Word: mauna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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High on the mountaintop, where the life-giving star is worshiped, no one slept a wink. There in the cold, thin air of Hawaii's Mauna Kea, home to the world's greatest concentration of high-powered telescopes, the scientists paced, fretted and nervously tuned their instruments. Night is darker than pitch at the crest of the 4,300-meter (14,000-ft.) dead volcano. In that utter blackness, the ultimate sun worshipers waited for the day that would dawn not once but twice...
Veteran eclipse watchers who caught the show on July 11, 1991, declared it to be one of unsurpassed beauty. But from the standpoint of science, it was something of a letdown. High, thin clouds made a rare appearance above Mauna Kea that morning, interfering with the quality of data gathered through telescopes. "It was a miserable sky in the infrared," complained astronomer Robert MacQueen. Even more damaging to the infrared readings was the fine dust accumulating in the earth's atmosphere since the June explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. "It's just heartbreaking that after being dormant...
Still, this was the eclipse that came to the astronomers, the first in modern times to pass directly over a world-class observatory. Despite less than ideal conditions, most of the Mauna Kea scientists were elated by what they had observed. John Jefferies, who helped oversee three separate projects, said the findings would forever change earthlings' view of their star...
...proposed six-telescope array would measure submillimeter wavelengths, light waves shorter than radiowaves and longer than infrared. The Center, a joint venture of the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, is deciding whether to place its telescopes at Mt. Graham or at the 13,000-foot Mauna Kea in Hawaii, says Irwin I. Shapiro, director of the Center and Paine professor of practical astronomy...
...thin mirror can flex it in and out until a star is as focused as possible. The NTT has already produced some of the sharpest images ever taken from the ground. A comparable system will be used in other projects, including the giant Keck Telescope under construction atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii...