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Posted on May 16, 2021
Telescopes are the most recognizable tool in the astronomer’s toolkit, but equally important are the tools for recording astronomical data. In the 19th century, they included glass photographic plates, which captured snapshots of the night sky through the telescope, and notebooks for recording observations and measurements from the plates.
The 24-inch Bruce Doublet telescope installed in Arequipa, Peru. (Courtesy of Harvard College Observatory)
Left: Glass plate photograph taken in Arequipa in 1925. (Courtesy of Harvard). Right: Cover of Annie Jump Cannon’s notebook featuring ‘Observations in Arequipa.’ (Courtesy of Harvard (Image ID: phaedra2228))
Beginning in 1885, the Harvard College Observatory (now part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) began an ambitious project to survey the entire night sky. Astronomers at Harvard’s central observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its new observatory in Arequipa,
April 5th, 2021, 4:15PM / BY Emily A. Margolis
Christina Koch (left) poses for a portrait with Jessica Meir while preparing for their first spacewalk together. (Image courtesy of NASA)
Much has changed since the first American spaceflight in 1961: NASA has explored new places with new programs, new people, and new technologies. Yet some of the language popularly used to describe these activities has not kept pace with the evolution of America’s space program. Specifically, the adjectives “manned” and “unmanned,” early NASA mission classifications that designated the participation or absence of astronauts (at first, only men), persist in writing and discussions of spaceflight today. What’s the problem with using this outdated terminology?