Fascinating Facts - "Space"

[Batu Kawa]

The "Herschel Mission", together with the new updates to the Hubble cameras will prove to be a major contribution to Space Exploration.

[Batu Kawa]

What were the first words spoken by a human being on
the Moon?

And no, they weren't the 'one small step' quote.

Buzz Aldrin actually has the honour of having made the
first utterance when, as the legs of the Lunar Lander
touched down he reported to mission control, "Contact
light."

Only 12 men have (so far) landed on the Moon and
returned safely to Earth: Armstrong, Aldrin, Conrad,
Bean, Shepard, Mitchell, Scott, Irwin, Young, Duke,
Cernan and Schmitt.

A 13th, in one sense, is still there. Geologist and
Astronomer Eugene Shoemaker's ashes were crash landed
aboard NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft on 31st July
1999, making his the only human remains on the Moon.

[Spitfire]

I can vividly remember the touring exhibition of one of the lunar landing craft in Blackburn ,many years ago. One piece I can still visualise is a small glass dome containing a lump of moon rock. One of those special moments you never forget.

Batu, I wonder if the facility at UCLAN is there because of the influence of Jeremiah Horrocks in the town?
His `Transit of Venus` observation in the 17th century is still one of the world`s greatest astronomical discoveries.

[Alan Marsden]

The Jeremiah Horrocks observatory at the north western corner of Preston's Moor Park, (I'm assuming it's still there and has not yet been converted into a mosque) , is that the basis for UCLAN ?

[rocketmanjohn]

When I was having stents installed in my heart I kept drifting in and out of consciousness,doped up to the eyeballs and very happy, I was approached by the surgeon. He was very small with a large bald head and a funny colour under the theater lights. I well remember shouting 'Oh my God, it's the Mekon', remembered where I was and pretended to be asleep again. The look on the poor mans face was great.
John

[denlancs]

I remember going to the observatory whilst in the sixth form at Balshaws.Seeing the rings around Saturn was very impressive.

[Alan Marsden]

Yes . I too remember going there with my school (Preston Technical ) ,the gentleman in charge was Professor Vinicio Barocas .

http://www.btinternet.com/~roy.jackson/

[Batu Kawa]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spitfire

Batu, I wonder if the facility at UCLAN is there because of the influence of Jeremiah Horrocks in the town?
His `Transit of Venus` observation in the 17th century is still one of the world`s greatest astronomical discoveries.

---

Jeremiah Horrocks Institute launch
(21st February 2009)

The following extract from UCLAN's Press Release might help to show
the importance of the relationship between UCLAN and Jeremiah Horrocks

"The Centre for Astrophysics" will transform into the "Jeremiah
Horrocks Institute for Astrophysics and Supercomputing" (JHI for
short) over the course of 2009. This new institute draws in
researchers making use of high-performance computing in areas as
diverse as soft matter physics, bioinformatics and the structure
of galaxies.

Jeremiah Horrocks was the first person to observe a Transit of
Venus in 1639, at a stroke expanding the estimated size of the
Universe significantly. These observations took place just
outside Preston, where the University of Central Lancashire is
based. 370 years later we are honouring his memory by naming our
new Institute after him.

http://www.star.uclan.ac.uk/

[Batu Kawa]

As a follow up to my previous posting the information below might help
to explain "The Centre for Astrophysics at UCLAN

"The Centre for Astrophysics" was established in 1993 and has
developed areas of excellence in space-based and ground-based
astrophysics. In particular it has developed excellence in
observational and theoretical solar and stellar. More recently
there has been a rapid expansion in extragalactic astronomy and
cosmology.

Our research includes the following broad collaborations:

We have been instrumental in leading the UK involvement in the
Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) - the UK SALT Consortium.

SALT is the largest southern-hemisphere optical telescope, and
the CFA has privileged access.

We are a member of the COSMOS Consortium the UK's National
Cosmology Supercomputer.

We are a founding partner in the Commonwealth Cosmology
Initiative (CCI) an Australia-UK project (Sydney, ANU, Swinburne,
UCLan, Oxford and Cambridge) aimed at increasing awareness and
facilitating high-performance computational cosmology
collaborations.

We are a partner in the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE), an
ambitious Galactic Archaeology programme aimed at understanding
the formation and evolution of our Milky Way Galaxy.

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/scitech/research/.../index.php

[Alan Marsden]

Space - Mrs Brown - (speakers on ) !

http://dingo.care-mail.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf