Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
438,446
result(s) for
"Astronomy"
Sort by:
Surveying the skies : how astronomers map the universe
Since the time of Galileo, astronomy has been driven by technological innovation. With each major advance has come the opportunity and enthusiasm to survey the sky in a way that was not possible before. It is these surveys of discovery that are the subject of this book. In the first few chapters the author discusses what astronomers learned from visible-light surveys, first with the naked eye, then using telescopes in the seventeenth century, and photography in the nineteenth century. He then moves to the second half of the twentieth century when the skies started to be swept by radio, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma ray telescopes, many of which had to be flown in satellites above the Earth's atmosphere. These surveys led to the discovery of pulsars, quasars, molecular clouds, protostars, bursters, and black holes. He then returns to Earth to describe several currently active large-scale projects that methodically collect images, photometry and spectra that are then stored in vast publicly-accessible databases. Dr. Wynn-Williams also describes several recent \"microsurveys\" - detailed studies of small patches of sky that have led to major advances in our understanding of cosmology and exoplanets.
Book
Interpreting summertime hourly variation of NO.sub.2 columns with implications for geostationary satellite applications
Accurate representation of the hourly variation in the NO.sub.2 -column-to-surface relationship is essential for interpreting geostationary observations of NO.sub.2 columns. Previous research indicated inconsistencies in this hourly variation. This study employs the high-performance configuration of the GEOS-Chem model (GCHP) to analyze daytime hourly NO.sub.2 total columns and surface concentrations during summer. We use measurements from globally distributed Pandora sun photometers and aircraft observations over the United States. We correct Pandora total NO.sub.2 vertical columns for (1) hourly variations in effective temperature driven by vertically resolved contributions to the total column and (2) changes in local solar time along the Pandora line of sight. These corrections increase the total NO.sub.2 columns by 5-6 x 10.sup.14 molec. cm.sup.-2 at 09:00 and 18:00 across all sites. Fine-scale simulations from GHCP (â¼12 km) reduce the normalized bias (NB) against Pandora total NO.sub.2 columns from 19 % to 10 % and against aircraft measurements from 25 % to 13 % in Maryland, Texas, and Colorado. Similar reductions are observed in NO.sub.2 columns over the eastern US (17 % to 9 %), the western US (22 % to 14 %), Europe (24 % to 15 %), and Asia (29 % to 21 %) when compared to 55 km simulations. Our analysis attributes the weaker hourly variability in the total NO.sub.2 column to (1) hourly variations in column effective temperature, (2) local solar time changes along the Pandora line of sight, and (3) differences in hourly NO.sub.2 variability from different atmospheric layers, with the lowest 500 m exhibiting greater variability, while the dominant residual column above 500 m exhibits weaker variability.
Journal Article
Big Science: before and after the Manhattan Project
Although the concept of Big Science is not well defined, it is often identified with expensive and government-funded post-World-War II projects in physics and space research. However, this definition is too narrow both with regard to chronology and with regard to the sciences in question. Apart from offering some general comments on the notion of Big Science this paper adopts a historical perspective by singling out a few cases of pre-twentieth century Big Science projects in physics and astronomy. These were exceptions, however, and it was only with the Manhattan Project and the early generations of high-energy accelerators that the Big Science era truly started. As argued the development involved new forms of organisation as well as new ethical problems relating to the role and responsibility of the individual scientist.
Journal Article
A journey through the universe : Gresham lectures on astronomy
\"Providing an in-depth understanding both for general readers and astronomy enthusiasts, this highly comprehensive book provides an up-to-date survey of our knowledge of the Universe beyond Earth. The book explores our Solar System, its planets and other bodies; examines the Sun and how it and other stars evolve through their lifetimes\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Big Science in physics: a look at the decade ahead
For decades Big Science facilities in physics and astronomy have attempted to answer some of the biggest questions possible – how did the Universe begin, how will it end, what are the fundamental constituents of matter? Tackling these questions has resulted in building bigger, ever more complex facilities. Yet with it comes costs and delays when pushing the boundaries of technological knowledge. This paper briefly reviews some of the big projects in physics and astronomy in recent years as well as looking at what lies ahead in the coming decade.
Journal Article
Questioning Copernicus: cosmological principles on the eve of the Scientific Revolution
This paper examines the issues arising from Nicolaus Copernicus’s heliocentric theory when it is considered in the context of historical controversies over the planetary order. It will investigate the terms of this issue as they were available to Copernicus, and will stress both continuities and discontinuities with Ptolemaic astronomy. The consequences of heliocentrism for celestial physics will also be considered. Some of the consequences are inherent to heliocentrism, although not all of them were accounted for in De revolutionibus and certain outcomes may have been unforeseen by Copernicus or discordant with his theory.
Journal Article
Paradigms in the eye of the beholder: Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus
Accounts of the history of physics sometimes describe major paradigm shifts followed by decades and even centuries of working through the consequences of the dominating paradigm. Some examples that are often pointed to as paradigm shifts are the Copernican revolution overtaking the millennium-old Ptolemaic system of astronomy and Newton’s mechanics replacing the ancient Aristotelian system. However, when thinking about ‘paradigm shifts’, there may be various different candidates that can be identified as possible ‘paradigms’ retrospectively. Thus it may be the case that paradigms are in the eye of the beholder.
Journal Article