Liquid Mirror Telescopes

Astronomers have long thought of constructing a telescope out of mercury. The reason is that such telescopes would be able to point straight up, and it is best direction to look, because line of sight passes through the least amount of atmosphere.

The author reports the progress his group has made constructing a 6-meter liquid-mirror telescope, and he discusses plans for other instruments of this kind to be built at more suitable sites—perhaps even on the Moon.

Tagged as science liquid mercury space telescope

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Apr 25 2007 04:02 am

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New from Mars

Europe's comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta has sent back new images of Mars after swooping over the planet's surface at the weekend.The craft came within just 250 kilometres of the Red Planet and used Martian gravity to swing its course onward, as it pursues its looping mission around the solar system.During a dramatic 15 minutes, the probe disappeared from mission control screens as it passed the far side of Mars in relation to Earth.Then the spacecraft was forced to switch from solar to battery power for even longer as it traversed a Martian solar eclipse. Via Abc.net.au

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Bill Gates will get a college degree

So, enough about Jobs, let's talk about Gates now. Gates, who dropped out of Harvard and co-founded Microsoft Corp. to become the world's richest person, stopped off at his former stomping grounds to collect an honorary law degree, Reuters reports. "I've been waiting for more than 30 years to say this, Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree," Gates, 51, told the crowd, which included his father, also named Bill. "I'll be changing my job next year, and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume," said Gates in a reference to his plan

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