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Telescope Jargon
The Future of Space Travel
In the future, will space travel become as common as the annual family vacation to Disney World?
We've already had several space tourists. The first space tourist in history was Dennis Tito, a multimillionaire who had a dream of going to space and was financially able to make that dream come true. Tito doesn't like being called a space tourist. He prefers to be called an "independent researcher" since he did perform several experiments while on his trip, er, mission.
Dennis Tito made an arrangement with the space tourism company Space Adventures, Ltd., and joined Soyuz TM-32 on April 28, 2001. It was reported that Tito paid $20 million to go on the "mission," but some of his friends say that it was a mere $12 million.
Mark Shuttleworth was the second space tourist to pay for a trip to space. Shuttleworth, another multimillionaire (surprise, surprise) is reported to have paid $20 million for his 2002 space adventure as well. Shuttleworth's space flight was also arranged by Space Adventures, Ltd. He went to space aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission.
The third space tourist was Gregory Olsen in 2005. Olsen trained as a scientist, and his company produces specialty high-sensitivity cameras. Olsen used his time on the ISS to conduct a number of experiments mostly to test his company's products.
In September 2006, Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian American, went to space aboard Soyuz TMA-9 and became the fourth space tourist. Ms. Ansari prefers to be called a spaceflight participant.
Then on April 7, 2007, Charles Simonyi, an American billionaire of Hungarian descent, became the fifth space tourist when he flew about the Soyuz TMA-10.
Is there a future for the space flight industry? My guess is yes! There have already been five. Prices will decrease as space flight becomes more common, and someday a space vacation will be a viable option.
See Also:
Telescopes for Beginners - Choosing a Beginners Telescope
Solar Eclipses
The Planet Saturn
The planet Saturn resembles the planet Jupiter in many ways. Saturn is also a planet that has very little if any solid matter. It is believed that there is a hard rocky core, but that belief is unproven (albeit very probable) theory. Saturn, like Jupiter, is made up of gases and liquids. There is an internal heat source. We know this because Saturn radiates more energy than it receives.
Saturn rotates fast. It makes one complete revolution once every 10 or 11 hours. Saturn rotates around the sun once every 29.5 years. Because it rotates so fast, Saturn is flattened at the poles, making it an almost oblate planet.
The space probes, Pioneer 11, Mariner 11 and 12, and Voyager I and II, provide the best and most accurate information to astronomers about the planet Saturn, even though the Hubble space telescope takes very good images of Saturn. The space probes get "up close and personal," so to speak, and have provided information about Saturn that nothing else could have provided.
Wind velocity on Saturn is extreme. Wind speeds of more than 1,118 mph have been recorded. Unlike the winds on Jupiter, however, wind speeds on Saturn do not seem to be closely related to the positions of the belts and bands.
The rings around Saturn are one of the most interesting features. Really high-resolution pictures taken on the Voyager missions tell us that the rings are actually made up of hundreds of thousands of very small rings. The evidence suggests that the rings are composed of particles that are mostly ice crystals. A lot has been learned about the rings of Saturn over the last 20 or so years, but there is so much about them that is still a mystery. |
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More articles:
NASA - Home
SPACE.com -- Astronomers Find Sun's Twin
Deep sky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Book Review: Digital Astrophotography: A Guide To Capturing The ...
Basic Astronomy QUIZ: Chapter 21
The Moon Shot
Mirrors and Lenses
Many people believe that the main function of a telescope is just to make distant celestial objects appear bigger so that astronomers (even amateur astronomers) can see them better, but that really is a misconception. The fact is that telescopes work by gathering light. Magnifying distant objects is secondary. Telescopes gather light basically in two ways: through the use of lenses, and through the use of mirrors. The third way that telescopes gather light is by using a combination of lenses and mirrors.
A telescope that gathers light through the use of a lens is called a refractor telescope. The truth is that how much you spend on a refractor telescope is the determining factor of how well you will be able to see celestial objects. Inexpensive refractor telescopes (2.4 inch) have not-so-good optics and low light grasp. High-end refractor telescopes (3.5 inch) have almost perfect optics and much, much better light grasp.
Telescopes that gather light through the use of a mirror are called reflector telescopes. Refractors cost less per inch of aperture. They are less costly to manufacture because there is only one optical surface, and they lend themselves well to different designs and uses. Also, because the light doesn't have to pass through glass, the images are basically color free. Probably the best telescope for a novice astronomer is the Newtonian reflector. The cost factor is a plus for the refractor telescope, but the corresponding minus (there always is one) is that the primary mirror is ground to a concave shape, so the outside zone has a little longer focal length than the inner zone.
A catadioptic telescope is a compromise between a refractor and a reflector, because both lens and a mirror are used. Catadioptic telescopes are portable. They do not cost as much as a high-quality refractor telescope, but they cost a little more than a good-quality reflector telescope. Still, they are the best of both worlds.
Related Topics: Astronomy Funny Bone,
Careers in Astronomy, Ham the Chimp
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