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Date: Tue,  3 Jul 1990 02:23:36 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #7

SPACE Digest                                       Volume 12 : Issue 7

Today's Topics:
	    Re: Reflections on (Edwin P.) Hubble and NASA
	   Re: RE  Hubble Space Telescope Update - 06/28/90
			 Unexplained Circles

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Date: 2 Jul 90 19:26:08 GMT
From: usc!jarthur!bridge2!3comvax!michaelm@ucsd.edu  (Michael McNeil)
Subject: Re: Reflections on (Edwin P.) Hubble and NASA

ron@mlfarm.uucp (Ronald Florence) writes:

>fax0112@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes:
>>Lets draw a lesson from Hubble himself.  He first studied law and 
>>passed the bar.  He then enlisted and became an officer.  Later 
>>he turned Yerkes,  'a moribund institution', into a major research
>>center and made many famous discoveries.  Pretty good for such a
>>humble start in the wrong direction.
>
>Hubble's autobiography shouldn't be trusted any more
>than his British accent, which was pure affectation.  Yerkes was
>hardly a "moribund" institution before Hubble's arrival.  Under Hales
>it was probably the premier institution for astronomical research in
>the United States.  Hubble dismissed the work of Shapley and his other
>predecessors at Mount Wilson as "of no significance" which is
>remarkably like the NASA press releases which described the Hubble
>Space Telescope as the most important event in astronomy since Galileo.

Edwin Hubble made two outstanding discoveries in his life -- he
discovered that the Milky Way isn't the only galaxy in the universe,
and he discovered that the universe as a whole is expanding.  (For a
while after the former discovery, galaxies like the Milky Way were
termed "island universes," a phrase I always thought quite romantic.)  
Most people would be satisfied with one Columbus- or Galileo-caliber
discovery.  Personally, I'm willing to forgive a little "affectation"
and even some personal grandstanding, in return for his discoveries.

--
Michael McNeil			michaelm@vax.DSD.3Com.COM (3comvax.UUCP)
3Com Corporation		ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm
Santa Clara, California		work telephone: (408) 492-1790 x 5-208

	Extremely little is known of the nature of nebulae; and no
	classification has yet been suggested....  The agreement
	[between the velocity of escape from a spiral nebula and
	that of our galaxy] is such as to lend some color to the
	hypothesis that the spirals are stellar systems at
	distances to be measured often in millions of light years.  
		Edwin P. Hubble, 1920, "Photographic investigations
		of faint nebulae" (Ph.D. thesis), publication
		delayed 3 years by World War I

	Critical tests made with the 100-inch reflector, the
	highest resolving power available, show no difference
	between the photographic images of the so-called
	condensations in Messier 33 and the images of ordinary
	galactic stars....  The period-luminosity relation is
	conspiculus among the thirty-five Cepheids and indicates
	a distance about 8.1 times that of the Small Magellanic
	Cloud.  Using Shapley's value for the latter, the
	distance of the spiral is about 263,000 parsecs.  
		Edwin P. Hubble, 1926a, "A spiral nebula as a
		stellar system," *Astrophys. J. 63*, 236-274  

	The present investigation [using Cepheid variables for the
	first time as an indicator of distances beyond the Magellanic
	clouds] identifies NGC 6822 as an isolated system of stars
	and nebulae of the same type as the Magellanic clouds,
	although somewhat smaller and much more distant.  A
	consistent structure is thus reared on the foundation of
	the Cepheid criterion, in which the dimensions, luminosities,
	and densities, both of the system [NGC 6822] as a whole and
	its separate members, are of orders of magnitude which are
	thoroughly familiar.  The distance is the only quantity of
	a new order.  The principle of the uniformity of nature thus
	seems to rule undisturbed in this remote region of space.  
		Edwin P. Hubble, "NGC 6822, a remote stellar system,"
		*Astrophys. J. 62*, 409-433  

	The data ... indicate a linear correlation between distances
	and velocities [for extragalactic nebulae].  Two solutions
	have been made, one using the 24 nebulae individually, the
	other combining them into 9 groups according the proximity
	in direction and distance.  The results are ... 24 objects:
	K = 465 +- 50 km/sec per 10**6 parsecs; 9 groups: K = 513
	+- 60 km/sec per 10**6 parsecs....  The outstanding feature,
	however, is the possibility that the velocity-distance
	relation may represent the de Sitter effect, and hence
	that numerical data may be introduced into discussions
	of the general curvature of space.  
		Edwin P. Hubble, 1929, "A relation between distance
		and radial velocity among extragalactic nebulae,"
		*Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S. 15*, 169-173

	Many ways of producing such effects [redshifts in
	extragalactic nebulae] are known, but of them all, only
	one will produce large redshifts without introducing other
	effects which should be conspicuous but actually are not
	found.  This one known permissible explanation interprets
	redshifts as due to actual motion away from the observer.  
		Edwin P. Hubble, 1934a, *Red-shifts in the
		spectra of nebulae* (Halley Lecture)

	We now have a hasty sketch of some of the general features
	of the observable region as a unit.  The next step will be
	to follow the reconnaissance with a survey -- to repeat
	carefully the explorations with an eye to accuracy and
	completeness.  The program, with its emphasis on methods,
	will be a tedious series of successive approximations.  
		Edwin P. Hubble, 1934b, "The distribution of
		extra-galactic nebulae," *Astrophys. J. 79*, 8-76

------------------------------

Date: 2 Jul 90 20:41:57 GMT
From: mojo!SYSMGR%KING.ENG.UMD.EDU@mimsy.umd.edu  (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: RE  Hubble Space Telescope Update - 06/28/90

In article <5188@plains.UUCP>, overby@plains.UUCP (Glen Overby) writes:
>In article <00938EED.5338EF60@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU> sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) writes:
>>If Hubble was run on a shoe-string budget, instead of big bucks...well...
>>I can't help but think the thing would have A) Gotten off the ground about
>>4 years sooner and B) Given us more than we bargained for.
>
>HST was trundled across the country for launch two previous times, but was
>delayed both times by shuttle problems.  Complaint "A" above isn't the HST
>project's fault (except that they should have chosen a different booster).

If Hubble hadn't been designed as an "oversized payload" (ie: Shuttle bay)
they could have popped it onto a Titan just as easily. Instead, it is an
exceptionally complex piece of machinery in LEO....

What kind of science do you think we could have gotten out of two
"Half-Hubbles" which could have been launched either by Titan or Shuttle?

------------------------------

Date: 29 Jun 90 18:36:02 GMT
From: sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!peregrine!ccicpg!felix!dhw68k!ofa123!Mark.Perew@ucsd.edu  (Mark Perew)
Subject: Unexplained Circles

I thought that I had read somewhere that this phenomena of near
perfect circles was caused by the freezing of subsurface water.  
A somewhat complex mechanism of expansion and contraction was
(over time) causing the soil to ripple when the water found at
a depth of a few centimeters froze.
 
I wish I could provide a reference, but I can't recall where I 
saw this.


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uucp:     Mark Perew
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End of SPACE Digest V12 #7
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