Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2008 - (Page 3) editor’s note Looking Up I departments Letters 4 Big Picture 6 In My Own Words 8 Adam Riess, Astronomer Selected Opportunities & Resources 26 Middle Ground 30 Competitions: A Win/Win Situation One Step Ahead 31 Be True to Your School—and Yourself Off the Shelf 32 Word Wise 33 Exploring Career Options 34 Interview with Photographer Cade Martin Planning Ahead for College 37 Planning for College in High School Students Review 38 Vassar College Creative Minds Imagine 40 Photography Contest Winners Knossos Games 43 On the cover: The star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 that extends one degree on the sky in the direction of the Scorpius constellation. Image by NASA, ESA and Jesœs Maz Apellÿniz (Instituto de astrofsica de Andaluca, Spain). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble). n 1999, two treasure hunters took metal detectors into the Ziegelroda Forest in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, to what is now regarded as the oldest observatory in Europe: the Goseck circle. There, the looters found Bronze Age hatchets, jewelry, and, more significantly, an intriguing disk made of bronze, copper, and gold. Once retrieved from the looters and placed into scientists’ hands, the Nebra sky disk (named for a nearby town) revealed its true value. In precious metals, a golden ship, the crescent moon, the sun, the seven stars of the Pleiades, and 25 other stars shine against the blue patina of the disk. Researchers have found that the ,600-year-old artifact is an accurate sky map that was likely used to reconcile the solar and lunar calendars, important indicators for agricultural seasons. Anyone who has walked outside on a starry night understands the instinct to look up. Pointing out familiar constellations, we see those same stars cast in gold by a Bronze Age astronomer, the same stars painted 17,000 years ago on a cave wall in Lascaux, the same stars that inspired Ptolemy to write, “when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth.” It is human nature to look up, to see beauty, and to seek meaning. Our ancient ancestors knew that observation was a powerful tool. Charting the courses of stars and planets, they found relationships between celestial and earthly events that informed agricultural, cultural, and religious practices. Today, with a vast array of Earth- and space-based telescopes, we continue to observe, to look farther, to deepen our understanding of our place in an ever-expanding universe. In this issue of Imagine, we set our sights on the universe. Our writers include one student who helped map Venus, and another who recorded the path of a near-Earth asteroid. You’ll discover the thrill of the hunt for exoplanets and get a glimpse of life on the International Space Station. You’ll dig into the science of the MESSENGER mission, understand why even non-scientists get addicted to classifying galaxies, and imagine the possibility of living on Mars. We have no doubt that when you finish this issue, you’ll want to learn and see more, so we’ve provided a listing of opportunities and resources that will let you do that. And we guarantee that, like Ptolemy and Galileo and Edwin Hubble, you won’t be able to help but look up. mh imagine November/December 2008 Charles Beckman
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