XTF Search Results (docsPerPage=100;f138-type=Photographic)

Starry night at Yerkes.

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Can you find the satellite in this time-lapse photo of the night sky over Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin?

Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope after the integration of the burst monitor.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Known as the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope prior to launch, the Fermi telescope includes two primary instruments: the Large Area Telescope with which astronomers can observe and study active galactic nuclei, pulsars, dark matter signatures, and other high-energy phenomena; and the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor to study gamma-ray bursts. This image shows the assembled telescope in the clean room prior to launch.

The Legacy of Uhuru.

Wed, 02 Dec 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Marjorie Townsend and a colleague with the Uhuru satellite. Dr. Townsend, who was the Project Manager of the Small Astronomy Satellite Program, named the satellite Uhuru, which means freedom in Swahili. Uhuru would go on to detect evidence of black holes, neutron stars, and vast expanses of hot gas in systems containing thousands of galaxies.

Apollo 7 Launch.

Tue, 01 Oct 1968 12:00:00 GMT

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. This challenge guided the work of NASA and accelerated technology development through 17 Apollo Missions that took place between the years of 1967 and 1972. The President’s goal was achieved on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong stepped off the Lunar Module's ladder and onto the Moon's surface. This image shows the launch of Apollo 7 in 1968, the first Apollo mission to carry a crew into space.

HEAO-2.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Renamed the Einstein Observatory after launch, the image on the left shows HEAO-2 during pre-flight testing.

Reviewing Data From the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE).

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Dr. Gerald Fishman of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), a principal investigator of the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory's (GRO's) instrument, the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), and Dr. Chryssa Kouveliotou of Universities Space Research Associates review data from the BATSE.

AXAF.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Renamed the Chandra X-ray Observatory after launch, this image shows AXAF during pre-launch testing.

Aerobee Rocket.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Aerobee was a small, unguided sub-orbital sounding rocket, which is a rocket that carries research instruments. The Aerobees were used for high atmospheric and cosmic radiation research in the United States in the 1950s.

Atomic Pile [layer - photograph].

Sun, 01 Nov 1942 12:00:00 GMT

Photograph taken November 1942 during construction of the first nuclear reactor as the 19th layer of graphite was added. Layer 18, almost covered in the picture, contained uranium; alternate layers of graphite containing uranium metal and uranium oxide were spaced by layers of dead graphite. Construction was carried on in this manner to the 57th layer, which was one layer beyond critical or operating dimensions. The roughly spherical form of the structure is shown as is some of the supporting framework. The reactor was constructed under a section of the West Stands of the University of Chicago's Stagg Field, and was operated for the first time December 2, 1942.

Castle Bravo site.

Mon, 01 Mar 1954 12:00:00 GMT

The site of the test of the first hydrogen bomb by the United States on March 1, 1954. This was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States. This photograph shows the equipment used to the develop the test site, and the dirt foundation for the test structure.

Brooklyn College.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York. Established in 1930, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College (then a women's college) and the City College of New York (then a men's college). With the merger of these branches, Brooklyn College became the first public, co-educational liberal arts college in New York City.

Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Named in honor of the Nobel-prize winning Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope. It has eight-times greater resolution and can detect sources more than 20-times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope.

Dieter Hartmann in Peru.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Dieter Hartmann with his wife in Peru on one of their many travels.

Dieter Hartmann as a child.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Dieter Hartmann stands next to his mother on his first day of school holding an Easter cone full of candy.

Auger Detector.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Pierre Auger Observatory has 1,600 water tanks arrayed throughout a 1,200-square mile area in western Argentina. Each of the 3,000-gallon tanks is a particle detector for capturing cosmic rays. The Auger Observatory uses both water tanks and optical detectors to measure the cosmic ray air showers.

GRIS germanium detectors.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

GRIS consists of seven of the world's largest, high-purity, n-type germanium (Ge) detectors. The detectors are cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures (in order to achieve high resolution) and are surrounded by a thick anti-coincidence shield which allows the rejection of background events from true astrophysical events.

Balloon-borne experiment.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The balloon and GRIS payload head up to a float altitude of approximately 40 km. At float, the 39-million cubic foot balloon will expand to about the size of a football field.

Giacconi and Uhuru.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Riccardo Giacconi stands with the Uhuru satellite, circa 1970.

Horsehead Nebula, 1900.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Horsehead nebula is a dark interstellar cloud of dust and non-luminous gas situated 1,600 light years away in the direction of constellation Orion. This photographic image was made on January 25, 1900 by Isaac Roberts (1829-1904), an amateur astronomer.

James Franck.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

After winning the Nobel prize in 1926, the career of James Franck took several sharp turns as the world drifted toward war. Shortly after Hitler's rise to power, Franck resigned as a professor of physics at the University of Göttingen to protest the Nazis' newly passed anti-Semitic legislation. An academic refugee, he taught at Johns Hopkins and Copenhagen before making his way to The University of Chicago, where he remained on the faculty until his death in 1964.

Gerard P. Kuiper Airborne Observatory.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

For over twenty years, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) was operated as the world's only airborne telescope devoted exclusively to astronomical research. KAO was named after the astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper. Carrying a 36-inch reflecting telescope, KAO was a converted C-141 military cargo plane with a 160-foot wingspan. Flying at altitudes of 41,000 to 45,000 feet, above 99 percent of the Earth's infrared-absorbing water vapor, KAO was capable of conducting infrared astronomy. Harvey would have observed from behind the telescope; the telescope was looking out the hole in the roof behind the cockpit.

Keck Mirror Assembly.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The twin Keck telescopes are located on Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano in Hawaii. The telescopes are the largest optical and infrared telescopes in the world with segmented mirrors that are made up of 36 hexagonal shaped mirrors each. Each 10-inch telescope stands eight stories tall and weighs 300 tons.

Signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 10/07/1963.

Mon, 07 Oct 1963 12:00:00 GMT

U.S. Senators look on as President John F Kennedy sits at a desk in the Treaty Room of the White House and signs the Limited Test Ban Treaty. On August 5, 1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. After Senate approval, it was signed by President Kennedy on October 7, 1963. The treaty went into effect on October 11, 1963, and banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water.

Virginia Farm Bureau News.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Sputnik's launch captured the eye of the world, and Virginia, where Harvey Moseley grew up, is no exception. This article, which appeared in a Virginia newspaper soon after the launch of Sputnik, asks the question: Why did the U.S. lag behind Russia in getting a satellite into orbit around the Earth?

Kraushaar and Clark.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Professors William Kraushaar and George Clark close the air-tight cover on the balloon gondola that carried the second of their two (unsuccessful) balloon experiments in search for high-energy cosmic gamma rays.

Bruno Rossi.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Professor Bruno Rossi supervises as a student assembles equipment for a cosmic ray balloon experiment in 1948.

Marshall Space Flight Center.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The building in this photograph is the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is a laboratory for cutting-edge science and engineering research. It is a collaboration between NASA, Alabama universities, and other governmental agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. This is where Chryssa works.

Full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Northrop Grummon built an actual-size model of the JWST to help them better understand its size, scale, and complexity. The model is made of aluminum and steel, weighs 12,000 lbs., and is 80 feet high x 40 ft wide x 40 ft tall. The model visited a number of sites, including Dublin, Ireland, where it is pictured here in June 2007. On land, the model travels in 2 trucks and it takes 12 people 4 days to assemble it.

Yerkes Observatory.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The 40-inch refracting telescope at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago.

CoBE Spacecraft Construction.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

In 1989, the Cosmic Background Explorer (CoBE) spacecraft was launched into an Earth orbit to make a full sky map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. CoBE found very subtle irregularities in the otherwise very uniform CMB, findings that are considered important evidence in support of the Big Bang theory.

James Webb Space Telescope Mirrors.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The JWST will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter. The mirror is being built in segments and will be mounted on a structure that will fold up to fit into a rocket. The mirror will then unfold after launch. In this picture, a team of engineers and technicians from NASA and Ball Aerospace prepare to load three of the JWST mirror segments into a test chamber at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. There, they will subject the segments to temperatures reaching minus 414 degrees Fahrenheit -- ensuring the mirror segments can withstand the extreme temperatures of space.

Microshutters.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) Near-infrared Spectrograph will use microshutters that act like tiny doorways to block unwanted light from nearby objects in space, while allowing light from very distant stars and galaxies to shine through. The microshutters are assembled as an array about the size of a postage stamp. Each array contains over 62,000 shutters. Individually, each microshutter measures 100 by 200 microns, or about the width of a human hair. The telescope will contain four of these microshutter arrays.

JWST Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec).

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Many of the objects that JWST will study, such as the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang, are so faint, that its giant mirror must stare at them for hundreds of hours in order to collect enough light to form a spectrum. In order to study thousands of galaxies during its 5 year mission, the NIRSpec is designed to observe 100 objects simultaneously. The NIRSpec will be the first spectrograph in space that has this multi-object capability.

V-2 Rocket.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

A V-2 rocket is hoisted into a static test facility at White Sands, New Mexico. The German engineers and scientists who developed the V-2 came to the United States at the end of World War II and continued rocket testing under the direction of the U. S. Army, launching more than sixty V-2s.

Naval Research Laboratory.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Naval Research Laboratory is the corporate research laboratory for the Navy and Marine Corps. It is located in Washington, D.C.

The VERITAS Array.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) is a system of four ground-based telescopes focused on gamma-ray science. Since gamma-rays cannot penetrate the atmosphere, the telescopes are detecting the particles created when gamma-ray photons collide with the atmosphere. Optical telescopes can then image the display the secondary particles make when passing through the atmosphere.

Orbiting Astronomical Observatory-3.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

OAO-3 was launched on August 21, 1972. It carried an X-ray detector built by University College of London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory and an 80-cm UV telescope built by Princeton University. After its launch, it was named Copernicus to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus operated until February 1981, and returned high resolution spectra of hundreds of stars along with extensive X-ray observations. This picture shows OAO-3 in the clean room at Kennedy Space Center.

OSO Construction.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The objectives of the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) satellite series were to perform solar physics experiments above the atmosphere during a complete solar cycle and to map the celestial sphere for direction and intensity of UV light, X-rays, and gamma radiation. The OSO-1, built by Ball Aerospace, was the first satellite to have pointed instruments and onboard tape recorders for data storage.

Guiseppe “Beppo” Occhialini.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Italian-Dutch Satellite for X-ray astronomy, Beppo-Sax, was named for Giuseppe Occhialini. The satellite played a crucial role in resolving the origin of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).

Robert Oppenheimer receiving the Enrico Fermi Award from President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

President John F. Kennedy awarded Oppenheimer the Fermi Award for his contributions to theoretical physics. President Johnson (on the right) shakes hands with Oppenheimer as he presents the award about one week after President Kennedy’s assassination.

Io - crescent with plumes.

Tue, 10 Jul 1979 12:00:00 GMT

Voyager 2 took this picture of Io July 10, 1979, from a range of 1.2 million kilometers (750,000 miles). The image was part of an extensive sequence of "volcano watch" pictures of Io. The sunlit crescent of Io is seen at the left, and the night side illuminated by light reflected from Jupiter can also be seen. Three volcanic eruption plumes are visible on the limb. All three were previously seen by Voyager 1. On the bright limb Plume 5 (upper) and Plume 6 (lower) are about 100 kilometers high, while Plume 2 on the dark limb is about 185 kilometers high and 325 kilometers wide. The "volcano watch" sequence of pictures told us that these volcanoes are persistent, change with time, and are larger and last longer than those on Earth.

President Nixon Visits Apollo 11 Crew in quarantine.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

President Richard M. Nixon welcomes the Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the U.S.S. Hornet, the prime recovery ship for the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing mission. Pictured are (left to right) Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot. Apollo 11 splashed down on July 24, 1969, about 812 nautical miles southwest of Hawaii.

Ranch school students display their hunting success.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Hunting expeditions were a regular occurrence at the Ranch school. Six students stand or kneel before their captures.

Dr. Robert H. Goddard and His Rockets.

Sun, 09 Apr 1905 12:00:00 GMT

Dr. Goddard and liquid oxygen-gasoline rocket in the frame from which it was fired on March 16, 1926, at Auburn, Massachusetts. It flew for only 2.5 seconds, climbed 41 feet, and landed 184 feet away in a cabbage patch. From 1930 to 1941, Dr. Goddard made substantial progress in the development of progressively larger rockets, which attained altitudes of 7800 feet.

Bruno Rossi.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Bruno Rossi standing before the multiplate cloud chamber used by his Cosmic Ray Group at MIT, 1954.

Wernher von Braun.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

A pioneer of America's space program, Dr. von Braun stands by the five F-1 engines of the Saturn V Dynamic Test Vehicle on display at the U.S. Space And Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, circa 1969. Dr. von Braun served as the first director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and was the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.

Science Talent Search of 1945.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Winners of the 1945 Westinghouse Science Talent Search assemble with Vice-President Harry S. Truman. George Clark was among the top ten finalists who were selected as winners. He stands 6th from the left in the back row.

Space Shuttle.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

As humanity's first reusable spacecraft,NASA's space shuttle fleet began setting records with its first launch on April 12, 1981. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis, the shuttle has carried people into orbit repeatedly, and launched, recovered and repaired satellites. The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, ended July 21, 2011 when Atlantis rolled to a stop at its home port, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A sixth shuttle, Enterprise, was used for testing, but never flew in space. Two shuttles failed and crashed in flight, but the remaining four shuttles are on display at public viewing sites around the country.

Sputnik Satellite.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Sputnik 1 satellite, shown here on a rigging truck in the assembly shop, was successfully launched and entered Earth's orbit on October 4, 1957. Sputnik shocked the world, giving the Soviet Union the distinction of sending the first human-made object into space and placing the United States a step behind in the space race.

Squash court under Stagg field bleachers.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

A transformed squash court housed history's first successful nuclear pile. [Enrico] Fermi chose this room because it was the only space available with ceilings high enough to permit construction of the latticed cube-like structure of graphite bricks embedded with Uranium 235.

V-2 Experiments.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

As the Army set to work with V-2 rockets at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, scientific users were invited to fill the space of the 2000-pound warhead with instruments. E.O. Hulburt at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Optics Division jumped at the chance. Between 1946 and 1951, the NRL undertook 80 experiments using V-2 rockets that provided new and valuable information about the nature of Earth's upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The first launch, on October 10, 1946, delivered the first recorded solar spectrum of the Sun from above Earth's atmosphere.

Preparing plant bed, tobacco series, Dinwiddie County.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Modern farming requires machinery such as the tractor (foreground) and truck (background) seen in this image. Learning to use and maintain the equipment often spurs interest and expertise in how machines work.

XQC Sounding Rocket experiment:.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The sounding rocket took 15 minute flights to 240 km altitude and would land by parachute. This is the first test of the microcalorimeter in space.

XRS-2.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The XRS (X-ray Spectrometer) originated from Harvey's early ideas. This image shows the the second XRS in its front-end assembly which is filled with helium to keep the detector extrememly cold. The small, silvery blocking filter at the center of the image prevents optical, ultraviolet, and infrared light from entering the detector behind it, but allows X-rays to pass through. XRS-2 was launched on the Japanese spacecraft Suzaku in 2005, but it failed after launch. The first of the spectrometers, XRS-1, launched on the Astro-E spacecraft in 2000, but the launch failed and the spacecraft was destroyed.

Luis Alvarez.

Sat, 15 Apr 1905 12:00:00 GMT

http://ecuip-xtf.lib.uchicago.edu/xtf/view?docId=grxr/apf1-00154/apf1-00154.dc.xml Sat, 15 Apr 1905 12:00:00 GMT

Ernest O Lawrence.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Ernest O Lawrence sitting at his desk in his office.

Neil Armstrong on the Moon.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

This is one of the few photographs of Neil Armstrong on the moon; most images are of Buzz Aldrin. Neil Armstrong is standing in the shadow of the Eagle lunar module. The image was captured by Buzz Aldrin.

X-ray Quantum Calorimeter (XQC).

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Image of the XQC array mounted on a circuit board and installed in the flight detector box. The XQC experiment is composed of a 36 pixel microcalorimeter X-ray detector. The entire array is micromachined from a single piece of silicon with each pixel measuring 0.5 x 2.0 mm.

Main Street in Hiroshima.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The center of Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. The street indicated in this photograph is approximately one half (0.5) mile from the location where the bomb was detonated indicating the extent of the devastation to the city’s buildings and roads.

Devastation at Hiroshima.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Two personnel inspect a ruined building in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Center of Hiroshima.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The center of Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.The bomb destroyed approximately three-fourths of the city and killed an estimated 80,000 people immediately, with thousands more dying later from injuries and radiation poisoning. Records lead us to believe that the bomb touched down approximately halfway between the two smokestacks in this image.

Investigating Light.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Teachers from seven Chicago high schools work as a team with students to understand the astronomical uses of spectroscopy. This picture was taken at The University of Chicago in July 2013 as part of the NASA-funded All-Stars Program, led by Don York and his staff. The teachers and students are assembling paper spectroscopes created by the Solar Center at Stanford University.

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory being released from the Shuttle.

Mon, 01 Apr 1991 12:00:00 GMT

The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in April 1991. The photograph was taken by a member of the shuttle crew through a window on the Atlantis shuttle as the astronauts use the shuttle arm to release the observatory into orbit. The earth is visible in the background.

McDonald Observatory.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The McDonald telescopes are located atop Mount Fowlkes (in the far background) and Mount Locke (in the foreground) in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. The telescopes are used by faculty and students in the University of Texas at Austin’s Astronomy department to study black holes and dark energy among other astronomical phenomena and mysteries.

Swift Detector Module.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

On the right you can see the CZT detectors that form one 8 x 16 array.

Ernest Rutherford in the lab.

Mon, 27 Mar 1905 12:00:00 GMT

Ernest Rutherford sitting in his lab (right) with his assistant, Hans Geiger. Circa 1913.

Explorer 11 Detector.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Kraushaar and Clark’s detector for Explorer 11 was designed to detect gamma rays above 50 MeV. The image on the left shows the detector. It measured 20 inches high, 10 inches in diameter, and weighed about 30 pounds. The image on the right is a diagram of the detector, which consisted of a sandwich crystal scintillator and a Lucite Cherenkov counter, surrounded by a plastic anticoincidence scintillator.

Virginia Farm Bureau News.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS).

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer is an instrument on the Chandra X-Ray Observatory that consists of an array of charged coupled devices. ACIS is especially useful because it can make X-ray images, and at the same time, measure the energy of each incoming X-ray, so that scientists can make pictures of objects using only X-rays produced by a single chemical element.

Pre-flight HEAO-2.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) was the first fully imaging X-ray telescope put into space and the second of NASA's three High Energy Astrophysical Observatories. Named HEAO-B before launch, the observatory's name was changed to honor Albert Einstein upon its successfully attaining orbit.

Eastern part of Chesterfield County, Virginia.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Photocopy of a manuscript map showing conferederate defensive fortifications, roads, rivers and names of property owners of Chesterfield County, Virginia, in 1864. Today there is an unincorporated town in eastern Chesterfield County called Moseley, Virginia. Perhaps this town was named after one of Harvey Moseley's ancestors.

M100 Galactic Nucleus.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, installed to correct Hubble's optics. The difference in clarity is dramatic and represents the realization of the anticipated quality of images from a space-based, optical telescope.

M100 Galactic Nucleus.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

This image was taken before the optics was fixed and demonstrates that the optical error generates images that are not much better than images taken with ground-based telescopes and were much less clear than expected. The picture is from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 1.

NASA’s Beginning.

Tue, 29 Jul 1958 12:00:00 GMT

Before the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, space exploration was primarily a military venture. On July 29, 1958, when the Space Act was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States established a civil space program that would be run by a new agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA. The Act charged NASA with eight objectives, including “the establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes.”

Charged couple device.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

A technician holds the Wide-Field Detector, a CCD device. It is one of three cameras that make up the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Uhuru Rocket.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Awaiting launch from the San Marco Platform in Kenya, Uhuru was the first satellite specifically for the purpose of X-ray astronomy. It was also known as the X-ray Explorer Satellite SAS-A, for Small Astronomy Satellite A, being first of the three-spacecraft SAS series.

Project Vanguard.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

Between 1955 and 1959, NRL conducted the first American satellite program, named Project Vanguard. On March 17, 1958, the Vanguard I satellite was successfully launched into Earth orbit. Just 6 inches (152 mm) in diameter and weighing 3 pounds (1.4 kg), Vanguard 1 was described by then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as, "The grapefruit satellite." Here NRL scientists from the Vanguard I team mount the satellite in the rocket. Vanguard 1 is the oldest artificial satellite still in space, as its predecessors, Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1, have fallen out of orbit.

A pair of Vela satellites in the clean room prior to launch.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Vela satellites are stacked one on top of the other in a clean room prior to the launch. The two polyhedron-shaped satellites (with 20 sides) would detach from each other after launch.

Vela 5b.

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 12:00:00 GMT

The Vela satellites provided much information useful to astronomers studying gamma radiation from space. Other Vela satellites operated for approximately one year, but Vela 5b was in service for more a decade, from 1969 to 1979.