Raymond Lyttleton

Raymond Arthur Lyttleton FRS (7 May 1911 – 16 May 1995) was a British mathematician and theoretical astronomer.
He was born in Warley Woods near Birmingham and educated at King Edward VI Five Ways school in Birmingham, going from there to Clare College, Cambridge to read mathematics, graduating in 1933. He was elected a Fellow of St John's College in 1937 and appointed a lecturer in mathematics in the same year (until 1959). A keen amateur cricketer, he played minor counties cricket for Cambridgeshire from 1946–1949, making fifteen appearances. He was Reader in Theoretical Astronomy from 1959 to 1969, after which he was appointed to a specially created professorship in the subject.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1955. His application citation read: ""Distinguished for his work in astronomy. Author of numerous papers on the origin and early history of the Solar System, notably his modifications of the collision theory. Showed from work of Cartan that fission of a planet by rotation would give two independent bodies, and consequently that the fission theory of binary stars is untenable (The Stability of Rotating Liquid Masses, 1953). Author (with F. Hoyle) of numerous papers on the astronomical effects of accretion, and (with H. Bondi) of two on the transmission of the tidal friction couple to the Earth's core and on the behaviour of the core during precessions. Author of a striking new theory of comets. (The Comets and their Origin, 1953)"
He won the Royal Society Royal Medal in 1965 ""In recognition of his distinguished contributions to astronomy, particularly for his work on the dynamical stability of galaxies"."
He wrote a number of books:" The Comets and Their Origin" (1953), "The Stability of Rotating Liquid Masses" (1953), "The Modern Universe" {1956}, " Rival Theories of Cosmology" {1960}, " Man's View of the Universe" (1961), "Mysteries of the Solar System" (1968), " The Earth and its Mountains" (1982), "The Gold Effect" (1990). In 1956, he presented a 5-part television series on the B.B.C. entitled "The Modern Universe"
He had married Meave Hobden in Poole in 1939.


Magnetic mirror point

In astrophysics, a magnetic mirror point is a point where the motion of a charged particle trapped in a magnetic field (such as the Earth's) reverses its direction. More precisely, it is the point where the projection of the particle's velocity vector in the direction of the field vector is equal to zero.


James Maxime DuPont

James Maxime DuPont (Edinburgh, Scotland, — Watchung, New Jersey, United States, ) was an American meteorite collector.
His father was Jean Rene Claudius Dupont, an analytical chemist.
At the time of his death, he was known for having the largest private collection of meteorites in the world, and after his death they were donated to the Planetary Studies Foundation, where they were known as the "James M. DuPont Meteorite Collection". The impressive collection was gathered over thirty years while containing 1,719 individual meteorites, with a total mass over 500 kilograms. These included several which were somewhat controversial and unrecognized, along with a few others that represented new finds awaiting classification. The Planetary Studies Foundation then donated them to the Field Museum of Natural History, the combined collection having had more than 1,700 meteors and an estimated value of $3 million, creating the world's largest non government meteorite collection.
As a resident of Watchung, New Jersey, DuPont founded an industrial thermoplastics company.


Snake Valley Astronomical Association

The Snake Valley Astronomical Association (SVAA) is an Amateur Astronomy Club based in Snake Valley, Victoria, Australia. Established in 2005, membership of the SVAA is open to people with an interest in any form of astronomy. The SVAA currently has around 30 members (cited June 2011).
History.
The original idea to create the SVAA was first discussed by three Snake Valley residents (Ken James, David Johnson, Anthony Baker) and the Shire Mayor (Lysette Ashford) at the 1st Snake Valley Astronomy Camp in 2005. This idea came about due to the dark sky at Snake Valley and the amount of interest shown by attendees at the Astronomy Camp. A public meeting was called in the Snake Valley Hall late in 2005 to investigate interest in the establishment of a club. Twelve people attended that event, and it was decided to go ahead. The first official meeting was held at the Snake Valley Recreation Reserve with 15 people in attendance.
The first Clubroom/Observing location was at the Recreation reserve in 2006 and was 'home' for the next two years. Then in 2008, member Ken James granted the club the use of 3 acres of his property as a Club managed location. A large donation from member Hoerst Bonkhe was forwarded to Mr. James to go towards the construction of a Club meeting room and the possibility of a future Observatory with the stipulation that the Club Room be made available for club members use whilst Mr. James owns the property.
Construction of a Clubroom started immediately in 2008 and the Observatory commenced early in 2016 (Construction of both is now finished). During this time many other donations of Astronomy books, Telescopes, and accessories have built up into a lending library for members.
Branches of astronomy.
Members of the SVAA are involved in a variety of interests within astronomy.
Visual - Many members do Visual work, which involves observing with Eyepieces.
Imaging - Members also do Astrophotography using Digital Cameras, CCD Imagers, and webcams.
Video Astronomy - Some members do Live 'Video Astronomy' of Solar System and Deep Space Objects.
Live Broadcasting - Some members also do 'Live' broadcasts of their Video Astronomy on the Internet.
Radio Astronomy - is a branch of Astronomy the club is about to move into.


Chushu

The traditional Chinese calendar divides a year into 24 solar terms. Chǔshǔ, "Shosho", "Cheoseo", or "Xử thử" () is the 14th solar term that signifies the end of the hot summer season. It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 150° and ends when it reaches the longitude of 165°. It more often refers in particular to the day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 150°. In the Gregorian calendar, it usually begins around 23 August and ends around 7 September.


Hiroshi Kaneda

 is a Japanese astronomer and discoverer of minor planets from Sapporo, in the northernmost prefecture of Japan.
Kaneda ranks among the world's most prolific individual discoverers of minor planets. He is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the co-discovery of 705 numbered minor planets, between 1987 and 2000, all of them in collaboration with astronomer Seiji Ueda. Along with being an astronomer, Kaneda works as a computer programmer and is a developer of astronomical software.
The main-belt asteroid 4677 Hiroshi, discovered by Atsushi Takahashi and Kazurō Watanabe at Kitami in 1990, is named after him.
List of discovered minor planets.
His many minor planet discoveries include (5646) 1990 TR, a near-Earth object of the Amor group, , an asteroid from the main-belt, (5407) 1992 AX, a Mars-crossing asteroid, (7352) 1994 CO, a Jupiter trojan, as well as the three named main-belt asteroids 4672 Takuboku, 5176 Yoichi and 6235 Burney (the latter was not named by him). As of 2016, most of his numbered discoveries remain unnamed "(see table below)". All minor planets were co-discovered with Seiji Ueda.


Mary Watson Whitney

Mary Watson Whitney (September 11, 1847 – January 20, 1921) was an American astronomer and for 22 years the head of the Vassar Observatory where 102 scientific papers were published under her guidance.
Early life and education.
Whitney was born on September 11, 1847, in Waltham, Massachusetts. Her mother was Mary Watson Crehore and her father was Samuel Buttrick Whitney. Her father was successful in real estate and wealthy enough to provide her with a good education for a woman at the time. She went to school in Waltham where she excelled in mathematics and graduated from the public high school in 1863. She was privately tutored for one year before she entered Vassar College in 1865, where she met the astronomer Maria Mitchell. During her time at Vassar College, her father died and her brother was lost at sea. She obtained her degree in 1868.
From 1869 to 1870, she took some courses about quaternions and celestial mechanics by Benjamin Peirce (at Harvard). At the time, women could not be admitted to Harvard so she attended as a guest. She obtained her master's degree from Vassar in 1872, afterwards she went to Zürich for 3 years where she studied mathematics and celestial mechanics.
Professional career.
Returning to the US, she became a teacher at her hometown high school until she became an assistant of Maria Mitchell in Vassar. In 1888 upon the retirement of Mitchell she became a professor and the director of the observatory there until she retired in 1915 for health reasons.
During her career, she concentrated on teaching and research related to double stars, variable stars, asteroids, comets, and measurements by photographic plates. Under her direction, 102 articles were published at the Vassar Observatory. In 1889, her mother and sister both became ill and Whitney moved them to the Observatory where she could care for them and continue her work part-time. When they died two years later, she resumed full-time work. Whitney was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a charter member of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society. When the Maria Mitchell Association was established in Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1902, Whitney became its first president.
Whitney believed that science provided strong career opportunities for women. She hoped that women would soon become more active in practical chemistry, architecture, dentistry, and agriculture, which were more lucrative and, in Whitney’s view, particularly well suited to women. Moreover, she believed that scientific training would prepare them to be good mothers, falling into more traditional tropes of the early 20th century. She also funded the advancement of women in science. In 1908, when an observatory was built on Nantucket, Whitney raised money to fund a female research fellow. In her will, she bequeathed $5,000 to Vassar to support research by women.
Later life.
Whitney died in Waltham on January 20, 1921, of pneumonia.


World Congress of Soil Science

The World Congress of Soil Science (WCSS) is a conference held every four years (although interrupted by World War II) under the guidance of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS). The purpose of a congress is to: (i) ensure the advancement of soil science and its application, and (ii) to handle the business of the society. Of the 18 congresses, eight have been held in Europe, five in the Americas, three in Asia, one in Australia and one in Africa. The congresses are only open to society members. The number of members attending has steadily increased, with approximately 2000 members attending each congress since the 15th WCSS in Acapulco, Mexico.
The 19th WCSS was held in the week of 1 to 6 August 2010 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. The congress theme was "Soil solutions for a changing world". The conference was organised by the IUSS President (Roger Swift) and Vice-President (Neal Menzies). The 19th WCSS was the second congress held in Australia (the 9th WCSS was held in Adelaide, Australia, in 1968), and was held in conjunction with the Australian Society of Soil Science Incorporated.
The 20th WCSS was held from 8 to 13 June 2014 on Jeju-do Island, South Korea
The 21st WCSS was held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in August 2018. The upcoming WCSS are 2022 in Glasgow (Scotland, United Kingdom) and 2026 in Nanjing (China).
Past and future locations for the WCSS:


Cranbrook Institute of Science


Menologia rustica

Ancient Roman farmers' almanacs (in Latin, menologia rustica) are a type of Roman calendar providing month-by-month information on conditions and activities pertaining to agriculture. They were displayed as public inscriptions. Menologia Rustica Colotianum measures 0'654 cm in height, 0'410 cm in width. Examples that survived to the modern era are the "Menologium Rusticum Colotianum" and the "Menologium Rusticum Vallense", both dating to the period 19–65 AD or 36–39 to the end of the 1st century AD. Both were discovered in the 16th century, but the "Menologium Valense" has been lost.
Description.
The "Menologium Rusticum Colotianum" was discovered by Angelo Colocci, and is held by the Naples Museum. It appears on a four-sided marble altar base, inscribed in twelve columns. Each column contains:
Villas on working estates often displayed mosaics and wall painting depicting seasonal or monthly agricultural activities, in some sense illustrations of the "menologia rustica".
Van L. Johnson conjectured that the four-sided form of the "menologia" preserved an original four-month Roman "year" or festival cycle.


Solar eclipse of August 24, 2063

A total solar eclipse will occur on August 24, 2063. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide.


Celestial Observatory

Celestial Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Arkansas Tech University. It is located in Russellville, Arkansas (US).


Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix

Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix (23 November 1718, in Toulouse – 18 January 1802, in Toulouse) was a French astronomer. He has usually been credited with the discovery of the Ring Nebula in 1779, but in fact he independently rediscovered it upon reading a report of Charles Messier regarding Messier's own observations of Comet Bode. His description that the object was "...as large as Jupiter and resembles a planet which is fading" led to the terminology "planetary nebula".
References.
Jean-Michel Faidit, Darquier et la découverte, à Toulouse, de la nébuleuse de la Lyre. Revue l’Astronomie, juillet-août 2005, pp. 346-53.


Crommelin

Crommelin may refer to:


List of central lunar eclipses

A central lunar eclipse is a lunar eclipse in which part of the Moon passes through the center of Earth's shadow. This type of lunar eclipse typically appears darker than other lunar eclipses. It is relatively rare.
Central lunar eclipses are always total lunar eclipses and have large umbral eclipse magnitude, long duration and small value of gamma.
List of central lunar eclipses.
1901–1950.
There were 19 central lunar eclipses in this period.
1951–2000.
There were 14 central lunar eclipses in this period.
2001–2050.
There are 10 central lunar eclipses in this period.
2051–2100.
There will be 15 central lunar eclipses in this period.


Stellar core

A stellar core is the extremely hot, dense region at the center of a star. For an ordinary main sequence star, the core region is the volume where the temperature and pressure conditions allow for energy production through thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. This energy in turn counterbalances the mass of the star pressing inward; a process that self-maintains the conditions in thermal and hydrostatic equilibrium. The minimum temperature required for stellar hydrogen fusion exceeds 107 K (), while the density at the core of the Sun is over . The core is surrounded by the stellar envelope, which transports energy from the core to the stellar atmosphere where it is radiated away into space.
Main sequence.
Main sequence stars are distinguished by the primary energy generating mechanism in their central region, which joins four hydrogen nuclei to form a single helium atom through thermonuclear fusion. The Sun is an example of this class of star. Once stars with the mass of the Sun form, the core region reaches thermal equilibrium after about 100 million (108) years and becomes radiative. This means the generated energy is transported out of the core via radiation and conduction rather than through mass transport in the form of convection. Above this spherical radiation zone lies a small convection zone just below the outer atmosphere.
At lower stellar mass, the outer convection shell takes up an increasing proportion of the envelope, and for stars with a mass of around (35% of the mass of the Sun) or less (including failed stars) the entire star is convective, including the core region. These very low-mass stars (VLMS) occupy the late range of the M-type main-sequence stars, or red dwarf. The VLMS form the primary stellar component of the Milky Way at over 70% of the total population. The low-mass end of the VLMS range reaches about , below which ordinary (non-deuterium) hydrogen fusion does not take place and the object is designated a brown dwarf. The temperature of the core region for a VLMS decreases with decreasing mass, while the density increases. For a star with , the core temperature is about while the density is around . Even at the low end of the temperature range, the hydrogen and helium in the core region is fully ionized.
Below about , energy production in the stellar core is predominantly through the proton–proton chain reaction, a process requiring only hydrogen. For stars above this mass, the energy generation comes increasingly from the CNO cycle, a hydrogen fusion process that uses intermediary atoms of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. In the Sun, only 1.5% of the net energy comes from the CNO cycle. For stars at where the core temperature reaches 18 MK, half the energy production comes from the CNO cycle and half from the pp chain. The CNO process is more temperature sensitive than pp chain, with most of the energy production occurring near the very center of the star. This results in a stronger thermal gradient, which creates convective instability. Hence, the core region is convective for stars above about .
For all masses of stars, as the core hydrogen is consumed, the temperature increases so as to maintain pressure equilibrium. This results in an increasing rate of energy production, which in turn causes the luminosity of the star to increase. The lifetime of the core hydrogen–fusing phase decreases with increasing stellar mass. For a star with the mass of the Sun, this period is around ten billion years. At the lifetime is 65 million years while at the core hydrogen–fusing period is only six million years. The longest-lived stars are fully convective red dwarfs, which can stay on the main sequence for hundreds of billions of years or more.
Subgiant stars.
Once a star has converted all the hydrogen in its core into helium, the core is no longer able to support itself and begins to collapse. It heats up and becomes hot enough for hydrogen in a shell outside the core to start fusion. The core continues to collapse and the outer layers of the star expand. At this stage, the star is a subgiant. Very-low-mass stars never become subgiants because they are fully convective.
Stars with masses between about and have small non-convective cores on the main sequence and develop thick hydrogen shells on the subgiant branch. They spend several billion years on the subgiant branch, with the mass of the helium core slowly increasing from fusion of the hydrogen shell. Eventually the core becomes degenerate and the star expands onto the red giant branch.
Stars with higher masses have at least partially convective cores while on the main sequence, and they develop a relatively large helium core before exhausting hydrogen throughout the convective region, and possibly in a larger region due to convective overshoot. When core fusion ceases, the core starts to collapse and it is so large that the gravitational energy actually increases the temperature and luminosity of the star for several million years before it becomes hot enough to ignite a hydrogen shell. Once hydrogen starts fusing in the shell, the star cools and it is considered to be a subgiant. When the core of a star is no longer undergoing fusion, but its temperature is maintained by fusion of a surrounding shell, there is a maximum mass called the Schönberg–Chandrasekhar limit. When the mass exceeds that limit, the core collapses and the outer layers of the star expand rapidly to become a red giant. In stars up to approximately , this occurs only a few million years after the star becomes a subgiant. Stars more massive than have cores above the Schönberg–Chandrasekhar limit before they leave the main sequence.
Giant stars.
Once the supply of hydrogen at the core of a low-mass star with at least is depleted, it will leave the main sequence and evolve along the red giant branch of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Those evolving stars with up to about will contract their core until hydrogen begins fusing through the pp chain along a shell around the inert helium core, passing along the subgiant branch. This process will steadily increase the mass of the helium core, causing the hydrogen-fusing shell to increase in temperature until it can generate energy through the CNO cycle. Due to the temperature sensitivity of the CNO process, this hydrogen fusing shell will be thinner than before. Non-core convecting stars above that have consumed their core hydrogen through the CNO process, contract their cores and directly evolve into the giant stage. The increasing mass and density of the helium core will cause the star to increase in size and luminosity as it evolves up the red giant branch.
For stars in the mass range , the helium core becomes degenerate before it is hot enough for helium to start fusion. When the density of the degenerate helium at the core is sufficiently high − at around with a temperature of about − it undergoes a nuclear explosion known as a "helium flash". This event is not observed outside the star, as the unleashed energy is entirely used up to lift the core from electron degeneracy to normal gas state. The helium fusing core expands, with the density decreasing to about , while the stellar envelope undergoes a contraction. The star is now on the horizontal branch, with the photosphere showing a rapid decrease in luminosity combined with an increase in the effective temperature.
In the more massive main-sequence stars with core convection, the helium produced by fusion becomes mixed throughout the convective zone. Once the core hydrogen is consumed, it is thus effectively exhausted across the entire convection region. At this point the helium core starts to contract and hydrogen fusion begins along a shell around the perimeter, which then steadily adds more helium to the inert core. At stellar masses above , the core does not become degenerate before initiating helium fusion. Hence, as the star ages, the core continues to contract and heat up until a triple alpha process can be maintained at the center, fusing helium into carbon. However, most of the energy generated at this stage continues to come from the hydrogen fusing shell.
For stars above , helium fusion at the core begins immediately as the main sequence comes to an end. Two hydrogen fusing shells are formed around the helium core: a thin CNO cycle inner shell and an outer pp chain shell.


Renoir (crater)

Renoir is a crater on the planet Mercury. Its name, after the French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), was adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1976.
Renoir is a peak-ring basin on Mercury, one of several, including Raditladi Basin and Rachmaninoff. Though these basins are relatively young geologic features, Renoir is one of the oldest of its type. Because of its greater age, Renoir displays more of the effects of tectonics and later impact events than the other peak ring impact basins. It is thought to have formed at the end of the period with the highest meteor impact rates in Mercury's history. It is located in the Kuiper quadrangle. Renoir also has an area of high reflectance, classified as a plain, resulting from previous volcanic activity on the planet. Like Rachmaninoff, it is a basin with a high-reflectance plain located entirely within the central peak ring.
Renoir has a concentric ring structure, meaning that it is also called a "concentric ring basin". Its interior rim is distinct, however, similar basins usually have a more distinct outer rim than inner rim. Basins like Renoir are known for having deep valleys in and around them. Mercury's lower radius and mass compared to other bodies like Mars mean that its basins - including Renoir and Rodin - have a greater diameter; consequently, the multi-ring basins on bodies like the Moon, including basins like Hertzsprung and Mare Orientale, are even larger than those on Mercury.


Intermediate polar

An Intermediate Polar (also called a DQ Herculis Star) is a type of cataclysmic variable binary star system with a white dwarf and a cool main-sequence secondary star. In most cataclysmic variables, matter from the companion star is gravitationally stripped by the compact star and forms an accretion disk around it. In intermediate polar systems, the same general scenario applies except that the inner disk is disrupted by the magnetic field of the white dwarf.
The name "intermediate polar" is derived from the strength of the white dwarf's magnetic field, which is between that of non-magnetic cataclysmic variable systems and strongly magnetic systems. Non-magnetic systems exhibit full accretion disks, while strongly magnetic systems (called polars or AM Herculis systems) exhibit only accretion streams which directly impact the white dwarf's magnetosphere.
There were 26 confirmed intermediate polar systems as of 14 April 2006. This represents about 1% of the 1,830 total cataclysmic variable systems presented by Downes et al. (2006) in the Catalog of Cataclysmic Variables. Only two of them are brighter than 15th magnitude at minimum: the prototype DQ Herculis and the unusual slow nova GK Persei.
System structure.
In intermediate polar systems, material stripped from a red dwarf secondary star flows into an accretion disk around the white dwarf, but the inner disk is truncated by the magnetic field of the white dwarf. In extreme instances, the disk can be fully disrupted, although this is uncommon. In the region where the disk is truncated, the gas in the disk begins to travel along the white dwarf's magnetic field lines, forming curved sheets of luminous material called "accretion curtains". Disk material passes through the curtains and then accretes onto the white dwarf near one of its magnetic poles.
Physical Properties.
Intermediate polar systems are strong x-ray emitters. The x-rays are generated by high velocity particles from the accretion stream forming a shock as they fall onto the surface of the white dwarf star. As particles decelerate and cool before hitting the white dwarf surface, bremsstrahlung x-rays are produced and may subsequently be absorbed by gas surrounding the shock region.
The magnetic field strength of white dwarfs in intermediate polar systems are typically 1 million to 10 million gauss (100–1000 teslas). This is about a million times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field and towards the upper limit of magnetic field strengths that can be produced in a laboratory on Earth, but is much less than the magnetic field strength of neutron stars. At the intersection of the accretion stream and the surface of the white dwarf, a hot spot is produced. Because the white dwarf has a dipole magnetic field, it will have one hot spot at each of its magnetic poles. As the white dwarf and its dipole magnetic field spin, the hot spots will spin also.
Other defining characteristics of intermediate polars include a strong Helium II emission line at 468.6 nm and circular polarization, in addition to the light curve periodicities described below.
Light curve periodicities.
The light curve of an intermediate polar may show several types of stable periodic changes in brightness. One periodicity is related to the orbital period of the binary star system. The orbital periods of confirmed intermediate polars range from 1.4 to 48 hours, with typical values between 3 and 6 hours.
A second periodic signal originates from the rotation of the white dwarf spinning on its axis. The observational characteristic that most clearly defines an intermediate polar is the existence of a spin period signal that is shorter than the orbital period. The known periods range from 33 to 4022 seconds. The physical cause of optical spin-period oscillations is usually attributed to the changing viewing aspect of the accretion curtain as it converges near the white dwarf.
A third light curve periodicity, the sideband period between the spin period and the orbital period, is also often present.
All three periodic signals may be measured by taking a fourier transform of the light curve and producing a power spectrum. Intermediate polars produce spin and sideband periodicities in x-ray, ultraviolet, and optical wavelengths. Although the source of the periods in all three wavelengths is ultimately the white dwarf spin, the exact mechanisms for producing the high-energy periodicities and the optical periodicities are thought to be different.
In addition to the stable oscillations, unstable oscillations called "quasi-periodic oscillations" may appear and then die off after a few cycles. Quasi-periodic oscillations typically have periods between 30 and 300 seconds.
References.

External links.


(527603) 2007 VJ305

, provisional designation , is an extrem trans-Neptunian object from the extended scattered disc on a highly eccentric orbit in the outermost region of the Solar System. It measures approximately in diameter and is "possibly" a dwarf planet. The rather reddish extended scattered disc object belongs to the group of extreme trans-Neptunian objects. It was discovered on 4 November 2007 by astronomers Andrew Becker, Andrew Puckett and Jeremy Kubica at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States.
Orbit and classification.
"" orbits the Sun at a distance of 35.1–347 AU once every 2640 years and 11 months (964,601 days; semi-major axis of 191.1 AU). Its orbit has an exceptionally high eccentricity of 0.82 and an inclination of 12° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken during the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at Apache Point in November 2000. It has a minimum orbital intersection distance with Neptune of 5.4 AU.
It belongs to a small group of detached objects with perihelion distances of 30 AU or more, and semi-major axes of 150 AU or more. These extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs) can not reach such orbits without some perturbing object, which lead to the speculation of Planet Nine.
Numbering and naming.
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 18 May 2019 (). As of 2019, it has not been named.
Physical characteristics.
This ETNO's color is rather reddish with an intermediary IR spectral type and a B–R color index of 1.44.
Diameter and albedo.
According to the Johnston's archive and to American astronomer Michael Brown, "" measures 202 and 279 kilometers in diameter based on an assumed albedo of 0.09 and 0.04, respectively. On his website, Michael Brown lists this object as "possibly" a dwarf planet (200–400 km) which is the least certain class in his 5-class taxonomic system.
Rotation period and shape.
As of 2019, no rotational lightcurve of has been obtained from photometric observations. The body's rotation period, pole and shape remain unknown.


Edward Joseph Lowe

Edward Joseph Lowe FRS FGS FRAS FLS (11 November 1825 – 10 March 1900) was a renowned English botanist, meteorologist and astronomer, who published papers on a wide variety of subjects, including luminous meteors, sunspots, the zodiacal light, meteorological observations during the eclipse of 1860 (at Fuente del Mar, near Santander), conchology, ferns,
grasses and other plants.
Lowe was affectionately known as "The Big Snowflake" because of his beard.
Biography.
Lowe was born in Highfield House, University Park, Nottinghamshire, into a wealthy family. The son of Alfred J. Lowe, he began his scientific observations at the age of 15. Alfred was a member of many national and local astronomical societies and was particularly interested in meteorology and astronomy.
His interest in ferns led to his studying them. His most noted work was "Ferns: British and Exotic" and consisted of eight illustrated volumes published in London by Groombridge and Sons in 1856. The bookplates of which were drawn by A. F. Lydon and engraved by Benjamin Fawcett. He collaborated on observations of luminous meteors with Professor Baden Powell of Oxford. Lowe invented the dry powder test for ozone in the atmosphere.
He was one of the founders and original Fellows of the Meteorological Society and a Fellow of the Royal, the Geological, the Linnean, the Royal Astronomical and other learned Societies.
His candidature citation for the Royal Society read:
"The Author of "A Treatise on Atmospheric Phenomena" "Prognostications of the weather or signs of atmospheric changes." "a paper on 278 thunderstorms" & the Conchology of Nottingham, & various Papers on zodiacal light, meteors, 'Solar spots, Lana & Freshwater shells &c published in the Transactions of the British Association, Royal Astronomical Society, Zoological Society- &c - The discoverer of a new method of propagating cuttings of plants by the application of collodium. Distinguished for his acquaintance with the sciences of Meteorology & Natural History. Eminent asa Meteorologist - Having Published works on that Science. - and being actively employed in the cultivation of it"
After the Great Exhibition of 1851, plans were launched for a public observatory in Nottingham. Henry Lawson offered his collection of astronomical telescopes, but the project failed through lack of government funding. Lawson persuaded Lowe to accept the instruments for an observatory at Broadgate House. in Beeston, Nottinghamshire which opened in 1855, with a rotating cupola roof. The Beeston Observatory was mainly for meteorological observations. As well as the usual meteorological instruments it included an Earthquake Pendulum, which ascended 33 ft to the top of the building. The pendulum rod was of deal wood and terminated in a loaded bulb of brass and lead of 2 lbs in weight with a steel point which acted upon a smooth surface of hard baked chalk. When the top of the building was distributed by the shock of an earthquake, the steel point would inscribe a result in the chalk. At the top of the house, he installed Electrometers with lighting wires conducted from trees around the building. These were fed to two gilded balls and cylinders for determining the negative and positive character of the electricity and the relative amount.
Lowe's father, Alfred also built another observatory in Beeston behind some houses on Lilac Grove near Beeston railway station. This survived until it was demolished in 1965.
In 1882 he moved from Beeston to Shirenewton Hall, near Chepstow, Monmouthshire, where he died on 10 March 1900.
As a botanist he is denoted by the author abbreviation E.J.Lowe when citing a botanical name.


University of California Observatories

The University of California Observatories (UCO) is a multi-campus astronomical research unit of the University of California, with headquarters on the UC Santa Cruz campus. UCO operates the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, and the technical labs at UC Santa Cruz and UCLA. UCO is also a managing partner of the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and the center for the UC participation in the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) project.
UCO was founded in 1988 to recognize the expansion of responsibilities of the Lick Observatory Headquarters to include managing the UC share of the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
Leadership.
The first UCO Director was Dr. Robert Kraft, who transitioned from his position as the Lick Observatory Director at the founding of UCO. Kraft was responsible for guiding the development of the UC role in the W.M. Keck Observatory and the partnership in Keck with Caltech. In 1991, Dr. Joe Miller became the second UCO Director and oversaw the successful completion of the two 10-meter Keck Telescopes and the initial UC Keck instruments. In 2005 Miller stepped down and Dr. Michael Bolte became the UCO interim Director. In 2006 Bolte became the UCO Director and served till 2012. Dr. Sandra Faber was Interim Director for 2013/2014, Dr. Claire Max Interim Director in 2015 and Dr. Claire Max became Director in 2016.
Instrumentation Program.
A number of instruments and adaptive optics systems have been built at the UC Observatories labs in UC Santa Cruz and UCLA.


Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy

Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy is one of the research institutes of the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam. It is named after the Dutch astronomer and Marxist Anton Pannekoek.


Tim Sumner (physicist)

Timothy J. Sumner (Ph.D) is Professor of Experimental Physics at Imperial College London. He is a member of the UK Dark Matter Collaboration, and Sumner's interests cover a wide range of astronomy-related fields, focusing particularly on particle physics. He was one of the candidates seriously being considered for the Nobel Prize in physics in 2016 for the discovery of gravitational waves (allegedly, as the Nobel Prize nominee names are not published until 50 after the nomination).
He received his degree in Physics from Sussex University in 1974, and his DPhil in Experimental Physics from Sussex University, for work carried out jointly with the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble. He joined the Cosmic-Ray and Space Physics group at Imperial College in 1979, and in 1984 became the project manager for flight hardware for the x-ray satellite ROSAT. He received a Group Achievement award from NASA for the project in 1990.
He became involved in the search for the direct demonstration of the existence of galactic dark matter, known as "Weakly Interacting Massive Particles". (WIMP). He is a member of the UK Dark Matter Collaboration (one of four groups around the world looking for WIMPs) and was its spokesperson in the UK for 2002–07. New Scientist described him as "leading the search for galactic dark matter, including axions, at Imperial College London in the UK". He is now Principal Investigator of the ZEPLIN III dark matter experiment. He also leads the ELIXIR proposal for next generation instruments. In addition to ROSAT, he has worked work on the space missions Gravity Probe B, which confirmed several prediction of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, LISA, a gravitational wave observatory in space, and STEP, a mission to test the equivalence principle in space. He is also associated with GAUGE, a new proposal to the European Space Agency.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physicists, and of the Royal Astronomical Society, and holds the position of Vice-Chair, COSPAR - Commission H.
Publications.
Scopus lists him as having had 132 peer-reviewed publications. The ones with the highest citation counts are:


Francisco (moon)

Francisco is the innermost irregular satellite of Uranus.
Francisco was discovered by Matthew J. Holman, et al. and Brett J. Gladman, et al. in 2003 from pictures taken in 2001 and given the provisional designation S/2001 U 3.
Confirmed as Uranus XXII, it was named after a lord in William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest".


History of soil science

The early concepts of soil were based on ideas developed by a German chemist, Justus von Liebig (1803–1873), and modified and refined by agricultural scientists who worked on samples of soil in laboratories, greenhouses, and on small field plots. The soils were rarely examined below the depth of normal tillage. These chemists held the "balance-sheet" theory of plant nutrition. Soil was considered a more or less static storage bin for plant nutrients—the soils could be used and replaced. This concept still has value when applied within the framework of modern soil science, although a useful understanding of soils goes beyond the removal of nutrients from soil by harvested crops and their return in manure, lime, and fertilizer.
The early geologists generally accepted the balance-sheet theory of soil fertility and applied it within the framework of their own discipline. They described soil as disintegrated rock of various sorts—granite, sandstone, glacial till, and the like. They went further, however, and described how the weathering processes modified this material and how geologic processes shaped it into landforms such as glacial moraines, alluvial plains, loess plains, and marine terraces. Geologist Nathaniel Shaler (1841–1906) monograph (1891) on the origin and nature of soils summarized the late 19th century geological concept of soils.
Early soil surveys were made to help farmers locate soils responsive to different management practices and to help them decide what crops and management practices were most suitable for the particular kinds of soil on their farms. Many of the early workers were geologists because only geologists were skilled in the necessary field methods and in scientific correlation appropriate to the study of soils. They conceived soils as mainly the weathering products of geologic formations, defined by landform and lithologic composition. Most of the soil surveys published before 1910 were strongly influenced by these concepts. Those published from 1910 to 1920 gradually added greater refinements and recognized more soil features but retained fundamentally geological concepts.
The balance-sheet theory of plant nutrition dominated the laboratory and the geological concept dominated field work. Both approaches were taught in many classrooms until the late 1920s. Although broader and more generally useful concepts of soil were being developed by some soil scientists, especially Eugene W. Hilgard (1833–1916) and George Nelson Coffey (1875-1967) in the United States and soil scientists in Russia, the necessary data for formulating these broader concepts came from the field work of the soil survey.
Friedrich Albert Fallou.
In his two books "First Principles of Soil Science" (1857, 2nd ed. 1865) and "Pedology or General and Special Soil Science" (1862) Friedrich Albert Fallou developed his collected field observations of soil into a systematic approach. He explained why soil formation was worthy of study and appealed for recognition of soil science as a discipline. In the 1862 work, he presented a proposal for soil profile description, discussed the physical and chemical properties of soils, and proposed classification of soils based on mineral properties.
Vasily Dokuchaev is recognized today as more influential than Fallou, however in the years closely following Dokuchaev's death, Fallou was regarded as the founder of modern soil science by Dokuchaev's student, influential Russian pedologist Konstantin Dmitrievich Glinka (1867-1927). Fallou's historical status as founder is supported by Moscow soil scientist and bibliographer of Russian soil science, Arseny Yarilov, Editor of “Pochvovedenie” (means soil science). Yarilov titled his 1904 article about Fallou in Pochvovedenie "Friedrich Albert Fallou, Founder of Soil Science".
Vasily Dokuchaev.
Beginning in 1870, the Russian school of soil science under the leadership of V. V. Dokuchaev (1846–1903) and N. M. Sibirtsev (1860–1900) was developing a new concept of soil. The Russian workers conceived of soils as independent natural bodies, each with unique properties resulting from a unique combination of climate, living matter, parent material, relief, and time. They hypothesized that properties of each soil reflected the combined effects of the particular set of genetic factors responsible for the soil's formation. Hans Jenny later emphasized the functionally relatedness of soil properties and soil formation. The results of this work became generally available to Americans through the publication in 1914 of K.D. Glinka's textbook in German and especially through its translation into English by C.F. Marbut in 1927.
The Russian concepts were revolutionary. Properties of soils no longer were based wholly on inferences from the nature of the rocks or from climate or other environmental factors, considered singly or collectively; rather, by going directly to the soil itself, the integrated expression of all these factors could be seen in the morphology of the soils. This concept required that all properties of soils be considered collectively in terms of a completely integrated natural body. In short, it made possible a science of soil.
The early enthusiasm for the new concept and for the rising new discipline of soil science led some to suggest the study of soil could proceed without regard to the older concepts derived from geology and agricultural chemistry. Certainly the reverse is true. Besides laying the foundation for a soil science with its own principles, the new concept makes the other sciences even more useful. Soil morphology provides a firm basis on which to group the results of observation, experiments, and practical experience and to develop integrated principles that predict the behavior of the soils.
Curtis Marbut.
Under the leadership of C. F. Marbut, the Russian concept was broadened and adapted to conditions in the United States. This concept emphasized individual soil profiles to the subordination of external soil features and surface geology. By emphasizing soil profiles, however, soil scientists at first tended to overlook the natural variability of soils which can be substantial even within a small area. Overlooking the variability of soils seriously reduced the value of the maps which showed the location of the soils.
Furthermore, early emphasis on genetic soil profiles was so great as to suggest that material lacking a genetic profile, such as recent alluvium, was not soil. A sharp distinction was drawn between rock weathering and soil formation. Although a distinction between these sets of processes is useful for some purposes, rock and mineral weathering and soil formation are commonly indistinguishable.
The concept of soil was gradually broadened and extended during the years following 1930, essentially through consolidation and balance. The major emphasis had been on the soil profile. After 1930, morphological studies were extended from single pits to long trenches or a series of pits in an area of a soil. The morphology of a soil came to be described by ranges of properties deviating from a central concept instead of by a single "typical" profile. The development of techniques for mineralogical studies of clays also emphasized the need for laboratory studies.
Marbut emphasized strongly that classification of soils should be based on morphology instead of on theories of soil genesis, because theories are both ephemeral and dynamic. He perhaps overemphasized this point to offset other workers who assumed that soils had certain characteristics without examining the soils. Marbut tried to make clear that examination of the soils themselves was essential in developing a system of Soil Classification and in making usable soil maps. In spite of this, Marbut's work reveals his personal understanding of the contributions of geology to soil science. His soil classification of 1935 depends heavily on the concept of a "normal soil," the product of equilibrium on a landscape where downward erosion keeps pace with soil formation.
Clarification and broadening of the concept of a soil science also grew out of the increasing emphasis on detailed soil mapping. Concepts changed with increased emphasis on predicting crop yields for each kind of soil shown on the maps. Many of the older descriptions of soils had not been quantitative enough and the units of classification had been too heterogeneous for making yield and management predictions needed for planning the management of individual farms or fields.
During the 1930s, soil formation was explained in terms of loosely conceived processes, such as "podzolization," "laterization," and "calcification." These were presumed to be unique processes responsible for the observed common properties of the soils of a region.
Hans Jenny.
In 1941 Hans Jenny's (1899–1992) Factors of Soil Formation, a system of quantitative pedology, concisely summarized and illustrated many of the basic principles of modern soil science to that date. Since 1940, time has assumed much greater significance among the factors of soil formation, and geomorphological studies have become important in determining the time that soil material at any place has been subjected to soil-forming processes. Meanwhile, advances in soil chemistry, soil physics, soil mineralogy, and soil biology, as well as in the basic sciences that underlie them, have added new tools and new dimensions to the study of soil formation. As a consequence, the formation of soil has come to be treated as the aggregate of many interrelated physical, chemical, and biological processes. These processes are subject to quantitative study in soil physics, soil chemistry, soil mineralogy, and soil biology. The focus of attention also has shifted from the study of gross attributes of the whole soil to the co-varying detail of individual parts, including grain-to-grain relationships.
Guy Smith.
In both the classification of Marbut and the 1938 classification developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the classes were described mainly in qualitative terms. Classes were not defined in quantitative terms that would permit consistent application of the system by different scientists. Neither system definitely linked the classes of its higher categories, largely influenced by genetic concepts initiated by the Russian soil scientists, to the soil series and their subdivisions that were used in soil mapping in the United States. Both systems reflected the concepts and theories of soil genesis of the time, which were themselves predominantly qualitative in character. Modification of the 1938 system in 1949 corrected some of its deficiencies but also illustrated the need for a reappraisal of concepts and principles. More than 15 years of work under the leadership of Guy D. Smith culminated in a new soil classification system. This became the official classification system of the U.S. National Cooperative Soil Survey in 1965 and was published in 1975 as Soil Taxonomy: A Basic System of Soil Classification for Making and Interpreting Soil Surveys. The Smith system was adopted in the U.S. and many other nations for their own classification system.
Another factor has had an immense impact on soil survey, especially during the 1960s. Before 1950, the primary applications of soil surveys were farming, ranching, and forestry. Applications for highway planning were recognized in some States as early as the late 1920s, and soil interpretations were placed in field manuals for highway engineers of some States during the 1930s and 1940s. Nevertheless, the changes in soil surveys during this period were mainly responses to the needs of farming, ranching, and forestry. During the 1950s and 1960s nonfarm uses of the soil increased rapidly. This created a great need for information about the effects of soils on those nonfarm uses.
Bioturbation.
A major re-evaluation of soil formation and the role of biota commenced in the 1980s, as soil-geomorphologists began to re-evaluate Charles Darwin's and Nathaniel Shaler's early ideas on the role of bioturbation in soil formation. There is now ample evidence to support Darwin's conclusions, and in many areas biota that burrow in soil are major agents of pedogenesis.


Ragbir Bhathal

Ragbir Bhathal is an Australian astronomer and author, currently based at the Western Sydney University (WSU), Australia. He is known for his work on Optical Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (OSETI). He did his Ph.D. in magnetism at the University of Queensland. He has served as a UNESCO consultant on science policy for the ASEAN group of nations, as an Adviser to the Federal Minister for Science and was the Project Director for the million dollar Sydney Observatory restoration building program. Bhathal also designed and built the twin dome Campbelltown Rotary Observatory at the WSU Campbelltown Campus and was Patron of Macarthur Astronomical Society from 1997 to 2011.
On 16 May 2018, "The Macarthur Advertiser" newspaper reported in its printed version that Dr. Bhathal "was recently elected as a Fellow of the London-based Royal Astronomical Society".
Research.
Bhathal carries out research in nanosecond laser pulsed communications, astrophysics, galactic surveys, astronomical image analysis and processing at UWS. In December 2008, he observed a sharp 'laser look-alike' signal emanating from the globular cluster 47 Tucanae. However, despite further searches, the signal has yet to be replicated.


Thaumasia quadrangle

The Thaumasia quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Thaumasia quadrangle is also referred to as MC-25 (Mars Chart-25).
The name comes from Thaumas, the god of the clouds and celestial apparitions.
The Thaumasia quadrangle covers the area from 60° to 120° west longitude and 30° to 65° south latitude on Mars. The Thaumasia quadrangle contains many different regions or parts of many regions: Solis Planum, Icaria Planum, Aonia Terra, Aonia Planum, Bosporus Planum, and Thaumasia Planum. One of the first major networks of stream channels, called Warrego Valles, were discovered here by early orbiters. Another sign of water is the presence of gullies carved into steep slopes.
Martian Gullies.
Gullies are common in some parts of Mars. Gullies occur on steep slopes, especially on the walls of craters. Martian gullies are believed to be relatively young because they have few, if any craters. Moreover, they lie on top of sand dunes which themselves are considered to be quite young. Usually, each gully has an alcove, channel, and apron. Some studies have found that gullies occur on slopes that face all directions, others have found that the greater number of gullies are found on poleward facing slopes, especially from 30-44 S.
Although many ideas have been put forward to explain them, the most popular involve liquid water coming from an aquifer, from melting at the base of old glaciers, or from the melting of ice in the ground when the climate was warmer.
There is evidence for all three theories. Most of the gully alcove heads occur at the same level, just as one would expect of an aquifer. Various measurements and calculations show that liquid water could exist in aquifers at the usual depths where gullies begin. One variation of this model is that rising hot magma could have melted ice in the ground and caused water to flow in aquifers. Aquifers are layer that allow water to flow. They may consist of porous sandstone. The aquifer layer would be perched on top of another layer that prevents water from going down (in geological terms it would be called impermeable). Because water in an aquifer is prevented from going down, the only direction the trapped water can flow is horizontally. Eventually, water could flow out onto the surface when the aquifer reaches a break—like a crater wall. The resulting flow of water could erode the wall to create gullies. Aquifers are quite common on Earth. A good example is "Weeping Rock" in Zion National Park Utah.
As for the next theory, much of the surface of Mars is covered by a thick smooth mantle that is thought to be a mixture of ice and dust. This ice-rich mantle, a few yards thick, smoothes the land, but in places it has a bumpy texture, resembling the surface of a basketball. The mantle may be like a glacier and under certain conditions the ice that is mixed in the mantle could melt and flow down the slopes and make gullies. Because there are few craters on this mantle, the mantle is relatively young. An excellent view of this mantle is shown below in the picture of the Ptolemaeus Crater Rim, as seen by HiRISE.
The ice-rich mantle may be the result of climate changes. Changes in Mars's orbit and tilt cause significant changes in the distribution of water ice from polar regions down to latitudes equivalent to Texas. During certain climate periods water vapor leaves polar ice and enters the atmosphere. The water comes back to ground at lower latitudes as deposits of frost or snow mixed generously with dust. The atmosphere of Mars contains a great deal of fine dust particles. Water vapor will condense on the particles, then fall down to the ground due to the additional weight of the water coating. When Mars is at its greatest tilt or obliquity, up to 2 cm of ice could be removed from the summer ice cap and deposited at midlatitudes. This movement of water could last for several thousand years and create a snow layer of up to around 10 meters thick. When ice at the top of the mantling layer goes back into the atmosphere, it leaves behind dust, which insulating the remaining ice. Measurements of altitudes and slopes of gullies support the idea that snowpacks or glaciers are associated with gullies. Steeper slopes have more shade which would preserve snow.
Higher elevations have far fewer gullies because ice would tend to sublimate more in the thin air of the higher altitude. Very few gullies are found in the Thaumasia region; however, a few are present in the lower elevations like the one pictured below in Ross Crater.
The third theory might be possible since climate changes may be enough to simply allow ice in the ground to melt and thus form the gullies. During a warmer climate, the first few meters of ground could thaw and produce a "debris flow" similar to those on the dry and cold Greenland east coast. Since the gullies occur on steep slopes only a small decrease of the shear strength of the soil particles is needed to begin the flow. Small amounts of liquid water from melted ground ice could be enough. Calculations show that a third of a mm of runoff can be produced each day for 50 days of each Martian year, even under current conditions.
Sand Dunes.
Many places on Mars have sand dunes. Some craters in Thaumasia show dark blotches in them. High resolution photos show that the dark markings are dark sand dunes. Dark sand dunes probably contain the igneous rock basalt. Brashear Crater, pictured below, is one crater with dark dunes.
Warrego Valles.
Mariner 9 and Viking Orbiter images, showed a network of branching valleys in Thaumasia called Warrego Valles. These networks are evidence that Mars may have once been warmer, wetter, and perhaps had precipitation in the form of rain or snow. A study with the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) and the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) support the idea that Warrego Valles was formed from precipitation. At first glance they resemble river valleys on our Earth. But sharper images from more advanced cameras reveal that the valleys are not continuous. They are very old and may have suffered from the effects of erosion. A picture below shows some of these branching valleys.
Craters.
The density of impact craters is used to determine the surface ages of Mars and other solar system bodies. The older the surface, the more craters present. Crater shapes can reveal the presence of ground ice.
The area around craters may be rich in minerals. On Mars, heat from the impact melts ice in the ground. Water from the melting ice dissolves minerals, and then deposits them in cracks or faults that were produced with the impact. This process, called hydrothermal alteration, is a major way in which ore deposits are produced. The area around Martian craters may be rich in useful ores for the future colonization of Mars.
Studies on the earth have documented that cracks are produced and that secondary minerals veins are deposited in the cracks. Images from satellites orbiting Mars have detected cracks near impact craters. Great amounts of heat are produced during impacts. The area around a large impact may take hundreds of thousands of years to cool.
Many craters once contained lakes. Because some crater floors show deltas, we know that water had to be present for some time. Dozens of deltas have been spotted on Mars. Deltas form when sediment is washed in from a stream entering a quiet body of water. It takes a bit of time to form a delta, so the presence of a delta is exciting; it means water was there for a time, maybe for many years. Primitive organisms may have developed in such lakes; hence, some craters may be prime targets for the search for evidence of life on the Red Planet.
Channels.
There is enormous evidence that water once flowed in river valleys on Mars. Images of curved channels have been seen in images from Mars spacecraft dating back to the early seventies with the Mariner 9 orbiter. Indeed, a study published in June 2017, calculated that the volume of water needed to carve all the channels on Mars was even larger than the proposed ocean that the planet may have had. Water was probably recycled many times from the ocean to rainfall around Mars.


Swedish Astronomical Society

The Swedish Astronomical Society (Svenska astronomiska sällskapet) a national organization in Sweden aimed at people who want to follow the achievements of astronomical research. Founded in 1919 on the initiative of astronomer Nils Nordenmark, the society has from the outset aimed to be "an intimate connection between scientists, amateur astronomers and others interested in astronomy" The society runs a program of lectures and other outreach activities, including since 2012 Sweden's annual Day and Night of Astronomy. Since 1920 society has published a quarterly Swedish-language magazine, initially "Populär Astronomisk Tidskrift", since 2001 published as "Populär Astronomi". The current of the society is astronomer and writer Peter Linde.


James Breen (astronomer)

James Breen (5 July 1826 – 25 August 1866) was an Irish astronomer.
Breen was the second son of Hugh Breen, senior, who superintended the lunar reductions at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. He was born at Armagh, in Ireland, 5 July 1826, was engaged at the age of sixteen as a calculator at Greenwich, and exchanged the post for that of assistant in the Cambridge Observatory in August 1846.
In 1854 he published "The Planetary Worlds: the Topography and Telescopic Appearance of the Sun, Planets, Moon, and Comets", a useful little work suggested by discussions on the plurality of worlds, showing considerable acquaintance with the history of the subject, as well as the practical familiarity conferred by the use of one of the finest refractors then in existence.
After twelve years' zealous cooperation with James Challis, he resigned his appointment towards the close of 1858, and cultivated literature in Paris until 1860, when he went to Spain, and observed the total solar eclipse of July 18, 1860 at Camuesa, with Messrs. Wray and Buckingham of the Himalaya expedition.
In the following year, after some months in Switzerland, he settled in London, and devoted himself to literary and linguistic studies, reading much at the British Museum, and contributing regularly, but for the most part anonymously, to the "Popular Science Review" and other periodicals. He had made arrangements for the publication of a work on stars, nebulae, and clusters, of which two sheets were already printed, when his strength finally gave way before the ravages of slow consumption.
He died at noon, 25 August 1866, aged 40, and was buried with his father at Nunhead. He had been elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society on 10 June 1862. Extracts from his observations at Cambridge 1851-8 appeared in the "Astronomische Nachrichten" and "Monthly Notices." He calculated the orbit of the double star ξ Ursæ Majoris, assigning it a period of 63.14 years, as well as those of Petersen's third (1850) and Brorsen's (1851, iii.) comets. His observations of Comet Donati with the Northumberland Equatorial were printed in the 'Memoirs of the R. A. Soc.' xxx. 68.


Reginald Harrison

Reginald Harrison FRCS (24 August 1837 – 28 February 1908) was a British surgeon, sometime Vice-President and Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons and Consulting Surgeon to St Peter's Hospital.
Life.
Harrison was educated at Rossall School, and after a short period of probation at the Stafford general hospital, he entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
He was admitted M.R.C.S. England on 15 April 1869, and in the same year he obtained the licence of the society of apothecaries.
He ceased active professional work in April 1906, when he resigned his post at St. Peter's hospital ; he died on 28 April 1908, and was buried at Highgate cemetery.
Family.
He married in 1864 Jane, only daughter of James Baron of Liverpool, and left one son and two daughters.


Stephen J. Mackwell

Stephen J. Mackwell (born June 5, 1956) is a researcher in geophysics, specializing in laboratory-based studies of the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of geological materials. He is also interested in the transport of fluid components in mantle and crustal rocks on the microscopic and macroscopic scales, and on the effects of such components on mechanical properties. He has authored or co-authored over 80 articles in international scientific journals and is an editor of a book on comparative climatology of terrestrial planets published by the University of Arizona Press.
Education.
Stephen J. Mackwell received a B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics in August 1978 at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He continued his studies at the University of Canterbury and earned his M.Sc. in Physics in August 1979. His master's thesis was titled "Excitation Temperatures for Late Type Stars." He went on to receive his Diploma of Education at Christchurch Teachers College in New Zealand in November 1979. He earned his Ph.D. in Geophysics in March 1985 from the Research School of Earth Sciences of the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. His dissertation was titled "Diffusion and Weakening Effects of Water in Quartz and Olivine."
Early career.
Stephen J. Mackwell worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York from 1984 to 1987, and then moved to the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania as an Assistant Professor in 1987 and subsequently Associate Professor of Geosciences in 1992. He was Program Director for Geophysics in the Earth Sciences Division at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. from 1993-1994, and spent 1996 as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Bayreuth, Germany. In 1998, Mackwell became a Full Professor for Experimental Geophysics at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut at the University of Bayreuth. In January 2000 he was appointed Director of the Bayerisches Geoinstitut and served there until December 2002.
Director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
Stephen J. Mackwell returned to the United States in late 2002 as Director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston, Texas, a division of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). In addition, Mackwell managed USRA's Houston facility and education programs including the NASA Internships Program and the Air Force Research Laboratory Intern Program. In 2016, Louise Prockter became the Director of the LPI, and Mackwell was named as the USRA Corporate Director of Science Programs.
Mackwell has served on the editorial board of several planetary science journals, including serving as editor-in-chief for the journal "Geophysical Research Letters" from 2002 to 2004. He currently serves on the advisory board for the journal "Physics and Chemistry of Minerals". Mackwell has participated in the 2013–2022 Planetary Science Decadal Survey Steering Group and Inner Planets Panel.
He is also a current member of the Space Studies Board, Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Mackwell has also been an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth Science at Rice University in Houston, Texas from July 2005 to present.
American Institute of Physics.
Since February 2019, Mackwell has served as the Deputy Executive Officer of the American Institute of Physics in College Park, MD.
Honors.
Stephen J. Mackwell has been named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2017; Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2010; Stipendiat der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung in Bayreuth, Germany in 1996; Ministère de L'Education Nationale, Academie de Lille, Nommé Professeur in 1996; and Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America in 1996.
In 2016, Mackwell was honored by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) with the naming of main-belt asteroid 5292 Mackwell (formerly designated as 1991 AJ1).
Hitoshi Shiozawa and Minoru Kizawa originally discovered asteroid 5292 Mackwell on January 12, 1991, in Fujieda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. 5292 Mackwell has an absolute magnitude of 11.9 and is part of the main asteroid belt, which is located between the orbits of planets Mars and Jupiter.
Bibliography.
Mackwell S. J., Simon-Miller A. A., Harder J. W., and Bullock M. A., eds. (2013) "Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets". University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ. 592 pp.
Demouchy S. and Mackwell S. (2006) Mechanisms of hydrogen incorporation and diffusion in iron-bearing olivine. "Physics and Chemistry of Minerals", 33, 347, .
Mackwell S. J., Zimmerman M. E., and Kohlstedt D. L. (1998) High-temperature deformation of dry diabase with application to tectonics on Venus. "Journal of Geophysical Research–Solid Earth", 103(B1), 975–984, .
Kohlstedt D. L., Evans B., and Mackwell S. J. (1995) Strength of the lithosphere: Constraints imposed by laboratory experiments. "Journal of Geophysical Research–Solid Earth", 100(B9), 17587–17602, .


Alan Riding

Alan Riding (born 8 December 1943, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a British author and journalist. He was a long-time foreign correspondent for "The New York Times", most recently as the paper's European Cultural Correspondent based in Paris. His latest book is "And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris".
Early life.
After spending his first 11 years in Brazil, Riding went to England to attend Rossall School, Lancashire, and later Bristol University. He studied law before deciding instead to become a journalist.
Career.
Riding started with Reuters in New York City, covering the United Nations. In 1971, he left Reuters and moved to Mexico to work as a freelance reporter, principally for "The Financial Times", "The Economist", and "The New York Times". In 1978, he joined "The New York Times" as Mexico City bureau chief. Before leaving Mexico for Brazil in 1984, he wrote "Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans", on modern Mexico.
As the Rio de Janeiro bureau chief, Riding covered the transitions from military regimes to democracies in Brazil and many neighboring countries as well as guerrilla wars and drug trafficking in Peru and Colombia.
In 1989, after a brief stint in Rome, he was named "The New York Times" 's Paris bureau chief, which included coverage of the European Union and NATO. In 1995, he became the paper's European Cultural Correspondent, a post that involved covering all the arts in the region. During this period, he also co-authored (with Leslie Dunton-Downer) "Essential Shakespeare Handbook" and "Opera". In 2007, Riding left journalism to write "And The Show Went On", published by Knopf in 2010. It has also been published in Britain and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, Polish, Chinese and Portuguese. He has since devoted himself to writing for the theater.
Riding lives in Paris, with his wife Marlise Simons who is a reporter for "The New York Times".


Martin Barstow

Martin Barstow is a Professor of Astrophysics and Space Science at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester and the former President of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Research.
Barstow's research is on white dwarfs, the interstellar medium and UV instrumentation.
Royal Astronomical Society.
Having been a Councillor and Secretary for the Royal Astronomical Society between 2005 and 2013, he was elected to be the 89th President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2013. After a year as President Elect he assumed the position of President in May 2014.


Thomas Byles

Thomas Roussel Davids Byles (26 February 1870 – 15 April 1912) was an English Catholic priest who was a passenger aboard the "RMS Titanic" on its maiden voyage when it sank after striking an iceberg during the night of 14–15 April 1912. He was reported as being amidst the throng of trapped passengers on the ship's rear deck in its final moments of descent, audibly praying.
Life.
Thomas Byles was born Roussel Davids Byles in Leeds, Yorkshire, the eldest of seven children of Alfred Holden Byles, a Congregationalist minister, and his wife Louisa Davids. He attended Leamington College and Rossall School, Fleetwood, Lancashire, between 1885 and 1889, then went to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1889 to study theology, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1894. While at Oxford, Byles converted to the Church of England, and later, like his younger brother William had done before, to the Roman Catholic faith, taking the name Thomas. In 1899, he went to the Beda College in Rome to study for the priesthood and was ordained in 1902. He was assigned to St Helen's Parish in Chipping Ongar, Essex in 1905, where he would remain until his death.
An invitation to officiate at the wedding of his younger brother William prompted Byles to make the trip to New York City. He said Mass on the morning of the sinking, Octave of Easter, 14 April 1912, for both second- and third-class passengers in their respective lounges. The sermon was on the need for a spiritual lifeboat in the shape of prayer and the sacraments when in danger of spiritual shipwreck in times of temptation.
Byles was walking on the upper deck praying his breviary when the "Titanic" struck the iceberg. As the ship was sinking, he assisted many third-class passengers up to the boat deck to the lifeboats. He reputedly twice refused a place on a lifeboat. Toward the end he recited the Rosary and other prayers, heard confessions and gave absolution to more than a hundred passengers who remained trapped on the stern of the ship after all of the lifeboats had been launched. His body, if recovered, was never identified. His brothers installed a door in his memory at St Helen's Catholic Church in Chipping Ongar, Essex. Pope Pius X later described Byles as a "martyr for the Church".
Beatification process.
In April 2015, Graham Smith, the current priest of St Helen's Church, with support of Bishop Alan Williams of the Diocese of Brentwood, initiated the first steps toward declaring Byles a saint.
In popular culture.
Byles has three times been portrayed in films about the disaster. In the 1979 television movie "S.O.S. Titanic", he was portrayed by Matthew Guinness. In the 1997 film, "Titanic", he was portrayed by James Lancaster, reciting the Rosary and Revelation 21:4. Richard Basehart plays a thinly disguised Byles in the 1953 film. His story is featured in a book written by Cady Crosby entitled "A Titanic Hero: Thomas Byles". The book documents Byles' early life, his years in ministry and his final hours on board the .


Wilson effect

In 1769, during solar cycle 2, Scottish astronomer Alexander Wilson, working at the Macfarlane Observatory, noticed that the shape of sunspots noticeably flattened as they approached the Sun's
limb due to solar rotation. These observations showed that sunspots were features on the solar surface, as opposed to minor planets or objects above it. Moreover, he observed what is now termed the Wilson effect: the penumbra and umbra vary in the manner expected by perspective effects if the umbrae of the spots are in fact slight depressions in the surface of the photosphere. The magnitude of the depression is difficult to determine, but may be as large as 1,000 km.
While the surface-depression interpretation of the Wilson effect is widespread, Bray and Loughhead (1965) contended that "the true explanation of the Wilson effect lies in the higher transparency of the spot material compared to the photosphere". They develop this idea on pages 93 to 99 of their book. A similar interpretation was expressed by C.H. Tong in 2005.
Sunspots result from the blockage of convective heat transport by intense magnetic fields. Sunspots are cooler than the rest of the photosphere, with effective temperatures of about 4,000°C (about 7,000°F). Sunspot occurrence follows an approximately 11-year period known as the solar cycle, discovered by Heinrich Schwabe in the 19th century.


ExoMol

ExoMol is a database of molecular line lists that can be used for spectral characterisation and simulation of astrophysical environments such as exoplanets, brown dwarfs, cool stars and sunspots. The project is run by the theoretical molecular physics group of University College London and is led by Jonathan Tennyson. New line lists for about 30 small molecules of astrophysical interest that currently lack a complete spectroscopic coverage are being generated. The list includes diatomics (e.g., C2, O2, AlO, MgH, CaH, FeH), triatomics (e.g., H2O, H2S, C3, SO2), tetratomics (e.g., PH3, HOOH, H2CO) and a few larger molecules (most notably CH4 and HNO3). Full details on the ExoMol web site (www.exomol.com).


Las Brisas Observatory

Las Brisas Observatory is an astronomical observatory located 11 miles west of Pikes Peak, Colorado (USA) on Las Brisas ranch. It was built in 1979 and is owned by Paul Signorelli.
External links.
https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/stargazers-corner/las-brisas-observatory-37-years-and-counting/


IRAP PhD Program

International relativistic astrophysics PhD program, or IRAP PhD program is the international joint doctorate program in relativistic astrophysics initiated and co-sponsored by ICRANet. During 2010-2017 IRAP PhD takes part in the Erasmus Mundus program of the European Commission. For the first time in Europe the IRAP PhD program grants a joint PhD degree among the participating institutions.
Education in relativistic astrophysics.
In 2005 a new international organization was founded: the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet), dedicated to the theoretical aspects of relativistic astrophysics. Together with the University of Arizona, the University of Stanford and the International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA), such states as Armenia, Brazil, Italy and the Vatican are the founding members of ICRANet. As a first step, the international relativistic astrophysics Ph.D. program (IRAP Ph.D.) was established in 2005. Among the proponents of the IRAP Ph.D. program are Riccardo Giacconi, Roy Kerr and Remo Ruffini.
The objectives of the program.
The IRAP Ph.D. program grants a joint Ph.D. degree among the participating institutions.
The core of the program is the international consortium. It assembles expertise of its members for preparation of scientists in the field of relativistic astrophysics, and related fields of general relativity, cosmology and quantum field theory.
One of the goals of the program is mobility: every student admitted to the IRAP Ph.D. is part of a team at one of the consortium members, and each year visits the other centers to keep track of developments in the other fields. Within the IRAP Ph.D. program, students are systematically trained in the techniques of research management and in the nature and organization of scientific projects.
The consortium.
Since 2005 ICRANet has co-organized the IRAP Ph.D. program together with:
The faculty.
As of 2015, the faculty of the IRAP Ph.D. program consists of:
Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate (2010-2017).
Launched in 2004 under the Bologna Declaration, the Erasmus Mundus programs have supported academic cooperation and mobility with partner countries to form the joint European Higher Education Area. During 2010-2017 the IRAP Ph.D has taken part in the Erasmus Mundus program of the European Commission and has enrolled 5 cycles of students with the total amount of 44 students. The Nice University was the host organization.
CAPES-ICRANet Program (2013-2018).
In 2013 CAPES and ICRANet have signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the establishment of the CAPES-ICRANet Program. Each year five fellowships for Brazilian students are granted. Each fellowship lasts for three years with the final Ph.D. degree jointly delivered by the academic institutions participating in the program.
Schools and seminars.
Within IRAP Ph.D. program ICRANet organizes Ph.D. schools. In particular 15 schools were held in Nice and Les Houches, France, within the EMJD program:
ICRANet co-organizes a Joint Astrophysics Seminar at the Department of Physics of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and ICRA in Rome. All institutions collaborating with ICRANet as well as the ICRANet centers participate in these seminars via video conferencing.
Statistics.
The official language of the program is English, but students have the opportunity to learn the language of their host country, following a variety of courses at the partner universities.
As of 2015, the IRAP-Ph.D. has seen the enrollment of 111 students: 1 from Albania, 3 from Argentina, 5 from Armenia, 1 from Austria, 2 from Belarus, 16 from Brazil, 5 from China, 9 from Colombia, 2 from Croatia, 5 from France, 5 from Germany, 7 from India, 2 from Iran, 34 from Italy, 2 from Kazakhstan, 1 from Mexico, 1 from Pakistan, 4 from Russia, 1 from Serbia, 1 from Sweden, 1 from Switzerland, 1 from Taiwan, 1 from Turkey, 1 from Ukraine.
During 2011-2015 more than 500 applications from 70 countries from all over the world were considered and 44 Ph.D. candidates were selected including roughly 30% female candidates.


Solar maximum

Solar maximum or solar max is a regular period of greatest Sun activity during the 11-year solar cycle. During solar maximum, large numbers of sunspots appear, and the solar irradiance output grows by about 0.07%.
At solar maximum, the Sun's magnetic field lines are the most distorted due to the magnetic field on the solar equator rotating at a slightly faster pace than at the solar poles. On average, the solar cycle takes about 11 years to go from one solar maximum to the next, with duration observed varying from 9 to 14 years.
Large solar flares often occur during a maximum. For example, the solar storm of 1859 struck the Earth with such intensity that the northern lights were visible as far from the poles as Cuba and Hawaii.
Predictions.
Predictions of a future maximum's timing and strength are very difficult; predictions vary widely. There was a solar maximum in 2000. In 2006, NASA initially expected a solar maximum in 2010 or 2011, and thought that it could be the strongest since 1958. However, the solar maximum was not declared to have occurred until 2014, and even then was ranked among the weakest on record.
Grand solar minima and maxima.
Grand solar maxima occur when several solar cycles exhibit greater than average activity for decades or centuries. Solar cycles still occur during these grand solar maximum periods, but the intensity of those cycles is greater. Grand solar maxima have shown some correlation with global and regional climate changes.
The idea of a Modern Maximum has now been thrown into question with the release of a paper at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly in August 2015.
A list of historical Grand minima of solar activity includes also Grand minima ca. 690 AD, 360 BC, 770 BC, 1390 BC, 2860 BC, 3340 BC, 3500 BC, 3630 BC, 3940 BC, 4230 BC, 4330 BC, 5260 BC, 5460 BC, 5620 BC, 5710 BC, 5990 BC, 6220 BC, 6400 BC, 7040 BC, 7310 BC, 7520 BC, 8220 BC, 9170 BC. There was also the maunder minimum 1645 to 1715.


Soil management

Soil management is the application of operations, practices, and treatments to protect soil and enhance its performance (such as soil fertility or soil mechanics). It includes soil conservation, soil amendment, and optimal soil health. In agriculture, some amount of soil management is needed both in nonorganic and organic types to prevent agricultural land from becoming poorly productive over decades. Organic farming in particular emphasizes optimal soil management, because it uses soil health as the exclusive or nearly exclusive source of its fertilization and pest control.
Soil management is an important tool for addressing climate change by increasing soil carbon and as well as addressing other major environmental issues associated with modern industrial agriculture practices. Project Drawdown highlights three major soil management practices as actionable steps for climate change mitigation: improved nutrient management, conservation agriculture (including No-till agriculture), and use of regenerative agriculture.
Environmental Impact.
According to the EPA, agricultural soil management practices can lead to production and emission of nitrous oxide (N2O), a major greenhouse gas and air pollutant. Activities that can contribute to N2O emissions include fertilizer usage, irrigation and tillage. The management of soils accounts for over half of the emissions from the Agriculture sector. Cattle livestock account for one third of emissions, through methane emissions. Manure management and rice cultivation also produce emissions. Using biochar may decrease N2O emissions from soils by an average of 54%.the usage of artificial fertilizer in the agricultural field it leads to nutrition imbalance in the soil.
Soils can sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, primarily by storing carbon as soil organic carbon (SOC) through the process of photosynthesis. CO2 can also be stored as inorganic carbon but this is less common. Converting natural land to agricultural land releases carbon back into the atmosphere. The amount of carbon a soil can sequester depends on the climate and current and historical land-use and management. Cropland has the potential to sequester 0.5-1.2 Pg C/year and grazing and pasture land could sequester 0.3-0.7 Pg C/year. Agricultural practices that sequester carbon can help mitigate climate change. Intensive farming deteriorates the functionality of soils.
Methods that significantly enhance carbon sequestration in soil include no-till farming, residue mulching, cover cropping, and crop rotation, all of which are more widely used in organic farming than in conventional farming. Because only 5% of US farmland currently uses no-till and residue mulching, there is a large potential for carbon sequestration. Similar practices such as arable land conversion to grasslands, crop residues and cover crops have been proposed in Europe
Practices.
Conventional agriculture is driven by industrialization and aims to maximize efficiency. Practices include large-scale farming that specializes in monoculture and uses pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Alternatives include conservation, regenerative, and organic agriculture, which can be broadly grouped as sustainable agriculture. Conservation agriculture has three main practices: minimizing soil disturbance, maintaining permanent soil coverage, and diversifying crop species. Similarly, regenerative agriculture practices use minimal to no tillage, cover crops, crop rotations, compost, and grazing. Organic agriculture incorporates most of these practices and emphasizes biological, not synthetic, management. There are three overarching practices that improve carbon sequestration in soils: increasing biomass inputs, decreasing SOC losses, and increasing the mean residence time (MRT) of SOC.
Specific soil management practices that affect soil health include:


Eileen Gonzales

Eileen Gonzales is an American astrophysicist and postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University, where her research focuses on exoplanets. She is also a co-founder and lead organiser of #BlackInPhysics, a campaign to recognise and celebrate Black physicists and amplify their work.
Education.
Gonzales grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She studied astrophysics at Michigan State University, and obtained her Master's in Physics from San Francisco State University. She joined the City University of New York Graduate Center for her graduate studies, obtaining an MA from Hunter College, an MPhil in Physics, and her PhD in 2020. During her doctoral research, she investigated the atmospheric conditions of low-mass stars and brown dwarves.
Research career.
Gonzales is a 51 Pegasi b Fellow at the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University, where she combines techniques and knowledge from observational astronomy and theoretical astrophysics to study the atmospheric conditions of exoplanets. In particular, she works on translating techniques initially developed to study the clouds of brown dwarfs to study atmosphere of other substellar objects, such as gas giant exoplanets. She is also a visiting scientist at the American Museum of Natural History.
Outreach and advocacy.
Gonzales is involved with science education and outreach programs. During her doctoral studies she worked at the American Museum of Natural History, supervising and mentoring high school students and teaching astronomy.
Gonzales was also a lead organiser of the first #BlackInPhysics Week alongside Charles D. Brown II and Jessica Esquivel, leading an initiative that aimed to increase the recognition of Black physicists and celebrate their contributions to science. The campaign was inspired by the success of similar #BlackInX programs, such as Black Birders Week, and was supported by organisations including "Nature Physics", the American Institute of Physics, "Physics Today", and "Physics World". BlackInPhysics also set out to create a community of support for Black physicists, raise awareness of the social and political challenges faced by Black physicists, and provide more visibility to Black role models in science.


Dark Era


Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE) is a multi-institutional Physics Frontiers Center funded by the US National Science Foundation since 2014. From 2003-2014, JINA was a collaboration between Michigan State University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, and directed by Michael Wiescher from the University of Notre Dame. Principal investigators were Hendrik Schatz, Timothy Beers and Jim Truran.
JINA-CEE is a collaboration between Michigan State University, the University of Notre Dame, University of Washington and Arizona State University and a number of associated institutions, centers, and national laboratories in the US and across the world, with the goal to bring together nuclear experimenters, nuclear theorists, astrophysical modelers, astrophysics theorists, and observational astronomers to address the open scientific questions at the intersection of nuclear physics and astrophysics. JINA-CEE serves as an intellectual center and focal point for the field of nuclear astrophysics, and is intended to enable scientific work and exchange of data and information across field boundaries within its collaboration, and for the field as a whole though workshops, schools, and web-based tools and data bases. It is led by director Hendrik Schatz with Michael Wiescher, Timothy Beers, Sanjay Reddy and Frank Timmes as principal investigators.
Most JINA-CEE nuclear physics experiments are carried out at the Nuclear Science Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame, the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University and the ATLAS/CARIBOU facility at Argonne National Laboratory. JINA-CEE is heavily involved in observations with the Apache Point Observatory within the framework of extensions to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, LAMOST in China, SkyMapper in Australia, and the Hubble Space Telescope. Among many other observational data, JINA-CEE also uses heavily X-ray observational data from BeppoSAX, RXTE, Chandra, XMM-Newton, and INTEGRAL. JINA stimulated the development of similar centers in other countries, and collaborates with a number of multi-institutional nuclear astrophysics centers in Germany, including NAVI, EMMI and the Universe Cluster in Munich.
REACLIB Database.
One of the many projects of JINA-CEE is the maintenance of an up-to-date nuclear reaction rate library called REACLIB. REACLIB contains over 75,000 thermonuclear reaction rates.
Virtual Journal.
Nuclear astrophysics is made of many overlapping disciplines, spanning fields in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics. In order to understand the origin of the elements, or the evolution and deaths of stars in galaxies, quite a broad base of knowledge is required. JINA-CEE created two virtual journals in order to meet the need for coverage of this broad-based information. The JINA Virtual Journal debuted in 2003, and reviews a broad realm of nuclear astrophysics, followed by the SEGUE Virtual Journal in 2006, focusing more on Galactic Chemical and Structural evolution. Each week, the editors search almost 40 refereed journals for newly published articles. Editors review the articles, flagging those that are relevant, and categorize them into their respective subjects (which are searchable by individual users). When the virtual journals are published, an email notification is sent to subscribers informing them of the newly available selections from the Virtual Journals.
Education.
Education, outreach, and creating inclusive environments are high priorities for JINA-CEE. JINA-CEE has a multitude of educational and outreach programs aimed at attracting young people to science careers, research training, and disseminating research findings to the public. Educational programs target audiences ranging from K-12 to Graduate Students and Postdocs.


Robeson Planetarium and Science Center

The Robeson Planetarium and Science Center is located in Lumberton, North Carolina. It is operated by the Public Schools of Robeson County for instruction in astronomy, geology, physics and other science topics. It is a member of the NASA Museum Alliance, International Planetarium Society, SouthEastern Planetarium Association, and Carolina Association of Planetarium Educators.
The facility has been closed since the building housing the planetarium was destroyed in 2016 by Hurricane Matthew and further damaged by Hurricane Florence in 2018. The county plans to rebuild but lacks funding and has been operating in the schools and at public events using portable equipment since


Solar eclipse of August 3, 2054

A partial solar eclipse will occur on Monday, August 3, 2054. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A partial solar eclipse occurs in the polar regions of the Earth when the center of the Moon's shadow misses the Earth. This event will be the 71st and final event of Solar Saros 117.