Harlow Shapley: The Milky Way

Shapley's contender, Heber Curtis, argued that the Milky Way was not the only galaxy in the universe. He believed that other, far more vast galaxies, existed as well. His counter-evidence was in the spiral nebulae found outside the Milky Way galaxy. However, his evidence was not solid enough to back his claims, which was based on the assumption that the way the nebulae were shaped made it impossible to see around them, or beyond them.

Stargazing is often thought to be something lovers would do on a date or something of a hobby. Astronomers and scientists of all kinds make their careers out of it every day.

One of the most familiar constellations in the night sky aside from the Big and Little Dipper is Orion, the Hunter. Made identifiable by the three bright stars that make up "Orion's Belt", Orion is easily recognized throughout the world due to the convenient position upon the celestial equator, allowing the constellation to be seen from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. I chose this constellation as my favorite because it was, in fact, one of the first myths that I had ever learned, and also because it was the easiest constellation that I was able to find from my Constellation Atlas as a child. The constellation of Orion is comprised of mostly of blue stars: young, hot burning, giant stars that range from 243 light years to 1,359

Before the Shapley-Curtis Debate most people were under the impression that the sun was the center of the galaxy, and the universe. Most people couldn’t grasp the idea that there was a bigger world in space beyond our planet, the sun and our moon. While we saw stars in the night sky, the idea that our universe was as vast and complex as it is seemed unreasonable. In 1920, Harlow Shapley showed just how vast the Milky Way was. However Shapley did not believe that there was anything more to our universe than our galaxy. He believed that because it was so big that nothing else could possibly be out there. His opponent, Heber Curtis, argued that the Milky Way galaxy was not as big as Shapley said, but that he believed that there was more to the universe than just our galaxy.

Texture: It feels like a wash sponge,but a little more softer and kind of gooey.

PURPOSE: The aim of the investigation was to further our understanding of the physical laws that govern our ability to receive and interpret information in the form of visible light. We have all had a physics class that at least brushed the introduction of optics, but we can still further our comprehension by experimenting with optics that have different characteristics. Does one axis truly get inverted when viewing an object through a lens? How significant of an effect does human error have in calculating reflection (if any)? How much does magnification blur an image viewed through an optic? How much does the angle of light deflect from a change of medium?

Atlas isn’t exactly a whole constellation, but a bright star in Taurus. He was thought to be the originator of the constellations. This is a great story about his encounter with Hercules.

Funding was approved in 1977 for a Large Space Telescope in 1977 and in 1983 it was renamed Hubble Space Telescope in honor of astronomer Edwin P. Hubble who discovered evidence of an expanding universe and the existence of other galaxies. Work was completed in 1985 and it was launched and deployed from the Space Shuttle Discovery in April of 1990, 350 miles above earth. Since its deployment, there have been five services, each service to perform corrective and preventive maintenance, add upgrades to the equipment, or both. In 2011, the Hubble space Telescope celebrated its millionth observation, the spectroscopic analysis of HAT-P-7b an exoplanet orbiting around the star HAT-P-7

“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science.” This remark was by Edwin Hubble, the man that the Hubble telescope was named after. The telescope made many amazing discoveries in the field of astronomy, as well as the man himself did. It was said that Edwin Hubble revolutionized the field of astrophysics. Biography.com states, “His research helped prove that the universe is expanding and he created a classification system for galaxies that has been used for several decades.” He made many contributions to science, as did the Hubble telescope, and that is why this invention is one of the greatest in the history of science.

The dinosaurs were killed in a freak accident caused by a wild meteor slamming into the Earth, or were they? Was the meteor that killed the dinosaurs really just a random event or did Earth’s location in the galaxy play a part in their deaths? Crawford, Filipoic, Horner, Tothill and White have combined their minds to explain their hypothesis about how Earth’s mass extinctions are caused by the solar system’s movement through the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral arms in the article titled, Mass Extinction and the Structure of the Milky Way.

The first point within the Shapely-Curtis debate is based around the size of the Milky Way. Shapely decided that the Milky Way’s diameter was a lot larger than what was generally accepted based on star counts. This was correct. However, he then said that galaxies that were near to the Milky Way’s size could not exist. This was wrong. Curtis wrongly accepted the general, smaller size of the galaxy (wrong), but then said that galaxies that are similar sizes to ours may also exist. This was right.

The Size of the Milky Way – Shapley correctly asserted that the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy was much larger than the “conventional” scale based on star counts, but then incorrectly concluded that similar-sized galaxies beyond our own could not exist. Curtis incorrectly accepted the smaller size for our Galaxy, but correctly argued that similar galaxies might exist beyond our own.

In the book “The Hitchhiker’s guide to galaxy”, a group of intelligent pan-dimensional beings set out to learn the answer to the Ultimate question of Life, The universe and everything from super computer Deep Thought specifically built for this purpose, it takes millions of years to analyze and suddenly blurts out the answer 42 which does not make any sense. Deep Thought points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who instructed it never actually knew what the question was .This made me think, are we asking the right questions with all the answers readily available ? How do I choose the right answer/question? What makes an answer/question right? How do I dodge false positives? My work at IBM and seeing the works of Amazon,

Throughout history astronomers have contributed knowledge to understand the holistic picture of our universe. During 140 AD Claudius Ptolemy used geography to determine the position of planets, stars, and the sun. He finally concluded that our sun orbited earth basing his evidence with Aristotle’s philosophy of the universe. This theory was used for one thousand years because it integrated with society’s standards, yet Nicolaus Copernicus disproved this concept and published his new idea in 1544. Times where difficult to shed light on important matters which contradicted the population’s idea, Copernicus was extremely vigilant as he did not want to stir a riot and be punished for sharing the truth, so as I mentioned he published his work a

The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our solar system. Its name “ Milky” was derived from its appearance as a dim glowing band arching across the night sky whose individual stars cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy, which means it spiral out from the middle.