* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Home -> Astronomy News -> People -> Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875 - 1969)
Post Info TOPIC: Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875 - 1969)
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875 - 1969)
Permalink  
 

Title: What Else Did V. M. Slipher Do?
Authors: Joseph S. Tenn

When V. M. Slipher gave the 1933 George Darwin lecture to the Royal Astronomical Society, it was natural that he spoke on spectrographic studies of planets. Less than one-sixth of his published work deals with globular clusters and the objects we now call galaxies. In his most productive years, when he had Percival Lowell to give him direction, Slipher made major discoveries regarding stars, galactic nebulae, and solar system objects. These included the first spectroscopic measurement of the rotation period of Uranus, evidence that Venus's rotation is very slow, the existence of reflection nebulae and hence interstellar dust, and the stationary lines that prove the existence of interstellar calcium and sodium. After Lowell's death in 1916 Slipher continued making spectroscopic observations of planets, comets, and the aurora and night sky. He directed the Lowell Observatory from 1916 to 1954, where his greatest achievements were keeping the observatory running despite very limited staff and budget, and initiating and supervising the "successful" search for Lowell's Planet X. However, he did little science in his last decades, spending most of his time and energy on business endeavours.

Read more (1142kb, PDF)



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Title: Slipher and the Nature of the Nebulae
Authors: K.C. Freeman

Why do some discoveries, which appear in hindsight to be obviously major discoveries, have so little impact when they were made. These are discoveries that were ahead of their time, but for some reason the scientific community was not ready to absorb them. I got interested in Slipher after learning that by 1914 he had observed nebular redshifts up to 1000 km/s. Why did this not convince people at the time that the nebulae were extragalactic ? Was this another example, like Zwicky's (1933) discovery of dark matter in the Coma cluster, of a discovery which was too far ahead of its time ? I conclude that Slipher's situation was different from Zwicky's. The significance of Slipher's nebular redshifts was partly recognised at the time, but I believe that its full significance was masked by van Maanen's work which turned out to be erroneous and reduced the impact of Slipher's discoveries.

Read more (8kb, PDF)



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

100 Years of the Expanding Universe

On September 17, 1912, using the Clark Telescope, Vesto Slipher made a major discovery.

"And what he found that not only was the composition was a lot different, but he realised that these objects were moving away from us at incredible speeds, some in excess of 900 times the speed of sound."

In other words, the universe is expanding...and it's expanding very quickly.

Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Vesto Melvin Slipher (November 11, 1875 - November 8, 1969) was an American astronomer. His brother Earl C. Slipher was also an astronomer and a director at the Lowell Observatory.
He used spectroscopy to investigate the rotation periods of planets and the composition of planetary atmospheres. In 1912, he was the first to observe the shift of spectral lines of galaxies, making him the discoverer of galactic redshifts. He discovered the sodium layer in 1929. He was responsible for hiring Clyde Tombaugh and supervised the work that led to the discovery of Pluto in 1930.
Read more



__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
Home -> Astronomy News -> People -> Vesto Melvin Slipher (1875 - 1969)


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard