Word: cosmos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...skies that rank among the clearest and darkest on Earth, Mauna Kea offers an unsurpassed view of the heavens--and that's why, despite the harsh conditions, astronomers can't wait to visit. Stargazers come here from around the world to answer some of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos: When in the depths of time did galaxies first flare into existence, and what made it happen? What is the elusive dark matter whose mass dominates the universe? How many stars have planets--and do those alien worlds harbor intelligent life...
...1990s, astronomers used the Hubble to measure the age of the universe at between 8 billion and 12 billion years. But other experts insisted they knew of stars that were at least 14 billion years old--obviously a problem, since stars can't be older than the cosmos. Using the VLT, though, observers have measured minute traces of radioactive uranium and thorium in the oldest stars--a technique akin to radiocarbon dating--and proved that they're more like 12 billion years old (the age of the universe, meanwhile, is now estimated at 14 billion years...
...first living will was written in the U.S. to prevent overtreatment, 1 in 10 dying Americans said in a survey that his wishes were ignored. Too often, in the words of the Rev. George Caldwell, who ministers to the dying in Virginia, people die in "the final, tiny, helpless cosmos of a hospital...
...honor of that out-of-this-world event, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., has--what else?--launched a new website called HubbleSite hubble.stsci.edu) where surfers can study the telescope's history, browse Hubble trivia (it has circled Earth 58,400 times), learn more about the cosmos and, of course, view some of the spectacular images the telescope has collected. Quasars and pulsars and supernovas...
...this newborn century--in which accumulating evidence points toward a multiuniverse cosmos where component universes, our own included, are continually created and die--your cosmic analysis can be summed up with some very brief words: What a lot of crap! JAMES C. RITCHIE Glasgow...