Word: instrumentality
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...instrument, about the size of a TV camera, is called a radiation pyrometer. It was built under the supervision of Donald H. Menzel, Director of the Harvard College Observatory, with the collaboration of Hector Ingrao, Research Engineer and Lecturer on Astronomy, who designed the device. The pyrometer is a product of the Observatory's Infrared Laboratory, established with funds from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration...
...heart of the instrument is a tiny square "thermistor," one-tenth of a millimeter on a side, small than a pin head, and attached to two hairlike platinum wires. The electrical resistance of the thermistor changes in response to tiny fluctuations in temperature. Special filters allow only a very narrow band of the infrared, between eight and 14 microns, to fall on the thermistor. The filter rejects the shorter infrared waves omitted by the sun and reflected by the moon. The earth's atmosphere, where water vapor, ozone and carbon dioxide absorb other portions of the infrared, also acts...
...solar observatory, called S-17, will be the second such platform in space. S-16, which went up about a year ago, is the first of a series that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to orbit during the current solar activity cycle of 11 years. The Harvard instrument which S-17 will carry was made at the College Observatory by a group directed by Leo Goldberg, Higgins Professor of Astronomy. William Liller, Robert Wheeler Willson professor of Applied Astronomy, is assistant director of the project, and the instrument was built and tested by Edmond Reeves, William Parkinson, Donald...
...flare is accompanied by a burst of ultraviolet radiation, and the Harvard instrument can record this radiation in two ways. First, it can concentrate on a small spot in the center of the solar disc and record, in about 27 minutes, the intensity of radiation over the whole ultraviolet spectrum. During its other "mode" of operation, the eye of the spectrometer will scan the whole disk of the sun, back and forth, bottom to top, recording at just one wavelength. Each complete scan will take about four and one-half minutes and will provide a crude ultraviolet picture...
...spectrum to another. Also, at any one wavelength, the intensity varies as the flare moves through the sun's atmosphere. Ultraviolet light is a kind of thermometer, and these changes reflect temperatures varying from about 10,000 to about one million degrees centigrade. As it scans, the Harvard instrument will be recording the occurrence and spread of flares in every region. When the instrument is fixed on the center of the sun, it will provide more detailed information on how and where flares originate and move...