Sputnik 1 has been orbiting earth people around earth were trying to receive and try to understand the meaning of its beep-beep messages.
People in the western world did not know what USSR had in mind with something passing over their countries.
While Sputnik 1 has been simple scientific satellite, people were not sure of its content.
While radio amateurs in USSR had been let know of some launch to listen to and provide report of reception, in the west it has been a sudden "sport" to try to receive and provide data of the signal.
An impressive work has been done at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
A group of Astronomers students and their professor (George W. Swenson, George C. McVittie, S. P. Wyatt, Ivan R. King), an improvised radio interferometer was built at the university. Data were recorded and saved for analysis.
Mathematician Donald B. Gillies and Physicist, James E. Snyder worked on the data collected. Less than two days later an accurate orbit was charted using the ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer).
Sputnik 1 has been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The cosmodrome is actually not near the city of Baikonur, but about 370 km Southwest (about 230 miles) from it (320-370 km depending the source). The reason was to "fool" the western world, to keep the exact location secret.
Baikonur is the oldest and probably largest still operational space launch facility in the world. It has been created on June 2 1955.
Several countries had their first astronauts launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, for example, France, Germany and Brazil all three started their human space missions from overthere..
More recently Baikonur Cosmodrome became pretty active again, with the US space shuttle launch put to a hold following the space shuttle accident, Baikonur, was/is the essential chainlink to resupply the International Space Station.
The Sputnik 1 satellite was relatively small 58 cm (about 23"), (some source say: 53 cm, about 21") in diameter, it was made of an alluminium alloy sphere and its weight was about 83.6 kg (about 184 lbs). It seems it orbited earth at about 250 km or about 150 miles.
It had two radio transmitters which sent signal at 20.005 and 40.002 MHz (wavelengths of 1.5 and 7.5 meters). It had 4 whip antennas, 2 about 2.4 m (about 7.9 ft) and 2 about 2.9 m (about 9.5 ft) long. Scientific data were sent to Earth, such as temperature inside and outside of the sphere.
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(nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov)
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One concern people had on both side of the atlantic, was the risk a meteorite hit a spacecraft. that was an unknown to scientists.
The sphere was sealed and under pressure (1.3 atmospheres, about 1317 mbar), with nitrogen, if a meteorite damaged the sphere, part of the nitrogen could have escaped and the temperature would have quickly increase. It did not happen, that was a very good news.
The radio transmitters operated for about three our four weeks (depending the source), until the chemical batteries failed. It did not had any other way to convert energy (no solar panel yet).
Sputnik 1 orbited earth about 1400 times, which represent a travel of about 70 million km (about 44 million miles). Its orbit inclination with the earth equator was about 65.6 degree. One orbit lasted about 96.17 minutes. It slowly lost orbit altitude from about 900 km (about 560 miles) to about 600 km (about 370 miles) for the apogee (distance furthest away of the orbit) on december 9 1957 (it did not have any engine to fire, to regain some altitude). It finally burned while re-entry into the atmosphere, on January 3 1958.
At launch time some problems occurred, one of them was, the first rocket stage consisted of multiple rocket engines, they were delays in the firing of several engines. A turbine failure due to another problem, cut-off the main engine 1 second to early. When first stage separation occurred, a part of the propellant was still unburned, meaning the rocket was not high enough. However, the second stage burned without a flaw.
As the rocket was not able to burn all of its propellant, Sputnik 1 was released not high enough. It was about 80 km (about 50 miles) to low on its apogee. At begin of the flight, its apogee was 947 km (about 590 miles) and its perigee was 228 km (about 142 miles).
By being too low, the satellite was more affected by Earth gravity. It means, it would come down quicker than planned.
Korolev, Sputnik, and The International Geophysical Year (hq.nasa.gov).
Sputnik 1 (wikipedia.org).
Sputnik program (wikipedia.org).
Sputnik crisis (wikipedia.org).
Sputnik (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov).
Baikonur Cosmodrome (wikipedia.org).
the German scientist V-2 designer Wernher Von Braun (wikipedia.org) was considered the father of the USA space program including the NASA. Sergey Korolyov, (wikipedia.org) was the equivalent for the USSR space program.
Valentin Glushko (wikipedia.org) was a designer of rocket engines. It provided engines for the rocket of Sergey Korolyov.
Some History of the Department of Astronomy (astro.uiuc.edu).
Reminiscence: At the dawn of the space age (ece.uiuc.edu). Work done at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Contents (ece.uiuc.edu).
Donald B. Gillies was a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist, young professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He worked on the Sputnik 1, orbit calculation.
Wernher von Braun (history.msfc.nasa.gov).
ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer) (wikipedia.org).
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1905 October 22 |
Radio engineer (electrical engineer) and physicist Karl Jansky was born.
While working for Bell Labs on a practical problem, to try to find out the sources of static disturbances (unwanted radiowaves), to study the possible use of trans-atlantic radio-telephone (using short waves), during the years 1931-1932, he discovered that statics noise may be coming from 3 sources.
- nearby thunderstorms.
- distant thunderstorms.
- a faint noise of unknown origin (at that time).
To help him in his investigation, he built an antenna capable to work around the frequency of 20.5 MHz (14.6 m).
It was a directional antenna, with a structure mostly made of wood. The antenna could be rotated to find out the location of the strongest signal , it was standing on 4 Ford-T's wheels.
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Karl Jansky investigated the third noise source for more than a year. At first he thought about radiations coming from the Sun, as they were coming and going about once a day.
Later he found out a patern between the strongest and wikest signal. The cycle of the peak noise was about 23h 56 minutes, which seems to be a typical astronomical signal from stars far away.
By checking with a sky chart, it seemed the signal was coming from the milky-way, with the strongest point around the Sagitarius constellation, which is toward the center of the constellation.
His discovery has been so intrigating, it appeared in the New-York time on May 5 1933.
Karl Jansky wanted to pursue his research and proposed to built a more sensitive antenna about 100 ft (30 m) in diameter. Unfortunately his proposition has been rejected, as the goal of his search has been reach for the radio telephone project.
People at Bell Labs were not interested in doing more research. Karl Jansky has been moved to new duty, he did not work any more in the astronomy related area.
Today, Karl Jansky is considered the "Father of Radio Astronomy", however it took several years until somebody decided to continue his work. It was "the great depression" era and funding for such studies were hard to come.
It was Grote Reber and John Kraus, that pursued Karl Jansky work.
Karl Jansky and the Discovery of Cosmic Radio Waves (nrao.edu).
History of Radio Astronomy (nrao.edu).
Grote Reber (nrao.edu) and his Radio Telescope.
My Brother Karl Jansky (bigear.org) and His Discovery of Radio Waves from Beyond the Earth.
Karl Guthe Jansky (wikipedia.org).
Grote Reber (wikipedia.org).
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1885 October 7 |
Niels (Henrik David) Bohr (wikipedia.org) was born on that day, he died in 1962 November 18.
He did some fundamental work regarding the atomic structure we are using today and quantum mecanics. He received the physics Nobel price in 1922.
After receiving his doctorate from Copenhagen University, Niels Bohr studied with Ernest Rutherford (wikipedia.org). Niels Bohr introduced his idea of electron travelling around an atom's nucleus.
By describing the property of an electron possibility to change from a higher orbit (or layer) into a lower one, emitting a photon of discrete energy, he pioneered the basis for quantum theory.
Later he became a professor at Copenhagen university and director of the newly constructed "Institute of Theoretical Physics".
In 1922 he received the Nobel Price for his work on the structure of atoms and the radiation emanating from them.
One of Niels Bohr son Aage Niels Bohr, (wikipedia.org) also became a physisicst and also received a Nobel price.
Niels Bohr had a very good relationship with Albert Einstein.
They constructively challenged each other with their respective point of view related to quantum mecanics.
More images at: DET Dansk Filminstitut (dfi.dk) Danish Film Institute.
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Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr were the key people at the fifth Solvay International Conference (wikipedia.org), which had for main topic "Electrons and Photons", it was in October of 1927.
The controversial Werner Heisenberg, (wikipedia.org) was probably Bohr most famous sutdent. He was also a Nobel Price winner, but he was also deeply involved in Germany atomic bomb project as head of it. He is known for his controversial statements. While he was head of the project, he may also be the main person that slowed down the project to a stall. To this day, it seems, it is still not sure if it was by lack of knowledge or a deliberate choice.
In 1943, Niels Bohr escaped the Nazy, then left to USA to work on the Los Alamos (New Mexico) laboratory, on the Manhattan Project. He was concerned about a nuclear arm race, he had the idea to share the atomic secret between the international community of scientist.
After the war, he returned to Danmark and advocated the peaceful use of nuclear energy, until his death.
3 years after his death, the physics institute of Copenhagen university was renamed the Niels Bohr Institute (wikipedia.org).
A few quotations from Niels Bohr:
"And anyone who thinks they can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy hasn't yet understood the first thing about it."
"Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true."
"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field."
Niels Bohr Archive (nba.nbi.dk).
for his services in the "investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them" (nobelprize.org).
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This page is a work in progress.
Please, Let me know if you feel it does not display properly on your browser, or if you find out some inaccuracy.
I am not a native speaker of the English language, Do not hesitate to let me know of any grammar or spelling mistakes.
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Legal
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The information on this site is believed to be correct, if you find any error, please send a message to the webmaster. We will do our best to fix any error in a timely manner.
Meanwhile, there is absolutely no waranty of any kind, the information on this site is accurate, neither correct.
To send us a message.
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Feel free to link to this page and give proper credit to it.
However it is not allowed to put this page or site into a frame, without first asking for it.
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This page as well as the whole site is Copyright© , 2001 - 2006 Eugene Clement
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Space |
Astronomy picture of the day. NASA
Hubble space telescope, picture of the day (image and video).
ESA European Space Agency.
Picture from the OSEI (Operational Significant Event Imagery). These images usually represent environment change events.
Earth motion for Coachella Valley.
 seismology for Coachella Valley (Southern California).
Light pollution prevention start at home.
The night sky in the World. Satellite monitoring of the artificial night sky brightness and the stellar visibility.
IDAInternational Dark-Sky Association.
 Auroral Activity (Northern Hemisphere). NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) continually monitor the power flux carried by the protons and electrons that produce aurora in the atmosphere.
 Auroral Activity Southern Hemisphere.
 GOES Solar X-ray Imager, provide full-disk images of the Sun once a minute in the 0.6-6 nm range with 5 arcsec pixels.
It allow real-time prediction of solar-terrestrial disturbances.
more info.
 SOHO Pick of the Week. Courtesy of SOHO/EIT and SOHO/LASCO consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
 latest SOHO images171.
 latest SOHO images284.
CosmicopiaMore about Cosmic Rays (educational).
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Our Sponsor |
People at Alembic have helped us in many ways, at first as sponsors, then as volunteers as well.
They are so dedicated, I would not be surprised if their guitars run linux. ;-)
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About the Author |
I am simply a Linux enthusiast with an interest in science.
I like to build hardware projects and connect them to computers, to do data acquisitions and other things. I also like to make telescopes or make existing telescopes more convenient to use.
This page will hopefully help me to learn something. I am happy if I can share it with the reader.
I belong to the following astronomy societies: RAS. ASOD
and linuxastronomy.org, which is a virtual group of linux enthusiast, experimenting with astronomy.
Suggestions or corrections with for goal to make this site better are welcome.
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