Download The definition of a microscope: An instrument for viewing objects that

The definition of a microscope: An instrument for viewing objects that are too small to be seen easily by
the naked eye.
Circa 1284 - Italian, Salvino D'Armate is credited with inventing the first wearable eye glasses.
Hans Lippershey (ca. 1570-1619), a German-Dutch lens grinder and spectacle (glasses) maker, is
generally credited with inventing the telescope. This is because in 1608 Lippsershey became the first
scientist to apply for a patent for the telescope. (A patent is a grant made by a government that allows
the creator of invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period of time.)
1590 – Two Dutch eye glass makers, Zaccharias Janssen and son Hans Janssen experimented with
multiple lenses placed in a tube. The Janssens observed that viewed objects in front of the tube
appeared greatly enlarged, creating both the forerunner of the compound microscope and the
telescope.
Galileo greatly improved upon these designs the following year. He did not invent the telescope, but he
was just the first person to use it and also improve the telescope.
However, it was the astronomical observations recorded by Galileo in 1610 (including the discovery that
Jupiter has moons of its own) that is most closely associated with the first use of the telescope.
1665 – English physicist, Robert Hooke looked at a sliver of cork through a microscope lens and noticed
some "pores" or "cells" in it.
1674 – Anton van Leeuwenhoek built a simple microscope with only one lens to examine blood, yeast,
insects and many other tiny objects. Leeuwenhoek was the first person to describe bacteria, and he
invented new methods for grinding and polishing microscope lenses that allowed for curvatures
providing magnifications of up to 270 diameters, the best available lenses at that time.
Single women sometimes relied on other family members besides fathers for their education. Caroline
Herschel learned astronomy as an assistant to her brother William. (At first, her mother strongly
objected to Caroline moving from Germany to England where William lived. Her mother's consent was
won because William agreed to send money regularly to pay for a maid to do Caroline's domestic work.)
Only when William was away from home did Caroline have much opportunity to use the telescopes that
they and another brother had built together. In 1783, she discovered fourteen nebulae. Between 1786
and 1797, she discovered eight comets. She compiled a catalog of stars as requested by William, and
after his death she did another catalog for his son.
1830 – Joseph Jackson Lister reduces spherical aberration or the "chromatic effect" by showing that
several weak lenses used together at certain distances gave good magnification without blurring the
image. This was the prototype for the compound microscope.
1872 – Ernst Abbe, then research director of the Zeiss Optical Works, wrote a mathematical formula
called the "Abbe Sine Condition". His formula provided calculations that allowed for the maximum
resolution in microscopes possible.
1903 – Richard Zsigmondy developed the ultramicroscope that could study objects below the
wavelength of light. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1925.
1932 – Frits Zernike invented the phase-contrast microscope that allowed for the study of colorless and
transparent biological materials for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1953.
1931 – Ernst Ruska co-invented the electron microscope for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in
1986. An electron microscope depends on electrons rather than light to view an object, electrons are
speeded up in a vacuum until their wavelength is extremely short, only one hundred-thousandth that of
white light. Electron microscopes make it possible to view objects as small as the diameter of an atom.
1981 – Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invented the scanning tunneling microscope that gives threedimensional images of objects down to the atomic level. Binnig and Rohrer won the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1986. The powerful scanning tunneling microscope is the strongest microscope to date.
While Galileo's small looking glass was capable of magnifying objects about 20 to 30 times, today astronomers
employ enormous optical telescopes to gather space's visible light, as well as telescopes capable of measuring
radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum—from gamma rays emitted by pulsars to long radio waves from the
deepest regions of space. Today's best telescopes are astounding feats—and astronomers are improving them
constantly. Here are the five most powerful telescopes out today—and five more that will define the future of
astronomy.
The Five Most Powerful Telescopes Today
Keck Observatory, began science operations in 1993
Organization: Caltech and the University of California
Location: Mauna Kea, Hawaii
Claim to Fame: On the isolated big island of Hawaii sit Keck's twin telescopes, each 10 meters (about 33 ft) in
diameter. When they were built in the early 1990s they became the largest such spans in the world. Keck's advanced
adaptive optics paved the way for computer-driven mirrors that can be adjusted multiple times per second to make up
for atmospheric disturbances in real time.
Fun Fact: Though the Keck Observatory is more than 15 years old, it has essentially the same design and setup of
the more monstrous telescopes under planning or construction, says Caltech's Chuck Steidel, one of the designers of
the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope. "Keck Observatory is the prototype of the next generation," he told PM.
Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990
Organization: NASA and the European Space Agency
Location: Orbiting the Earth
Claim to Fame: By capturing iconic images such as the deep field, Crab Nebula and Eagle Nebula, Hubble has
become the world's most famous telescope. The final space shuttle mission to Hubble has encountered multiple
delays, but now is planned to launch in May. It will upgrade the telescope with enough new gear to keep it running
and viable into 2020, until its successor is ready for the stage.
Fun Fact: At 20 years old, Hubble runs on some old-school computing technology, including a relatively ancient Intel
486 processor. Hubble is one of NASA's four "great observatories"—the others include the Chandra X-Ray
Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.
Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003
Organization: NASA, JPL and Caltech
Location: Following the Earth around the sun
Claim to Fame: Spitzer is the last of NASA's four great observatories in space. But unlike its older sibling, Hubble,
which images mostly in visible light, Spitzer looks in infrared. So the telescope not only sees at a frequency that we
can't, it does so while trailing the Earth at about 0.1 AU (1 astronomical unit is the mean distance between the Earth
and sun, or about 92,956,000 miles), thus free from atmospheric distortion.
Fun Fact: Spitzer first spied the evidence of "hot Jupiters"—gas giants exoplanets roasting on one side and cool on
the other. And though facing its impending demise, Spitzer isn't through yet. NASA estimated in 2007 that the
telescope would exhaust its onboard helium supply this April, but in August the Spitzer team compiled this stunning
image of multiple generations of star formation.
Large Binocular Telescope, first light in October 2005
Organization: U.S., Japan and Germany collaboration
Location: Mount Graham, southeastern Arizona
Claim to Fame: The Large Binocular Telescope shows that two lenses are better than one. The LBT's two 8.4-meter
(about 28-ft) spans work together to provide as much resolution as would be derived from a single 11.8-meter mirror,
and are 10 times more powerful than Hubble's.
Fun Fact: This lonely mountaintop is a great place for undisturbed viewing, but the observatory's location has proven
problematic for other reasons. Environmentalists wanted the site moved to protect the peak's native red squirrels.
Some Native Americans from the Apache tribe opposed the telescope, saying that Mount Graham was a sacred
cultural site for them. And in both 1996 and 2004, wildfires raged dangerously close to the observatory, but left it
unscathed.
Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, launched in 2008
Organization: NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Sweden
Location: Low Earth orbit
Claim to Fame: It measures the most powerful radiation in the universe. Supermassive black holes, the collisions of
neutron stars and some supernovae produce bursts of gamma rays that carry far more energy than anything possible
on Earth. Thankfully, the Earth's atmosphere shields us from this cosmic barrage, so any telescope seeking to
measure gamma rays must do so from orbit.
Fun Fact: Even NASA was not a fan of this mouthful of a name. The mission was formerly called the Gamma Ray
Large Area Space Telescope (and dubbed with the gruff acronym GLAST), until NASA asked for suggestions that
better captured the telescope's mission to investigate some of the universe's strangest phenomena. They eventually
renamed the telescope after 20th-century physicist Enrico Fermi, and have taken to calling it simply "Fermi."
Five Telescopes to Define the Future
The Kepler Mission, planned for April 2009 launch
Organization: NASA
Location: Somewhere within 0.5 AU of Earth
Claim: Kepler will be a planet hunter—its strict goal is to find Earth-like worlds. To locate them, the telescope is
looking for transits—times when terrestrial-size planets cross in front of their star, temporarily darkening it. If the
darkening is just the right amount, and happens on a regular schedule, that could be evidence of an Earth-sized
world.
Fun Fact: Rather than staying in Earth orbit, Kepler will trail our home world, following it around the sun. This allows
the telescope to escape the turbulence of Earth's gravity, and keeps it off of the planetary plane, which would allow it
to see farther into space without interference from the sun, the moon or the Earth.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, opening in 2012
Organization: Science Agencies from North America, Europe and Japan
Location: 16,000 ft up in the Chilean Andes
Claim: When this array of 66 radio antennas spread across 10 miles opens, it will be the world's most advanced radio
telescope.
Fun Fact: If you think building a radio array is easy, try doing it in the Andes. Later this year, two 1400-hp transport
vehicles, balanced with hydraulic auto-leveling, will begin ferrying the antennas up to the site of the array, 16,500 ft
above sea level. Workers will be allowed to stay up in that thin air for 8 hours at most. Installing each antenna will
take a crew 3 months of work.
James Webb Space Telescope, coming in 2013
Organization: NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency
Location: Earth orbit
Claim: James Webb Space Telescope will be the successor to Hubble, which, after almost two decades in space, is
approaching the end of its life. But it won't be exactly the same—Hubble observes primarily the visible light range,
while the James Webb's instruments focus mostly on infrared. The new telescope will have seven times the collecting
power of its predeccesor, according to NASA.
Fun Fact: James Webb was the man who ran NASA from 1961 to 1968, during the prime years of the Apollo
program's development. Though most famous for manned space exploration, he also promoted the Pioneer and
Mariner unmanned programs, which brought the first flyby pictures of other planets.
Giant Magellan Telescope, beginning construction in 2011
Organization: A consortium of nine universities and research centers
Location: Las Campanas Observatory, near La Serena, Chile
Claim: Where the Large Binocular Telescope boasts two large mirrors working in tandem, the Giant Magellan raises
the ante to seven mirrors, each 8.4 meters (about 28 ft) across. The Steward Observatory, which is inside the
University of Arizona football stadium, is currently building the mirrors.
Fun Fact: The elevation and remoteness of the Chilean Andes makes for great stellar observation. ALMA is under
construction nearby, the European Very Large Telescope also resides in Chile, and the Giant Magellan Telescope
will be neighbors with its little siblings, the twin 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes that began operation in the early
2000s.
Thirty-Meter Telescope, still in design stage
Organization: Caltech, the University of California, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in
Astronomy
Location: Chile or Hawaii, yet to be decided
Claim: As the name suggests, the telescope's main mirror would stretch 30 meters (about 98 ft) across. The main
mirror is also segmented into 492 smaller ones, each capable of changing shape and position on the fly. TMT
scientists plan to look back in time to the universe's early days to find out how galaxies and stars truly formed.
Fun Fact: Even if the Thirty Meter Telescope secures its funding, finishes construction and becomes the world's
largest telescope, it might not hold the title for too long. The proposed European Extremely Large Telescope could
have a span of 42 meters, and is right on the Thirty Meter Telescope's heels. That size is actually scaled down from
the first design for the EELT, which called for a monumental 100-meter lens carrying the brash moniker of
Overwhelmingly Large Telescope. That football-field-size telescope proposal turned out to be a bit too complex and
expensive to build.