Word: astrophysicist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...associate the event with a star. Even today a star, gleaming over a creche or twinkling from the top of a Christmas tree, remains the emblem of hope. "It is not difficult to understand why a star was chosen as a symbol to mark the birth of Christ," muses Astrophysicist Jesse Greenstein of the California Institute of Technology. "Stars are more mysterious and remote than moon or sun gods. At the time of Christ, people all over the world considered them important...
Because LAGEOS is expected to remain in orbit for so long, NASA has placed aboard it two stainless-steel sheets, each etched with a message conceived by Astrophysicist Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Designed to inform extraterrestrial visitors or future inhabitants of the earth about the LAGEOS mission, the message shows three maps of the earth, depicting the continental drift that the satellite will help observe. The uppermost of the maps shows the continents as they are thought to have existed 225 million years ago, when Africa and South America were joined. The middle map is a picture...
...from the start and labeled Hoyle's charge "untrue" and "ridiculous." An expert from the Nobel awards committee, Swedish Physicist Hans Wilhelmsson said, "We would have been happy to give the prize to this other person, but there wasn't enough reason to do so." Added Caltech Astrophysicist Jesse Greenstein: "Her role was like that of a part-time newspaper correspondent who spots a big fire but doesn't - or can't - do anything about...
...effects of sunspots, the fierce magnetic storms on the solar surface, which are often accompanied by the eruption of great flares of immensely hot gases. The streams of particles shot off during these episodes are already known to disturb the earth's magnetic field and disrupt communications. Astrophysicist Walter Orr Roberts, former director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, thinks that they also may influence weather, at least temporarily. Among other evidence, he cites an apparent link between periods of minimum activity in the sunspot cycle and recurring droughts on the east side of the Rockies...
...infinitely expanding universe is a concept that does not sit well with many scientists, but in their search of the heavens, astronomers have so far found only a fraction of the mass needed to produce enough gravitational force to halt and reverse the outward flight. Now, Astrophysicist Jeremiah P. Ostriker of Princeton University thinks that he may have found what his colleagues have been looking for. At a recent meeting of the American Physical Society in Chicago, he suggested that enough mass to "close" the universe may be hidden in great halos of matter around the galaxies. His evidence comes...