Celebrating Apollo 11 at the Emmaus Library

JULY 20, 1969

APOLLO 11

FIRST MOON LANDING

CELEBRATE FORTY YEARS

OF THIS INCREDIBLE ACHIEVEMENT

July 20, 2009 7pm at the Emmaus Public Library

Learn about the fragile four-legged spacecraft that landed, the three astronauts who were on this mission, what they collected to take back to earth and what they left behind. Lunar enthusiast Mark Tillotson will discuss the lunar landing with a multimedia presentation, including footage of the actual lunar surface activities.

All ages are welcome. Please call the library (610-965-9284) to register. Light refreshments will be served.

Kanawha and A Landlocked Virginia

This is a great 'strange map' and an interesting story. I'm sure Mr. Jefferson would not have approved of this. When Virginia seceeded from the Union, West Virginia seceeded from Virginia. This map represents a potential change in state boundaries and was created some time in 1861.

West Virginia is the state that seceded where others failed. When in 1861 the South broke away from the US to form the Confederacy, the Mountain State in its turn left Virginia to remain within the Union. The electoral process by which it did this was highly irregular, and its accession to the Union could be considered illegal and unconstitutional. But in wartime, legal niceties count for less than tactical advantage, and West Virginia became a full-fledged member of the United States in 1863. The wrangling about West Virginia’s secession stopped only in 1939, when it paid the final installment of its share of the pre-Civil War state debt to Virginia.

In this map Virginia is just a narrow strip along the Blue Ridge Mountains. Read the whole story at Strange Maps.

Today in Astronomy: January 11

William Tyler Olcott

January 11, 1873 – July 6, 1936

William Tyler Olcott was an American lawyer and amateur astronomer. In 1909, after attending a lecture by Edward Pickering, he developed an interest in observing variable stars. In 1911, he and professor Pickering founded the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). Olcott also published several books to popularize the field of amateur astronomy. The Moon crater Olcott is named in his honor.

Today in Astronomy: Simon Marius

January 10, 1573 – December 26, 1624

Simon Marius was a German astronomer. In 1614 Marius published his work Mundus Iovialis describing the planet Jupiter and its moons. Here he claimed to have discovered the planet's four major moons some days before Galileo. This led to a dispute with Galileo, who showed that Marius provided only one observation as early as Galileo's, and it matched Galileo's diagram for the same date, as published in 1610. 

It is considered possible that Marius discovered the moons independently, but at least some days later than Galileo; if so, he is the only person known to have observed the moons in the period before Galileo published his observations. Regardless of priority, the mythological names by which these satellites are known today (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) are those given them by Marius. The Moon crater Marius is named in his honor.

Simon Marius also observed the Andromeda "nebula", which had in fact already been known to Arab astronomers of the Middle Ages.

Today in Astronomy: Caroline Herschel

Caroline Lucretia Herschel

March 16, 1750 – January 9, 1848

Caroline Lucretia Herschel was a German-born British astronomer. She is the sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers. Her most significant contribution to astronomy was the discovery of several comets and in particular the periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, which bears her name. The Moon crater C. Herschel is named in her honor.

Today in Astronomy: Galileo

February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642

Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer who played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements include the first systematic studies of uniformly accelerated motion, improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo's empirical work was a significant break from the abstract Aristotelian approach of his time.

It is Galileo's first use of a telescope in 1609 that inspired the International Year of Astronomy in 2009.

Today in Astronomy: Stephen Hawking

Stephen William Hawking is a British theoretical physicist and was born on January 8, 1942.

Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a position once held by Issac Newton. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes, and his popular works in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. These include the runaway popular science bestseller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

His key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation.

Happy Birthday, Stephen!

Today in Astronomy

NASA/JPL/DLR

January 7, 1610

Galileo Galilei observes the four largest moons of Jupiter for the first time. He named them and in turn the four are called the Galilean moons. Jupiter's 4 Galilean moons, in a composite image comparing their sizes and the size of Jupiter (Great Red Spot visible). From the top, they are Io,Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

Today in Astronomy: Vesto Slipher

Vesto Melvin Slipher, born on November 11, 1875 (d. November 8, 1969), was an American astronomer. He spent his entire career at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he was director from 1916 to 1952. He used spectroscopy to investigate the rotation periods of planets and the composition of planetary atmospheres. In 1912, he was the first to observe the shift of spectral lines of galaxies, so he was the discoverer of galactic redshifts.

John Peacock, head of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, states:

a very large share of the credit for the discovery of the expanding universe is due to Slipher, and yet he tends to take very much second place to Hubble in most accounts.

While it was Edwin Hubble who received all the publicity, Vesto Slipher actually made the discovery that galaxies are moving away from us. He also determined that the Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards the Milky Way!

Slipher was also responsible for hiring Clyde Tombaugh and supervised the work that led to the discovery of Pluto. His brother Earl C. Slipher was also an astronomer. The Moon crater Slipher and a crater on Mars are named in his honor.

Vesto Slipher died in Flagstaff, AZ on November 8, 1969 at the age of 93. He was one of the giants of astronomy and deserves greater recognition.

Sources:
http://www.roe.ac.uk/~jap/slipher/
http://www.lowell.edu/Research/library/paper/vm_slipher.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesto_Melvin_Slipher

Today in Astronomy

Giovanni Domenico Cassini died on this day in 1712 in Paris. He was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, engineer, and astrologer. Cassini, also known as Giandomenico Cassini, was born on June 8, 1625 in Perinaldo, near Sanremo, at that time in the Republic of Genoa.

Cassini was an astronomer at the Panzano Observatory, from 1648 to 1669. He was a professor of astronomy at the University of Bologna and became, in 1671, director of the Paris Observatory. He thoroughly adopted his new country, to the extent that he became interchangeably known as Jean-Dominique Cassini —although that is also the name of his great-grand-son.

Along with Robert Hooke, Cassini is given credit for the discovery of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter (ca. 1665). Cassini was the first to observe four of Saturn's moons, which he called Sidera Lodoicea; he also discovered the Cassini Division (1675). Around 1690, Cassini was the first to observe differential rotation within Jupiter's atmosphere.

In 1672 he sent his colleague Jean Richer to Cayenne, French Guiana, while he himself stayed in Paris. The two made simultaneous observations of Mars and thus found its parallax to determine its distance, thus measuring for the first time the true dimensions of the solar system.

Cassini was the first to make successful measurements of longitude by the method suggested by Galileo, using eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter as a clock.

Named after Cassini

• Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn
• The Cassini Division in Saturn's rings
• Cassini Regio, dark area on Iapetus
• Cassini crater on Mars
• Cassini crater on the Moon
• Cassini's Laws
• 24101 Cassini, an asteroid
• Cassini's identity for Fibonacci numbers
• Cassini oval
• Cassini Web Server

For more information visit the Astronomy Compendium.