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Key 1 European celestial globe 2 Clock-driven Chinese celestial globe 3 Arabic celestial globe 4 Epitome of the Almagest 5 Copernicus’s De revolutionibus 6 Galileo’s Dialogo Kepler’s Astronomia nova 7 Newton’s Principia 8 Ptolemaic armillary sphere 9 10 Copernican armillary sphere 11William Herschel’s seven-foot telescop 12 Speculum mirror made by William Herschel 13‘A Compendius View of Our Solar System’ 14 Mean motion orrery 15Poster for Messiah conducted by Herschel 16Salary letter from King George III 17 Glass positive of Pluto discovery 18 Pluto bumper sticker 19 Pluto bumper sticker Front cover Pioneer plaque image: NASA 20 Mars globe 21 Arecibo message illustration 22 ‘Dear ET’ Nature cover 23SuperWASP camera 24 Print of New Discoveries on the Moon 25 Astounding Science Fiction magazine 26 Science fiction paperbacks 27 Early popular science books 28 Moon Machine from A Grand Day Out 29 Model of a Mars Attacks! Martian 30Scale model of Herschel observatory 31COBE FIRAS mirror mechanism 32 Glass positive photograph of 1919 solar eclipse 33 Gravity Probe B gyroscope rotor and housing 34GEO-600 prototype test mass 35LIGO prototype beam splitter 36Dark Energy Survey lens 37 DRIFT I dark-matter detector 30 36 35 1 37 11 14 12 18 17 15 16 2 19 13 9 21 10 4 28 20 22 23 24 25 26 3 27 8 5 29 6 7 31 34 32 33 Our place in the cosmos Our place in the cosmos The night sky’s mysterious twinkling lights have intrigued people of all cultures. Centuries of observations have expanded our horizons, changing our ideas about the cosmos and posing new questions. Celestial sphere European celestial globe 1878 This globe features beautiful constellation figures such as Taurus the Bull and Aries the Ram. The star patterns are the reverse of what we see in the night sky, because many celestial globes depict the sky as if you were outside a sphere, looking down. The illustrations are based on the work of 17th-century Venetian map-maker Vincenzo Coronelli. His globes became a lavish status symbol for royalty and wealthy noblemen across Europe. Source: Purchased Inv. No: 1878-10 Object 1 Sphere of the heavens Clock-driven Chinese celestial globe 1830 This celestial globe has an internal clockwork drive so that it turns to represent the motion of the stars. On the surface you can see the stars grouped according to Chinese constellations. The Milky Way is shown by a band of dots, and five patches represent star clusters. Object 2 Source: Purchased Inv. No: 1988-1422 Silver stars Arabic celestial globe 1601–1700 The silver stars on this globe are labelled with their Arabic names. We still use many Arabic names to describe the stars today – in the constellation of Orion the Hunter, the star Rigel is named after the Arabic word for ‘foot’. Arabic mathematicians would have used globes like this one to assist with astronomical calculations and to refine calendars. Source: Royal Astronomical Society Inv. No: 1914-597 Object 3 Ptolemy’s great book Epitome of the Almagest 1496 This book summarises Claudius Ptolemy’s theories – the basis of astronomy for over a thousand years. Around AD 150, Ptolemy wrote a work in Greek outlining known theories of astronomy. During the Middle Ages this was lost in Europe, but translated and widely used by Arabic astronomers who called it al-majisti (the greatest). Latin and Greek translations of Arabic works brought Ptolemy’s ideas back to Europe in the 1400s. This copy of the book shows an early example of recycling: it is bound in vellum that was originally used for church music. Object 4 Source: Science Museum Library (F O.B. PTO) Copernicus changes the cosmos De revolutionibus celestium orbium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus’s book, published shortly after the author’s death in 1543, offered scholars a new vision of the cosmos. Making the Sun rather than the Earth the centre of the universe offered a solution to many puzzling observations of the planets, although it would be many years before the controversial theory was widely accepted. This is a first edition of the book, one of only about 260 that survive. Source: Science Museum Library (Q O.B. COP) Object 5 The book that led to Galileo’s trial Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) 1632 In this book Galileo compared the Earth-centred Ptolemaic and Sun-centred Copernican systems. He wrote in Italian, rather than the Latin of scholars, to reach a wider audience. Galileo clearly favoured the Copernican system, but he misjudged the reception the book would receive from the Catholic Church. He was tried for heresy, forced to recant his ideas, and ended his life under house imprisonment. Object 6 Source: Science Museum Library (Q O.B. GAL) Kepler’s astronomy Astronomia nova (New Astronomy) 1609 Johannes Kepler’s book, outlining his theories of planetary motion, made the radical claim that the planets move in ellipses, not perfect circles. Kepler’s work provided significant support for the Copernican theory of a Sun-centred universe. Kepler’s theories were based on data collected by astronomer Tycho Brahe. He had to make thousands of calculations to work out the peculiarities of Mars’s orbit, describing the experience as ‘my war with Mars.’ Source: Science Museum Library (F O.B. KEP) Object 7 Newton’s system of the world Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica 1687 This book, first published in 1687, is one of the most important scientific works ever written. It outlined Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation. This law applied to everything, from why apples fall to the ground to why planets orbit the Sun. Principia provided a successful mathematical description of how the world works. It was the backbone of physics for more than 200 years, until Einstein published his general theory of relativity. Object 8 Source: Science Museum Library (Q O.B. NEW) Earth’s place in space We have realised that we are not the centre of the cosmos, just a very small part of it. But that is just the beginning of wonder, not the end. Where do we fit in? And are we alone? An Earth-centred cosmos Ptolemaic armillary sphere 1500–99 This model depicts Ptolemy’s Earth-centred cosmos. The bands illustrate the motion of the Sun, Moon and stars. Armillary spheres were used in medieval times to teach priests how to calculate the hours of prayer at sunrise and sunset. Portraits of noblemen often included an armillary sphere to suggest wisdom and learning. More recently, novelist Umberto Eco chose the armillary sphere as a gruesome murder weapon in his 1983 book The Name of the Rose. Source: Purchased Inv. No: 1880-47 Object 9 A Sun-centred cosmos Copernican armillary sphere 1807–46 With the Sun at the centre, this model demonstrates Nicolaus Copernicus’s vision of the cosmos. The central band shows the Sun’s apparent annual path through the zodiac, while the crossed bands mark the seasons. Copernican theory was firmly established by the time this model was made in the early 1800s. It includes recent discoveries such as the asteroids Ceres and Vesta. The model may have been used as a teaching aid or decorative item for a wealthy customer. Object 10 Source: Purchased Inv. No: 1982-967/2 The telescope that found a planet Seven-foot telescope made by William Herschel c. 1780 This is William Herschel’s own telescope. It may be the one he used in his back garden in the spring of 1781 to study what appeared to be a comet. Repeated observation revealed it was a new planet – the first such discovery in written history. Today we call this planet Uranus. Source: The Herschel Family Archive Inv. No: L2009-4029 Object 11 Reflections of the stars Speculum mirror made by William Herschel 1770–1820 A mirror like this sits at the bottom of William Herschel’s telescope. It is made of highly polished speculum, a mix of copper and tin. Herschel was obsessed with making perfect mirrors to accurately gather light from faraway objects. His sister Caroline described having to force morsels of food into his mouth while he continued to polish for hours. Object 12 Source: Royal Astronomical Society Inv. No: 1971-465/2 The planet ‘Herschell’ on the map ‘Epitome of Astronomy’ or ‘A Compendius View of Our Solar System’ c. 1781–1800 This chart calls the seventh planet ‘Herschell’, after the man who discovered it in 1781. The name ‘Uranus’ only became common decades later. The distance table shows the new planet twice as far from the Sun as Saturn. William Herschel had doubled the size of the known Solar System. Source: Purchased Inv. No: 1985-1135 Object 13 Our Solar System grows Mean motion orrery 1813–22 This orrery, or planetary model, shows six satellites around Uranus, the farthest planet then known. William Herschel discovered the innermost two, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. By 1798 he had reported four additional satellites. However, no other astronomer managed to see these and observations in the 1850s showed Herschel was mistaken. We now know of almost 30 Uranian satellites. All are named after characters from Shakespeare or Pope, following a tradition started by Herschel’s son John. Object 14 Source: Mr H D Black Inv. No: 1950-55 pt 2 Music of the heavens Poster for a concert performance of Handel’s Messiah conducted by William Herschel 1778 Before finding fame as an astronomer, William Herschel made a living as a musician. Caroline Herschel sang at this 1778 performance of Handel’s Messiah. She abandoned a soprano career to assist her brother in his astronomical research. Source: The Herschel Family Archive Inv. No: L2009-4030 Object 15 By royal appointment Salary letter from King George III to William and Caroline Herschel 1800 In 1800, William Herschel was paid £200 in annual salary as King’s Astronomer. His sister Caroline was paid £50 to act as his assistant, making her the first professional female astronomer. A note from Herschel’s wife Mary says that the handwriting is that of King George III himself. Object 16 Source: The Herschel Family Archive Inv. No: L2009-4031 Finding Pluto Glass positive of Pluto discovery 1930 From 1930 until 2006, our Solar System had nine planets. Tiny Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, who was searching for a predicted ‘Planet X’ that might explain oddities in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. Tombaugh’s photographs show the same patch of sky a few nights apart. One ‘star’ seems to have moved, indicating that it is actually a planet. Astronomers later discounted the idea of Planet X – Pluto had just been in the right place at the right time. It was controversially demoted to ‘dwarf planet’ in 2006. Source: Science Museum Inv. No: 1930-680 Object 17 The Pluto problem Pluto bumper stickers 2006 On 24 August 2006 the International Astronomical Union voted on a new definition of ‘planet’. The decision demoted Pluto to ‘dwarf planet’, reducing the number of planets in our Solar System to eight. This generated a flurry of worldwide news coverage about the changing status of our planetary neighbourhood. Internet ‘Save Pluto’ campaigns were quick to follow. These bumper stickers were among the first products to go on sale. Objects 18, 19 Source: Purchased Inv. Nos: 2006-213, 2006-214 Big questions We have learned a lot about the cosmos, but we still face many puzzles. What is it all made of? How did it begin? How does it work? Great international experiments have begun to probe the ultimate mysteries. Life on Mars? Mars globe 1896–99 This Mars globe shows surface details of the Red Planet observed and named by Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877. Schiaparelli used the word canali to describe lines that seem to run between the darker areas. Some astronomers, particularly Percival Lowell, believed these to be irrigation channels and therefore evidence of intelligent life on Mars. But later studies revealed a barren planet, although scientists are still searching for evidence of bacterial life. Source: Purchased Inv. No: 2001-320 Object 20 Calling ET Arecibo message illustration 2009 This is a graphical representation of the message sent in 1974 from the huge Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The message, composed of binary digits, was the first deliberate attempt to transmit information to extraterrestrials. It carries information on DNA, human beings, the Solar System and the telescope itself. The message was beamed towards the M13 star cluster, but will never reach it – by the time the signal gets to that part of space, in about 25,000 years from now, the cluster will have moved. Object 21 Source: Science Museum Sounds and sights of Earth ‘Dear ET’ Nature cover This magazine shows the cover of the 12-inch ‘golden record’ carried on board the twin Voyager spacecraft. Intended as a time capsule for extraterrestrials, each disc includes pictures and sounds of the natural world, human languages and music. The cover carries instructions on how to play the record and where it has come from. Launched in 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 are now travelling into interstellar space. It will be about 40,000 years before either spacecraft comes within a light year of a nearby star. Source: Nature Inv. No: E2009.73.1 Image: NASA Object 22 Planet hunter Camera from the Super Wide Angle Search for Planets (SuperWASP) c. 2001–09 SuperWASP’s twin telescopes are searching for new planets outside of our Solar System. This ordinary-looking camera lens from SuperWASP-North (La Palma) helped the team find their first two planets in 2004. Each telescope has eight cameras that monitor millions of stars simultaneously, looking for telltale signs of planets orbiting other stars. In June 2009, SuperWASP’s count was up to 25, the most new planets discovered by any single project. Object 23 Source: Queen’s University Belfast/Andor Technology Belfast Inv. No: L2009-4037 Exclusive: lunar life Print of New Discoveries on the Moon c. 1835 This picture of exotic creatures on the Moon was inspired by the Great Moon Hoax of 1835. The New York Sun reported that astronomer John Herschel had turned his powerful new telescope to the Moon and discovered manbats, bipedal beavers and a sapphire temple. The bogus articles are thought to have been written by reporter Richard Adams Locke in an attempt to boost the paper’s circulation. Source: Purchased Inv. No: 1995-249 Object 24 Pulp-fiction aliens Astounding Science Fiction magazine 1950s Image: Rocket Publishing Extraterrestrial life has long provided a source of inspiration for magazines. Astounding Science Fiction is part of the world’s longest-running sci-fi magazine series. It started out as Astounding Stories in 1930 and became Analog Science Fiction and Fact in the 1960s. Arthur C Clarke, who became a famous sci-fi writer and futurist, devoured vast numbers of such magazines in the early 1930s – they were brought across the Atlantic as ship ballast! Arthur C Clarke (right) with Stanley Kubrick. Object 25 Source: Imperial College Science Fiction Society Inv. Nos: L2009-4049, L2009-4050 Paperback aliens Science fiction paperbacks 1912–57 With A Princess of Mars (1912) Edgar Rice Burroughs adopted a style and subject matter that influenced the sci-fi authors of the 1950s and beyond. One such was Ray Bradbury, who took us back to the Red Planet in 1950 with his tales of conflict in the Martian Chronicles. Three years later Arthur C Clarke’s alien Overlords visited Earth in Childhood’s End. In 1957 astrophysicist Fred Hoyle described a fictional cosmos when he wrote of The Black Cloud, a huge intelligent organism that threatened to block out the Sun. Source: Imperial College Science Fiction Society Inv. Nos: L2009-4045, L2009-4046, L2009-4047, L2009-4048 Object 26 Early extraterrestrials Early popular science books 1687 and 1884 Cyrano de Bergerac’s Comical History of the States and Empires of the World of the Moon and Sun is a satirical portrayal of trips to inhabited planets. Despite the satire, de Bergerac was keenly interested in 17th-century scientific developments and believed in a Copernican universe. Camille Flammarion, one of the foremost astronomers and popularisers of the 1800s, argued strongly that extraterrestrial life was a reality. In Terres du ciel he reviewed the forms of life to be found on each of the planets in the Solar System. Object 27 Source: Science Museum Library (O.B. CYR, 523.2 FLAMMARION) A cracking good alien? Moon Machine from A Grand Day Out Mid 1980s This little being is the actual Moon Machine that appeared in Nick Park’s first Wallace & Gromit film. The intrepid explorers found it on the Moon. Like many fictional aliens, it looks and acts very similar to things on Earth. It appears to be a cross between a robot and a cooker. It issues parking tickets, uses a policeman’s truncheon and dreams of a skiing holiday. Source: Aardman Animations Inv. No: L2009-4032 Object 28 Take me to your leader Model of a Mars Attacks! Martian 2006 The Martians in Tim Burton’s 1996 movie Mars Attacks! are based on the original Topps collectable card series of the early 1960s. This model was made from a commercially available construction kit. From War of the Worlds to Mars Attacks!, Martians have been portrayed as bent on destroying humanity. Fortunately for us, they have been unsuccessful. The Mars Attacks! invaders were killed off by Slim Whitman’s country music. Object 29 Source: Mat Irvine Inv. No: L2009-4039 Herschel in space Scale model (1:10) of the Herschel infrared space observatory Original c. 2001–09 Herschel, launched in May 2009, will answer questions about how stars and galaxies form. In orbit a million miles from Earth, it studies the sky at infrared wavelengths, to observe very cold, faraway objects. This is a one-tenth-scale model. The real spacecraft is almost the length of this showcase and carries the biggest single mirror ever placed in space. Source: European Space Agency Inv. No: L2009-4042 Object 30 Studying the Big Bang’s echo Mirror mechanism of COBE spacecraft’s FIRAS instrument (engineering prototype) 1980s Big Bang theory is scientists’ favoured explanation for how the universe developed. It states that space expanded from an initial very hot and dense state. Predicted remnant radiation from the early universe was detected in 1964. In 1990 the FIRAS instrument on board NASA’s COBE spacecraft measured the spectrum of this radiation. Its moving mirrors created interference patterns in a radiation beam, enabling the precise spectrum to be reconstructed. Object 31 Source: On loan from the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC Inv. No: L2009-4043 Proving Einstein’s relativity Glass positive photograph of total solar eclipse 1919 In May 1919, British physicist Arthur Eddington organised a test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Two Royal Society teams observed a solar eclipse from Brazil and the island of Principe off west Africa. Photographs appeared to show that the mass of the Sun had bent light from distant stars, just as Einstein had predicted. This gravitational distortion could only be observed during a total eclipse, when the Sun’s own light was masked. Source: Royal Observatory, Greenwich Inv. No: 1920-18 Object 32 Testing Einstein Gravity Probe B gyroscope rotor and housing 1992–95 The Gravity Probe B experiment was designed to test two predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity: that a massive body such as the Earth should warp and twist the space-time around it. Four spheres like this one – among the most perfect ever made – were set spinning on a spacecraft precisely pointed towards a guide star. Scientists are currently analysing the mission data to see if the angle of the spheres’ spin was altered by the warp and twist. Object 33 Source: Stanford University Inv. No: 2005-75 Catching gravity’s waves Prototype test mass from the GEO-600 gravitational wave detector 2003 This piece of pure sapphire is a prototype test mass for the British–German GEO-600 experiment. Tiny movements of the experiment’s test masses would indicate the presence of a gravitational wave. These elusive waves are predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Caused by violent cosmic events, such as black holes colliding in distant galaxies, they stretch and squeeze space-time. Source: University of Glasgow, Department of Physics and Astronomy Inv. No: L2009-4036 Object 34 Searching for space-time ripples Prototype beam splitter for the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) 2008 This is a prototype part for Advanced LIGO, one of the most sensitive experiments ever designed. It will split a laser beam down two paths, several kilometres long. Scientists will look for changes in the path lengths that might be caused by a passing gravitational wave. Gravitational waves are tiny, fleeting warps in the fabric of space-time, predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. They are caused by moving bodies such as colliding stars. Object 35 Source: Science & Technology Facilities Council, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Inv. No: L2009-4054 Detecting dark energy Prototype camera lens and holder for the Dark Energy Survey 2008 From 2011 the Dark Energy Survey will try to solve the biggest mystery of the universe. Its powerful camera will map 300 million galaxies to try and find evidence of ‘dark energy’. Scientists believe this invisible phenomenon makes up 74% of the cosmos and is speeding up its expansion. The survey camera will have five huge lenses. The largest is almost twice the size of this one. Source: Optical Sciences Lab, University College London Inv. No: L2009-4040 Object 36 Searching for missing matter DRIFT I dark matter detector 2001 DRIFT I was built by UK and US scientists to search for ‘dark matter’. This invisible matter, thought to make up around 23% of the universe, is known to exist because of its gravitational effects on ordinary matter in stars, galaxies and planets. Scientists think that dark matter is most likely to be previously unknown particles. DRIFT I ran between 2001 and 2004, 1.1 kilometres underground in Yorkshire’s Boulby Mine. It did not detect dark-matter particles, but its powerful successors continue the search. Object 37 Source: University of Sheffield, Occidental College (USA), Temple University (USA) Inv. No: 2009-59