Telescopes...and Microscopes?

How did the constellations Telescopium and Microscopium get their names? (Careful. It isn't because you need a telescope to see one and a microscope to see the other...)

Find more constellations at the Startales website.

Astronomers may not use microscopes to look at the sky, but they have been using telescopes to look at it for centuries. Galileo Galilei didn't invent the telescope, but he was the first person known to point one towards the sky, and telescopes have come a long way since then. 

For example, they are even able to "see" things that are "invisible." With the Chandra X-ray Observatory, we are able to detect black holes. The Chandresekhar limit separates stable white dwarfs from unstable ones which either collapse into neutron stars or black holes. Both contain extremely high energy, and since the Chandra telescope is used to observe these stellar remnants, it was named after the man who determined the Chandresekhar limit-Subrahmanyan Chandresekhar. After researching this telescope and Chandresekhar himself a little bit, I came to realize that the observatory was launched only four years after his death. It's sad to know he didn't live to see it.

The website chandra.harvard.edu had many wonderful things to say about Chandresekhar, and it has some pretty cool facts about the observatory, too. My two favorite facts from their website are that the space mission that launched Chandra was the first NASA shuttle mission commanded by a woman, and that Chandra can observe x-rays from particles up to the last second before they "disappear!"

I have a newfound admiration and respect for Chandresekhar after researching for this blog. After reading about his life and personality, he is definitely going on my list of people dead or alive with whom I would like to have dinner. I thought it would be nice to add a quote from him, and I really liked this one that I found: "Indeed, I would feel that an appreciation of the arts in a conscious, disciplined way might help one to do science better." I wonder what he meant by that.

Subrahmanyan Chandresekhar

19 October 1910 - 21 August 1995

There's two dates in time

That they'll carve on your stone

And everyone knows what they mean

What's more important

Is the time that is known

In the little dash there in between

-Garth Brooks