Word: cfa
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...astronomy's ignorance is rapidly being dispelled, thanks in large part to two researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Since 1985, Margaret Geller and John Huchra have been meticulously crafting a three-dimensional map that charts the positions of thousands of galaxies. Last week, in the journal Science, they presented their latest map of one small chunk of the visible universe, and the findings are startling...
...CfA study is not the first to see dark voids and large conglomerations of galaxies, but it is by far the most comprehensive. The reason no one had done such a search earlier, says Huchra, is that galaxy mapping is extremely time consuming. Their survey of 4,000 galaxies took about 1,000 hours of telescope time...
However, the CfA solution is not free from disadvantages. At the observable level, joint staffing prompts confusion among professors in affiliation, not unlike that of sophomore-standing students within their class. "I'm complicated. I'm tenured Harvard faculty, but Harvard doesn't pay my salary," said Huchra...
...great thing that will make enormous progress for astronomy," says Professor Emeritus Fred L. Whipple, former director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA). The ST would gain the additional range because its view would be free of obscuring, human-produced light and atmospheric pollution, Whipple said...
Closer to home, the CFA has proposed building a $20 million, four-meter telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. "Harvard has been dragging its feet," however, content to rely on the Smithsonian-owned observing facilities, says Geller. The new telescope would cost two-thirds of the center's annual operating budget...