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| Jean-Luc Margot |
Jean-Luc MargotJean-Luc Margot is a Belgian astronomer and an Assistant Professor at Cornell University.
He specializes in planetary sciences.
He was awarded the H. C. Urey Prize by the American Astronomical Society in 2004.
The asteroid 9531 Jean-Luc is named after him.
External links
- [http://www.astro.cornell.edu/ Department of Astronomy, Cornell University]
- [http://www.astro.cornell.edu/~jlm Personal web page]
Margot, Jean-Luc
Belgium
The Kingdom of Belgium (Dutch: Koninkrijk België; French: Royaume de Belgique; German: Königreich Belgien) is a country in northwest Europe bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France. Belgium has a population of over ten million people in an area of thirty thousand square kilometres. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Romance Europe, it is both linguistically and culturally divided. Two major languages are spoken in Belgium: Dutch—sometimes unofficially called Flemish—spoken in Flanders to the north; and French, spoken in Wallonia in the south. The capital, Brussels, is officially bilingual. In addition to the two, an officially recognized minority of German speakers is present in the east. This linguistic diversity often leads to political conflict, and is reflected in Belgium's complex system of government and political history.
Belgium derives its name from its first named inhabitants, the Belgae, a group of mostly Celtic tribes, and from the Roman province in northern Gaul, known as Gallia Belgica. Historically, Belgium has been a part of the Low Countries, which also includes the Netherlands and Luxembourg. From the end of the Middle Ages until the seventeenth century, it was a prosperous center of commerce and culture. From the sixteenth century until independence in 1830, Belgium, called at that time the Southern Netherlands, was the site of many battles between the European powers, and has been dubbed "the Cockpit of Europe." More recently, Belgium was a founding member of the European Union, hosting its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organisations, such as NATO.
History
Over the past two millennia, the area that is now known as Belgium has seen significant demographic, political and cultural upheavals. The first well-documented population move was the conquest of the region by the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC, followed in the 5th century by the Germanic Franks. The Franks established the Merovingian kingdom, which became the Carolingian Empire in the 8th century. During the Middle Ages, the Low Countries were split into many small feudal states. Most of them were united in the course of the 14th and 15th centuries by the house of Burgundy as the Burgundian Netherlands. These states gained a degree of autonomy in the 15th century and were thereafter named the Seventeen Provinces.
The history of Belgium can be distinguished from that of the Low Countries from the 16th century. A civil war, the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), divided the Seventeen Provinces into the United Provinces in the north and the Southern Netherlands in the south. The southern provinces were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs. Until independence, the Southern Netherlands were sought after by numerous French conquerors and were the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. Following the Campaigns of 1794 in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Low Countries—including territories that were never under Habsburg rule, such the Bishopric of Liège—were overrun by France, ending Spanish-Austrian rule in the region. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the end of the French Empire in 1815.
The 1830 Belgian Revolution led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic and neutral Belgium under a provisional government. Since the installation of Leopold I as king in 1831, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. Between independence and World War II, the democratic system evolved from an oligarchy characterised by two main parties, the Catholics and the Liberals, to a universal suffrage system that has included a third party, the Belgian Labour Party, and a strong role for the trade unions. Originally, French, which was the adopted language of the nobility and the bourgeoisie was the official language. The country has since developed a bilingual Dutch-French system.
The Berlin Conference of 1885 agreed to hand over Congo to King Leopold II as his private possession, called the Congo Free State. In 1908, it was ceded to Belgium as a colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. Belgium's neutrality was violated in 1914, when Germany invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan. The former German colonies Ruanda-Urundi—now called Rwanda and Burundi—were occupied by the Belgian Congo in 1916. They were mandated in 1924 to Belgium by the League of Nations. Belgium was again invaded by Germany in 1940 during the blitzkrieg offensive. The Belgian Congo gained its independence on 30 July 1960 during the Congo Crisis, and Ruanda-Urundi became independent in 1962.
After World War II, Belgium joined NATO and, together with the Netherlands and Luxembourg, formed the Benelux group of nations. Belgium was also one of the founding members of the European Economic Community. Belgium hosts the headquarters of NATO and a major part of the European Union's institutions and administrations, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and most of the sessions of the European Parliament. During the 20th century, and in particular since World War II, the history of Belgium has been increasingly dominated by the autonomy of its two main language communities. This period saw a rise in intercommunal tensions, and the unity of the Belgian state has come under scrutiny. Through constitutional reforms in the 1970s and 1980s, regionalisation of the unitary state had led to the establishment of a three-tiered system of federal, linguistic-community and regional governments, a compromise designed to minimise linguistic tensions.
Politics
federal
Belgium is a constitutional popular monarchy and parliamentary democracy that evolved after World War II from a unitary state to a federation. The bicameral parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives. The former is a mix of directly elected senior politicians and representatives of the communities and regions; while the latter represents all Belgians over the age of eighteen in a proportional voting system. Belgium is one of the few countries that has compulsory voting, thus having one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.
The federal government, formally nominated by the king, must have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives. It is led by the Prime Minister. The numbers of Dutch- and French-speaking ministers are equal as prescribed by the Constitution. The King or Queen is the head of state, though he has limited prerogatives. Actual power is vested in the Prime Minister and the different governments, who govern the country. The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Appeals is one level below the Court of Cassation, an institution based on the French Court of Cassation.
Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organised around the need to represent the main language communities. Since around 1970, the significant national Belgian political parties has split into distinct components that mainly represent the interests of these communities. The major parties in each community belong to three main political families: the right-wing Liberals, the centrist Christian Democrats, and the left-wing Social Democrats. Other important younger parties are the Green parties and, especially in Flanders, the nationalist and far-right parties. Politics is strongly influenced by powerful lobby groups, such as trade unions and business interests in the form of the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium, or the Roman Catholic Church and the Freemasonry.
Freemasonry
The current king, Albert II, succeeded King Baudouin in 1993. In 1999, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt from the VLD has led a six-party Liberal-Social Democrat-Greens coalition, often referred to as 'the rainbow government'. This was the first government without the Christian Democrats since 1958. In the 2003 elections, Verhofstadt won a second term in office and has led a Liberal-Social Democrat coalition of four parties. More recently however, the steady rise of the Flemish ultra-right nationalist separatist party Vlaams Belang, has superseded the Vlaams Blok amidst concerns of racism promoted by the party.
A significant achievement of the two successive Verhofstadt governments has been the achievement of a balanced budget; Belgium is one of the few member-states of the EU to have done so. This policy was applied by the successive governments during the 1990s under pressure from the European Council. The fall of the previous government was mainly due to the dioxin crisis, a major food intoxication scandal in 1999 that led to the establishment of the Belgian Food Agency. This event resulted in an atypically large representation by the Greens in parliament, and a greater emphasis on environmental politics during the first Verhofstadt government. One Green policy, for example, resulted in nuclear phase-out legislation, which has been modified by the current government. The absence of Christian Democrats from the ranks of the government has enabled Verhofstadt to tackle social issues from a more liberal point of view and to develop new legislation on the use of soft drugs, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. During the two most recent parliaments, the government has promoted active diplomacy in Africa, opposed a military intervention during the Iraq disarmament crisis, and has passed legislation concerning war crimes. Both of Verhofstadt's terms have been marked by disputes between the Belgian communities. The major points of contention are the nocturnal air traffic routes at Brussels Airport and the status of the electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.
Communities and regions
Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (the German-speaking Community is located in the province of Liège along the German border) and the bilingual Capital Region of Brussels. The boundary between these regions is marked in red.]]
The country's constitution was revised on 14 July 1993 to create a unique federal state, based on three levels:
#The federal government, based in Brussels.
#The three language communities:
#
- the Flemish (i.e., Dutch-speaking) Community;
#
- the French (i.e., French-speaking) Community; and
#
- the German-speaking Community.
# The three regions (which differ from the language communities with respect to the German-speaking community and the Brussels region):
#
- the Flemish Region;
#
- the Walloon Region; and
#
- the Brussels-Capital Region.
Conflicts between the bodies are resolved by the Court of Arbitration. The setup allows a compromise to distinctly different cultures live together peacefully.
The Flemish Community absorbed the Flemish Region in 1980 to form the government of Flanders. The overlapping boundaries of the Regions and Communities have created two notable peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region is included in both Flemish and French Communities, and the territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the Walloon Region. Flemish and Walloon regions are furthermore subdivided in administrative entities, the provinces.
At the highest level of this three-tiered setup is the federal government which manages foreign affairs, development aid, defence, military, police, economic management, social welfare, social security transport, energy, telecommunications, and scientific research, limited competencies in education and culture, and the supervision of taxation by regional authorities. The federal government controls more than 90 per cent of all taxation. The community governments are responsible for the promotion of language, culture and education in mostly schools, libraries and theatres. The third tier is the Regional governments, who manage mostly land and property based issues such as housing, transportation etc. For example, a school building in Brussels belonging to the public school systemwould be regulated by the regional government of Brussels. However, the school as an institution would fall under the regulations of the Flemish government if the primary language of teaching is Dutch, but under the French Community government if the primary language is French.
Geography
social security, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges and Namur are the seven largest cities of Belgium, with populations above 100,000]]
Belgium, with an area of 30,528 km², has three main geographical regions: the coastal plain in the north-west, the central plateau, and the Ardennes uplands in the south-east. The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and polders. Polders are areas of land, close to or below sea level that have been reclaimed from the sea, from which they are protected by dikes or, further inland, by fields that have been drained with canals. The second geographical region, the central plateau, lies further inland. This is a smooth, slowly rising area that has many fertile valleys and is irrigated by many waterways. Here one can also find rougher land, including caves and small gorges.
gorge
The third geographical region, called the Ardennes, is more rugged than the first two. It is a thickly forested plateau, very rocky and not very good for farming, which extends into northern France. This is where much of Belgium's wildlife can be found. Belgium's highest point, the Signal de Botrange is located in this region at only 694 metres.
The climate is maritime temperate, with significant precipitation in all seasons (Köppen climate classification: Cfb; the average temperature is 3°C in January, and 18°C in July; the average precipitation is 65 mm in January, and 78 mm in July).
Economy
Densely populated, Belgium is located at the heart of one of the world's most highly industrialised regions.
Köppen climate classification, near Liège.]]
Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 1800s. Liège and Charleroi rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which flourished until the mid-20th century. However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in severe crisis and there was famine in Flanders (1846–50). After World War II, Ghent and Antwerp experienced a fast expansion of the chemical and petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises sent the economy into a prolonged recession. The Belgian steel industry has since experienced serious decline. This has been responsible for inhibiting the economic development of Wallonia. In the 1980s and 90s, the economic centre of the country continued to shift northwards to Flanders. Nowadays, industry is concentrated in the populous Flemish area in the north.
By the end of the 1980s, Belgian macroeconomic policies had resulted in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of GDP. Currently, although the government has recently succeeded in balancing its budget, public debt is nearly 100% of GDP. In 2004, the real growth rate of GDP was estimated at 2.7% but is expected to fall to 1.3% in 2005.
Belgium has a particularly open economy. It has developed an excellent transportation infrastructure of ports, canals, railways and highways to integrate its industry with that of its neighbours. Antwerp is the second-largest European port. One of the founding members of the European Union, Belgium strongly supports the extension of the powers of EU institutions to integrate the member economies. In 1999, Belgium adopted the euro, the single European currency, which replaced the Belgian franc in 2002. The Belgian economy is strongly oriented towards foreign trade, in particular of high value-added goods. The main imports are food products, machinery, rough diamonds, petroleum and petroleum products, chemicals, clothing and accessories, and textiles. The main exports are automobiles, food and food products, iron and steel, finished diamonds, textiles, plastics, petroleum products, and nonferrous metals. Since 1922, Belgium and Luxembourg have been a single trade market within a customs and currency union—the Belgian-Luxembourgian Economic Union. Its main trading partners are Germany, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and Spain. Belgium ranks ninth on the 2005 United Nations Human Development Index.
Demographics
The population density (342 per km²) is one of the highest in Europe, after the Netherlands and some smaller countries such as Monaco. The areas with the highest population density are around the Brussels-Antwerp-Ghent-Leuven agglomerations, as well as other important urban centres as Liège, Charleroi, Kortrijk, Bruges, Hasselt and Namur. The Ardennes have the lowest density. As of 2005, the Flemish Region has a population of about 6,043,161, Wallonia 3,395,942 and Brussels 1,006,749. Almost all of the population is urban (97.3% in 1999). The main cities and their populations are Brussels (1,006,749), Antwerp (457,749), Ghent (230,951), Charleroi (201,373), and Liège (185,574).
Namur and the Catholic Church.]]
About 60% of the country is Dutch-speaking, 40% French-speaking, and 1% German-speaking. However, these figures must be interpreted cautiously, because the most recent linguistic census was taken before 1960, and the mother tongue is not always the same as the language used in public or in official life. Brussels is officially French-Dutch bilingual, but mostly French speaking; it evolved from a Dutch-speaking place to its current dominantly French character when the Belgian state became independent in 1830.
Both the Dutch spoken in Belgium and the Belgian French have minor differences in vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken in France and the Netherlands. Many people can still speak dialects of Flemish and Walloon. These dialects, along with some other ones like Picard or Limburgish, are not used in public life.
The laïque constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice. According to the 2001 Survey and Study of Religion, about 47% of the population identify themselves as belonging to the Catholic Church. According to these figures, the Muslim population is the second largest religious community, at 3.5% (see Religion in Belgium). Since independence, Catholicism, counterbalanced by strong freethought movements, has had an important role in Belgium's politics, in particular via the Christian trade union (CSC/ACV) and the Christian Democrat parties (CD&V, CDH).
98% of the adult population is literate. Education is compulsory from the ages of six to 18, but many Belgians continue to study until the age of about 23. Among the OECD countries in 1999, Belgium had the third highest proportion of 18–21-year-olds enrolled in postsecondary education, at 42%. Nevertheless, in recent years, concern is rising over certain forms of illiteracy, such as functional illiteracy. In the period 1994–98, 18.4% of the population lacks functional literacy skills. Mirroring the historical political conflicts between the freethought and Catholic segments of the population, the Belgian educational system in each communities is split into a laïque branch controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, and a subsidised religious—mostly Catholic—branch controlled by both the communities and the religious authorities—usually the dioceses.
Culture
Belgian cultural life has tended to concentrate within each community. The shared element is less important, because there are no bilingual universities, except the royal military academy, no common media, and no single, common large cultural or scientific organisation where both main communities are represented. Aside from these differences, Belgium is well-known for its fine art and architecture.
The region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence over European art. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting, and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, and the Renaissance vocal music of the Dutch School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries, are milestones in the history of art.
Dutch School. This painting is inspired by the many folk festivals in Belgium.]]
This rich artistic production, often referred to as a whole as Flemish art, gradually declined during the second half of the 17th century. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, many original artists appeared. In music, Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846. Eugène Ysaÿe was a major 19th- and 20th-century Belgian violinist (See also Music of Belgium). In architecture, Victor Horta was a major initiator of the Art Nouveau style. Belgium has produced famous romantic, expressionist and surrealist painters; these include Egide Wappers, James Ensor, Constant Permeke and René Magritte. In literature, Belgium has produced several well-known authors, such as the poets Emile Verhaeren, Jacques Brel and novelists Hendrik Conscience and Georges Simenon. The poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. The best known Franco-Belgian comics are The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé but many other major authors of comics have been Belgian, including Edgar P. Jacobs and André Franquin.
More recently, notable cinema directors have emerged, most of them strongly influenced by French cinema. The absence of a major Belgian cinema company has forced them to emigrate or participate in low-budget productions. Belgian directors include Stijn Coninx, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne; actors include Jan Decleir, Marie Gillain; and films include Man Bites Dog and The Alzheimer Affair. In the 1980s, Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts has produced the important fashion trendsetters, the Antwerp Six.
Belgium has also contributed to the development of science and technology. The mathematician Simon Stevin, the anatomist Andreas Vesalius and the cartographer Gerardus Mercator are among the most influential scientists from the beginning of Early Modern in the Low Countries. More recently, at the end of the 19th century, in applied science, the chemist Ernest Solvay and the engineer Zenobe Gramme have given their names to the Solvay process and the Gramme dynamo. Georges Lemaître is a famous Belgian cosmologist credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927. Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have been awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet in 1919, Corneille Heymans in 1938, and Albert Claude and Christian De Duve in 1974. Ilya Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977.
One could not understand Belgian cultural life without considering the folk festivals, which play a major role in the country's cultural life. Examples are the Carnival of Binche, the Ducasse of Ath, the procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges, the 15th-of-August festival in Liège, and the Walloon festival in Namur. A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, which commemorates the festival of the children and, in Liège, of the students.
Belgium is well represented in the world of sport—football (soccer) and cycling are especially popular. The national football team is the Red Devils. Among the well known cyclists, Eddy Merckx, won five Tours de France. Belgium also has two current female tennis champions: Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne.
Many highly ranked restaurants can be found in the high-impact gastronomic guides, such as the Michelin Guide. Brands of Belgian chocolate, like Neuhaus, are world renowned and widely sold; even the cheapest and most popular brand, Leonidas, has earned a reputation for its quality. Belgium produces over 500 varieties of beer (ales, pils) (see Belgian beer). Belgians have a reputation for loving waffles and French fries, both originally from Belgium; the national food is steak (or mussels) with French fries.
Related topics
- Communications in Belgium
- Education in Belgium
- Football in Belgium
- Foreign relations of Belgium
- List of Belgian municipalities by population
- List of Belgians
- List of Belgium-related topics
- Military of Belgium
- Public holidays in Belgium
- Tourism in Belgium
- Transportation in Belgium
External links
- [http://www.Belgium.be/ Official site of the Belgian federal government]
- [http://www.visitbelgium.com/ Official site of Belgian tourist office in the Americas]
- [http://www.goldenpages.be/ Telephone directory online]
- [http://www.mediatico.com/en/newspapers/europe/belgium Belgian Newspapers]
- [http://wikitravel.org/en/article/Belgium Wikitravel guide]
- [http://www.175-25.be/ Belgium is celebrating the 175th anniversary of its independence and the 25th anniversary of the federal state]
- [http://www.bruessel-gui.de/bruessel/bildergalerien.html bruessel-gui.de - Images: Brussels & Belgium]
References
- [http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/lowcountries/xbelgium.html World history at KLMA]
- [http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/europe/belgiqueacc.htm L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde] in French by Jacques Leclerc, University of Laval, Canada
- [http://statbel.fgov.be/port/cou_eu_en.asp#BE Portal of the INS to statisical publications about Belgium]
- [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/be.html CIA World Fact Book]
- [http://www.fed-parl.be/constitution_uk.html Constitution of Belgium]
Notes
1. Nuttall encyclopedia
2. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4545433.stm Language dispute divides Belgium, BBC News, 13 May, 2005]
3. Election turnout in national lower house elections from 1960 to 1995, numbers from Mark N. Franklin's "Electoral Participation."
4. [http://www.fed-parl.be/gwuk0006.htm#E11E6 Constitution of Belgium] Art. 99
5. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/392004.stm Belgium's "rainbow" coalition sworn in, BBC News, 12 July, 1999]
6. [http://www.lachambre.be/kvvcr/pdf_sections/pri/fiche/10F.pdf Composition of the Chamber of Representatives, on the official homepage of the Chamber, in French]
7.[http://jackosheas.com/news/newsstory.cfm?story_no=1124 Court says Vlaams Blok conviction is sound, Expatriate Online, 10 November, 2004]
8.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3994867.stm Court rules Vlaams Blok is racist, BBC News, 9 November, 2004]
9.[http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/belg-j08.shtml Dioxin contamination scandal hits Belgium: Effects spread through European Union and beyond, World Socialist Web Site, 8 June, 1999]
10.[http://www.favv-afsca.fgov.be/portal/page?_pageid=34,66751&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL History of the Federal Food Agency, at its official homepage]
11.[http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0019846.html The Rwanda article at Tiscali.References] shows an example of Belgium's recent African policies.
12.[http://www.flanders.be/ The official homepage of Flanders (Community and Region)]
13.[http://www.eurometeo.com/english/climate/city_EBBR/id_GT/meteo_brussels_belgium Eurometeo: The meteo at Brussels]
14-15.[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2874.htm US Department of State's report]
16.[http://www.nbb.be/pub/Home.htm?l=en&t=ho National Bank of Belgium]
17.[http://www.economist.com/countries/Belgium/profile.cfm?folder=Profile-Forecast Economic forecast of the Economist, 30 September, 2005]
18,20.[http://statbel.fgov.be/ Official statistics of Belgium]
19,24.[http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/indicator/cty_f_BEL.html United Nation Development Programme]
21-22.[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=BE Ethnologue.com] published by SIL International
23.[http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d03/ch_6.asp Digest of Education Satistics 2003, US National Education Statistics]
25.[http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35444.htm International Religious Freedom Report 2004 at the US Department of State]
Cornell University
Cornell University is a research university based in Ithaca, New York. The youngest of the Ivy League universities, Cornell was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell, a self-made businessman involved in the formation of the Western Union Telegraph Company , and Andrew Dickson White, a respected scholar and politician. With an initial enrollment of 412 students, the university's opening day ceremonies were held on October 7, 1868. Current undergraduate enrollment is now over 13,500, the largest of any Ivy League university, and almost 20,300 total students including graduate and professional students in Ithaca and medical students at the New York City campus, a number comparable to the total populations of other Ivy League institutions.
Cornell's alma mater song, Far Above Cayuga's Waters, is one of the few such songs widely known outside of the institution it celebrates.
Cornell ranked 12th globally in an Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2005 , 13th in the 2006 U.S. News and World Report "National Universities" ranking,, and 4th in the country in the Washington Monthly College Guide
History
U.S. News and World Report
When Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White first met in 1863 in the New York senate, their eventual partnership seemed unlikely. Besides both being liberal Democrats who valued egalitarianism, science, and education, they shared little else. Cornell was an austere, pragmatic telegraph mogul who shunned aesthetics and high minded pursuits. He envisioned a technical school which taught the applied sciences, engineering, and agriculture. This populist ideal can be seen today in the Cornell motto, an 1865 quotation by Ezra Cornell: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." White, on the other hand, was a well-traveled, Yale-educated scholar who loved architectural grandeur and the liberal arts. White desired to build a university that was Oxonian in appearance, while being secular and modernist in curriculum.
The two had their chance to implement their plans when the New York State Senate was charged with appropriating the educational funds provided by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act. Cornell wanted to divide the money between two state colleges and, concurrently, was planning to donate $300,000 of his own money and his farm in Ithaca, NY to do "whatever shall do the greatest good to the greatest number of the industrial classes of my state." White countered Ezra's proposal by claiming that the greatest good would be achieved by pooling all the funds along with the sale of Cornell's farm to create a new university (Rudolph, 266). They agreed to build the University on Cornell's condition that it be constructed on his farm, far away from the supposed immorality of city life. Though White argued that such a remote location would hinder their ability to attract students and professors, he conceded so that the opportunity would not be lost. Thus, after much debate in the state senate, on April 27, 1865, the governor of New York, Reuben Fenton, signed a bill formally creating Cornell University.
Cornell's founding principles included nonsectarianism and coeducation. In his 1868 dedication speech, Ezra Cornell said "It shall be our aim to make true Christian men, without dwarfing or paring them down to fit the narrow gauge of sect," and voiced confidence that the school "woud prove highly beneficial to the poor young men and poor young women of our country." The first women were admitted in 1870, putting Cornell in the vanguard of post-Civil-War coeducation and making it the first of the Ivy League schools to admit women.
Other Cornell "firsts" include: awarding the first university degrees in veterinary medicine and journalism, teaching the first course in American History, forming the first university publishing company, and awarding the nation's first doctorates in Electrical Engineering and Industrial Engineering. The School of Hotel Administration and New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations are the first four-year schools devoted to those fields. In 2001, Cornell opened the American medical school outside of the United States in Doha, Qatar. Historian Frederick Rudolph once called Cornell "the first American university" (a distinction also claimed by the University of Pennsylvania[http://www.upenn.edu/about/heritage.php]).
Organization
Academic units
Cornell is a private institution, receiving most of its funding through tuition, research grants, and alumni contributions. However, three of its undergraduate colleges as well as the graduate-level College of Veterinary Medicine, called contract or statutory colleges, also receive partial funding from the state of New York to support their research and service mission in niche fields. Residents of New York enrolled in the statutory colleges enjoy reduced tuition. Further, the governor of the state serves as an ex-officio member of the board of trustees. It is a common misconception that Cornell's contract colleges are public institutions. They are not—they are private institutions that Cornell operates by contract with the state government.
Cornell is highly decentralized; its colleges and schools have wide autonomy. Each defines its own academic programs, organizes its own admissions and advising programs, and confers its own degrees; the only university-wide requirements for a baccalaureate degree are to pass a swimming test and take two physical education courses. Periodically, the university attempts to resolve naturally arising redundancies by creating special interschool departments. While students may take courses offered by the division, their enrollment remains with their individual college or school. With that said, any student may take any course in any of the colleges, provided they have fulfilled the pre-requisites for enrollment.
Seven schools offer undergraduate programs. Students pursuing graduate degrees in departments of these schools are enrolled in the Cornell University Graduate School. In addition, there are six units offering graduate and professional programs.
Undergraduate colleges and schools
Graduate/Professional colleges and schools
All of Cornell's graduate and professional schools are endowed, except for the statutory veterinary school.
- Cornell Law School
- S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management
- Weill Cornell Medical College (New York City)
- Weill Cornell Medical College (Qatar)
- Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (New York City)
- New York State College of Veterinary Medicine
- Cornell Institute for Public Affairs
Other
- School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions.
Non-academic units
Cornell University Library
The Cornell University Library consists of twenty units. It holds 7 million volumes in open stacks, 7 million microforms, 5 million computer files, and some 76,000 sound recordings in its collections in addition to extensive digital resources and the University Archives; it is one of the twelve largest (by volume) academic research libraries in the United States. It was the first among all U.S. colleges and universities to allow undergraduates to borrow books from its libraries.
Cornell University Press
Cornell University Press, established in 1869, was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States and is one of the country's largest university presses. It produces approximately 150 titles each year in various disciplines including anthropology, classics, cultural studies, history, literary criticism and theory, medieval studies, philosophy, politics and international relations, psychology and psychiatry, and women's studies.
The campuses
Main campus
1869] Cornell's main campus, is located on the eastern hill of Ithaca, New York, overlooking the city. Day Hall, the administration building, is located on East Avenue. The campus itself is situated on a rolling site of 745 acres (3 km²) on East Hill, overlooking Cayuga Lake and downtown Ithaca two miles (3 km) to the west. The 260 or so major buildings are mostly divided into quads for the Arts, Engineering, and Agriculture, a science lab complex, and the athletic complex.
Central campus is bounded to its north and south by spectacular limestone gorges and waterfalls. Dormitories, fraternity and sorority houses, and student centers are located on North Campus, north of Fall Creek Gorge, and on West Campus, at the bottom of the Library Slope ("Libe Slope"); after snowfalls, students are known to sled down the Slope on trays from the dining hall. East of the main campus lie the Cornell Plantations, approximately 3,600 acres (15 km²) encompassing an arboretum and botanical gardens as well as natural woodlands, trails, streams, and gorges. South of Cascadilla Gorge lies the student-oriented Collegetown business and residential district.
Cayuga Lake The first building, Morrill Hall, was erected in 1868, although Cascadilla Hall, a dormitory purchased some years later, is slightly older. Cornell's signature landmark is McGraw Tower, which rises 173 feet and 161 steps from the ground. Constructed in 1891 adjoining Uris Library, it features the Cornell Chimes, 21 bells on which the Cornell chimesmasters play three daily concerts. The clock tower has been the target of a number of pranks. In 1997, a large pumpkin was placed on spire of the clocktower and a discoball in 2005. How either prank was engineered has not been discovered.
Contrasting with the Gothic, Victorian, and Neo-Classical buildings on the Arts Quad is the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, designed by I. M. Pei. Other notable buildings: Willard Straight Hall, one of the earliest student unions; Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, the largest academic building in the eastern United States; Duffield Hall, one of the world's most advanced nanotechnology facilities; and the Statler Hotel, adjacent to and associated with the School of Hotel Administration.
New York City campus
The New York Weill Cornell Medical Center is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It is home to the Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and has a long affiliation with the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Although their faculty and academic divisions remain separate, the Medical Center shares its administrative functions with the Columbia University Medical Center, and is also affiliated with the Sloan-Kettering Institute for cancer research.
In addition to the medical facilities, Cornell in New York City includes offices of; Cornell Cooperative Extension, the College of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR), and Operations Research Manhattan Center.
Other campuses
The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, operated by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is located in Geneva, New York, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the main campus. The facility now comprises 20 major buildings on 130 acres (0.5 km²) of land, as well as over 700 acres (2.8 km²) of test plots and other lands devoted to horticultural research. It also operates three substations, Vineyard Research Laboratory in Fredonia, Hudson Valley Laboratory in Highland and the Long Island Horticultural Research Laboratory in Riverhead.
The Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, located in Education City, near Doha, is housed in a large two-story structure designed by Arata Isozaki.
Arata Isozaki
The Shoals Marine Laboratory, a seasonal marine field station dedicated to undergraduate education and research operated in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire, is located on the 95 acre (0.4 km²) Appledore Island off the Maine–New Hampshire coast.
The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, site of the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, is operated by Cornell.
The current and upcoming missions to Mars are managed by Steven Squyres and the Cornell Astronomy Department.
Cornell University maintains facilities in Washington, D.C. and New York City for its Cornell in Washington, Urban Semester, and Urban Scholars Programs.
Other facilities include
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Sapsucker Woods in Ithaca, New York
- Cornell Biological Field Station at Shackelton Point in Bridgeport
- Punta Cana and EsBaran biodiversity field stations in the Dominican Republic and Peru
- Arnot Teaching and Research Forest natural resources center in Tompkins and Schuyler Counties.
- Animal Science Teaching and Research Center in Harford, and Duck Research Laboratory in Eastport, New York
- Offices of the New York Sea Grant, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and School of Industrial and Labor Relations Extension Service throughout New York State
- Offices for Cornell-administered study abroad programs such as the Cornell-Nepal Study Program and Cornell-in-Rome
Reputation
Many of Cornell's programs are regarded as exceptional. For example, in its 2005 ranking of engineering programs at universities in the United States, U.S. News and World Report has placed Cornell first in engineering science and engineering physics.
Cornell's reputation reflects in its competitive admissions. For the Class of 2009, 25.1% of applicants were admitted. Over 88% of them graduated in the top 10% of their high school class (among schools reporting class rank).. Cornell attracts students from all corners of the globe, who represent over 120 countries and all fifty United States.
Eastport, New York
Recently, [http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=1074142800#question5 complaints] by students regarding the "Big Red Box" logo, Cornell's falling rankings (from number 6 in 1999 to the mid-teens in recent years the USNWR Rankings), and a poor selection of branded merchandise, led a group of students to form an ad hoc committee of the Student Assembly in order to improve Cornell's image. Armed with a 32-page report, "Cornell: A Brand in Crisis," the Image Committee raised campus awareness regarding the importance of marketing in improving Cornell's recruitment efforts and rankings status. Working directly with then-president Jeffrey S. Lehman and other members of the administration, the Image Committee assisted with the development of a new identity program, improved merchandising, and a revitalized website. In 2004, Cornell replaced the short-lived "Big Red Box" logo (seen on the right) with a modernized version of the University's shield.
Student life
Activities
Cornell has more than 800 registered student organizations, running the gamut from kayaking to full-armor jousting, from varsity and club sports and a cappella groups to improvisational theatre, from political clubs and publications to chess and video game clubs. Many groups are subsidized financially by the Student Assembly Finance Commission, a student-run organization that gives nearly $1,000,000 a year to clubs and organizations. Cornell also hosts one of the largest fraternity and sorority systems in North America, with over 60 chapters involving 30 percent of undergraduate students. Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans was founded at Cornell in 1906. The oldest student organization is the internationally recognized Cornell University Glee Club. The Cornell Daily Sun is the oldest continuously independent college daily in the United States, having been published since September, 1880.
Housing
1880
University housing is broadly divided into three sections: West Campus, Collegetown and North Campus. As a result of President Hunter R. Rawlings III's 1997 Residential Initiative West Campus houses mostly transfer and returning students, whereas North Campus is almost entirely populated by freshmen. The only options for living on North Campus for upperclassmen are the program houses: Risley Residential College, Just About Music (JAM), the Ecology House, Holland International Living Center (HILC), the Multicultural Living Learning Unit (MLLU), the Latino Living Center (LLC), Akwe:kon, and Ujaama.
In an attempt to create a sense of community and an atmosphere of education outside the classroom, the University has undertaken the $250 million residential college project on West Campus. In line with Andrew Dickson White's vision of the University, the West Campus housing will be demolished and rebuilt as five residential colleges. The first House, the Alice Cook House, was opened to students in 2004, followed by the Carl Becker House in 2005. The next house will be the Hans Bethe House. The names of the Houses come from notable Cornell professors. The idea of building a House system can be attributed in part to the success of Risley Residential College, the oldest continually-in-use residential college at Cornell. Like Risley, the new houses will have their own dining halls, student governments, in-house lectures, House trips, and crests. The completion of the five-"House" "residential college" campus will occur in 2010 .
A variety of off-campus housing options exist. Many homes in the East Hill neighborhoods adjacent to the University have been converted to apartments, and several high-rise apartment complexes have been constructed in the Collegetown neighborhood. A significant number of undergraduate students live in fraternity and sorority houses. Many "co-op" or other independent living units such as Watermargin, Telluride House, Young Israel, and the Wait Cooperative also exist.
The campus dining services have been rated as one of the top college dining services many times in recent years.
Athletics
Telluride House]
Cornell has one of the most diverse varsity athletic programs in the country. It sponsors 36 varsity teams. An NCAA Division I institution, Cornell is a member of the Ivy League and also competes in Eastern College Athletic Conference, the largest athletic conference in North America. Cornell's traditional football rival is the University of Pennsylvania; in 1993, the two institutions celebrated the 100th anniversary of their first game. More keenly followed in the present day are the men's ice hockey contests with Harvard University, although the rivalry has been somewhat one-sided in recent years, with Cornell leading 22-5-2 since the 95-96 season, inlcuding ECAC Championship Game wins in 1996, 2003, and 2005.
In addition to the school's varsity athletics, a wide variety of club sports teams have been organized as student organizations under the auspices of the Dean of Students.
Cornell's intramural program includes 30 sports. In addition to such familiar sports such as flag football, squash, or horseshoes, such unusual offerings as "inner tube water polo," and formerly "broomstick polo" have been offered, as well as a sports trivia competition.
See Cornell Big Red for more Cornell Athletics information.
Suicides
Two deep gorges cut through the Cornell campus which have become infamous for student suicides. According to Cornell's Gannett Health Services over 10 years the average number of student suicides at Cornell is two per year, consistent with national epidemiological data for college student suicides (1 per 10,000). This is half the national rate for individuals in this age group who are not in college. The myth that Cornell features one of the nation's highest suicide rates is most likely promulgated by:
- Suicides in the gorges by Ithaca residents and visitors
- A media focus on Cornell
- The persistence and promulgation of urban legends
- Accidental deaths of students in the gorges
Cornell is involved in a collaboration with the Jed Foundationand several other universities to enhance and evaluate university-wide efforts to identify and intervene with students in distress, prevent suicides, reduce harm related to mental health problems, and enhance student mental health.
Faculty
Cornell University has over 1,550 full-time and part-time academic faculty members, and an additional 1,600 affiliated with its medical divisions. The 2003-04 Cornell faculty included 4 Nobel laureates, a Crawford Prize winner, 2 Turing Award winners, a Fields Medal winner, 2 Legion of Honor recipients, a World Food Prize winner, 4 National Medal of Science winners, 2 Wolf Prize winners, 4 MacArthur Award winners, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 13 Alexander von Humboldt Award winners, 2 Eminent Ecologist Award recipients, a Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion recipient, 3 Presidential Early Career Award holders, 23 National Science Foundation CAREER grant holders, a recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research, a winner of the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, a recipient of the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, a Packard Foundation grant holder, a Searle Scholar, a Keck Distinguished Young Scholar, 2 Beckman Foundation Young Investigator grant holders, and a NYSTAR (New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research) early career award winner. In total, Cornell is affiliated to 32 Nobel laureates.
Among Cornell's notable former professors are Carl Sagan, Norman Malcolm, Vladimir Nabokov, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, Kip S. Thorne, and Allan Bloom.
Alumni
As of August 2003 Cornell University counted over 220,000 living alumni. The Office of Alumni Affairs and Development sponsors a wide variety of affinity programs, activities, and organizations, including annual Reunion Weekend and Homecoming Weekend festivities in Ithaca, and the International Spirit of Zinck's Night sponsored by Cornell offices and organizations around the world. The various classes, regional clubs, and special interest associations are coordinated by the Cornell Alumni Federation.
Cornell ranked first in gifts and bequests from alumni and third in total support from all sources (alumni, friends, corporations, and foundations) among U.S. colleges and universities reporting voluntary gift support received in fiscal year 2003-4.
Cornell boasts many notable alumni; see Cornellians for a listing.
Cornelliana
The school colors are carnelian (a shade of red) and white, a play on "Cornellian" and Andrew Dickson White. The name of Cornell's athletic teams is the "Big Red"; a bear is commonly used as the unofficial mascot, which dates back to the introduction of the mascot "Touchdown" in 1915, a live bear who was brought onto the field during football games. The sports teams participate in the Ivy League and the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). At sporting events, Cornellians sing the University's alma mater "Far Above Cayuga's Waters" and fight song "Give My Regards to Davy". People associated with the University are called "Cornellians"; "Cornellian" may also be used as an adjective and is the name of the university's annual.
Other unique parts of Cornell's culture can be found at Cornelliana.
References
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# [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Ezra-exhibit/EC-life/EC-life-6.html Ezra Cornell:A 19th Century Life] – From the Cornell University Library Archives
# [http://www.cornell.edu/about/facts/faq_profile.cfm?id=915 How old is Cornell?] - From the Cornell University official website
# [http://www.cornell.edu/about/facts/stats.cfm Facts about Cornell] - From the Cornell University official website
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- Rudolph, Frederick, American College and University: A History, University of Georgia Press, 1991
External links
- [http://www.cornell.edu/ Cornell University], official website
- [http://admissions.cornell.edu/ Cornell Undergraduate Admissions]
- [http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/ CUinfo], campus information portal
- [http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/ alumni.cornell], alumni classes and organizations portal
- [http://www.cornelldailysun.com/ The Cornell Daily Sun], student newspaper (independent)
- [http://www.cornellbigred.com/ Cornell Big Red], official athletics site
- [http://cybertower.cornell.edu/ Cornell Cybertower], collection of Cornell lectures available online
- [http://www.cornellclubnyc.com/ The Cornell Club], private alumni club in New York City
- [http://www.law.cornell.edu/ Legal Information Institute], public information service of Cornell Law School
- [http://www.explore.cornell.edu/scene.cfm?scene=Sites%20and%20Landmarks A Virtual Tour of Cornell]
Category:Association of American Universities
Category:Cornell University
Category:Ivy League
Category:Land-grant universities
Category:Sea-grant universities
Category:Space-grant universities
Category:Sun-grant universities
Category:Tompkins County, New York
Category:Universities and colleges in New York
Category:Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
ko:코넬 대학교
ja:コーネル大学
Planetary SciencesPlanetary science, also known as planetology or planetary astronomy, is the science of planets, or planetary systems, and the solar system. Incorporating an interdisciplinary approach, planetary science draws from diverse sciences and may be considered a part of the Earth sciences, or more logically, as its parent field. Research tends to be done by a combination of astronomy, space exploration (particularly unmanned space missions), and comparative, experimental and meteorite work based on Earth. There is also an important theoretical component and considerable use of computer simulation. Astrogeology is a major component of planetary sciences.
Planetary science studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, their composition, dynamics and history.
Terminology
When the discipline concerns itself with a celestial body in particular, a specialised term is used, as shown in the table below (only Heliology, Earth science (synonymous with geoscience), Selenology, and Areology are currently in common use):
Basic Concepts
- Asteroid
- Brown dwarfs
- Comets
- Earthquake
- Equatorial bulge
- Extrasolar planets
- Gas giant planets
- Icy moons
- Kuiper belt
- Magnetosphere
- Planet
- Planetary differentiation
- Planetary system
- the Pluto debate
- Precession
- Solar-terrestrial interaction
- Space weather
- Star system
- Sun
- Synchronous rotation
- Super Jupiter
- Terrestrial planets
See also
- Astrogeology
- Planetary habitability
Category:Space science
ja:惑星科学
American Astronomical SocietyThe American Astronomical Society (AAS) is a US society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The main aim of the AAS is provide a political voice for its members and organise their lobbying.
The group was founded in 1899 by the efforts of George Ellery Hale. The constitution of the group was written by Hale, George Comstock, Edward Morley, Simon Newcomb and Edward Pickering. These men plus four others were the first Executive Council of the society, Newcomb was the first president. The initial membership was 114. The AAS name of the society was not finally decided until 1915, previously it was the "Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America". One proposed name that preceded this interim name was "American Astrophysical Society".
The AAS today has over 6,500 members and five divisions - the Division for Planetary Sciences (1968), the Division on Dynamical Astronomy (1969), the High Energy Astrophysics Division (1969), the Solar Physics Division (1969) and the Historical Astronomy Division (1980).
The AAS awards several prestigious prizes annually. Among these are:
- The Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
- The Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy
- The Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy
- The Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize
- The George Van Biesbroeck Prize
- The Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation
- The Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (joint award with the American Institute of Physics )
- The H. C. Urey Prize (awarded by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the AAS)
- The Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy (awarded in concert with the American Association of University Women)
The AAS also manages a Small Research Grant Award program and an International Travel Grant program for its members.
Divisions
The AAS has grown large enough that it has several constituent divisions, each of which promotes and enables a differenct branch of astronomy or astronomy-related science as well as working within the overall charter of the AAS.. Many of the divisions hold separate meetings in addition to meeting with the main group. The divisions of the AAS, together with their main research interests, are:
- The Division for Planetary Science (DPS) supports planetology and exploration of the solar system.
- The Division for Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) supports research on the dynamics (orbits, evolution, and history) of astronomical systems from the solar system to superclusters of galaxies on cosmological scales.
- The High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) supports knowledge about high energy events, particles, quanta, relativistic gravitational fields, and related phenomena in the astrophysical universe.
- The Historical Astronomy Division (HAD) supports topics relevant to the history of astronomy as a field, and research using historical astronomical records to solve current problems in astronomy.
- The Solar Physics Division (SPD) supports astrophysical research on the Sun, and its interactions with the Solar system and Earth.
External link
- [http://www.aas.org/ The AAS Website] (also contains links to the division websites)
References
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Category:Astronomy organizations
Category:Scientific societies
Asteroid:This page is about the astronomical body Asteroid. For the arcade game, see Asteroids.
An asteroid is a small, solid object in our Solar System, orbiting the Sun. An asteroid is an example of a minor planet (or planetoid), which are much smaller than planets. Most asteroids are believed to be remnants of the protoplanetary disc which were not incorporated into planets during the system's formation. Some asteroids have moons. The vast majority of the asteroids are within the main asteroid belt, with elliptical orbits between those of Mars and Jupiter. Jupiter
Definition
The term "asteroid", meaning star-like (from the Greek asteroeides, aster "star" + -eidos "form, shape"), was coined in 1802 by Sir William Herschel shortly after Olbers discovered the second one, 2 Pallas, in late March of the same year, to describe their star-like appearance; the other then-known planets all show discs, by comparison. He also applied that term to the small moons of the giant planets. The first [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1840AN.....17...81E&db_key=AST&high=41e14f475d05983 scientific paper] to use the word in its title was published in 1840 by Erman.
The exact definition of an asteroid is unsettled. The term "Minor planet" (or "planetoid") carries no strong suggestion about the composition of the object or its general location in the solar system, and some argue that not every minor planet should be called an "asteroid".
One way to classify asteroids is in terms of size. A working definition is that asteroids are larger than 50 m in diameter, distinguishing them from meteoroids, which are typically boulder-sized or smaller. The distinction is made because asteroids are large enough to survive passage through Earth's atmosphere and strike Earth largely intact while the smaller meteoroids generally break up high in Earth's atmosphere.
Thus, it would be safest to use the term "asteroid" for Solar System objects that are bigger than meteoroids, smaller than planets, and made out of rock, not ice. See Solar System for a complete taxonomy of objects in our system, and minor planet for a taxonomy of the subplanetary objects that include asteroids. The term artificial asteroid is sometimes used to designate man-made objects which have ended up in solar orbits, such as the Mariner IV probe.
Asteroids in the solar system
Mariner IV alongside Earth's Moon.]]
Hundreds of thousands of asteroids have been discovered within the solar system, and the present rate of discovery is about 5000 per month. As of November 16, 2005, from a total of 305,224 minor planets with calculated orbits, 120,437 asteroids had been calculated well enough to be given official numbers and 12,712 of these had been officially given trivial names to go along with the numbers (at least 610 of which have names requiring diacritics). The lowest-numbered but unnamed minor planet is (3360) 1981 VA; the highest-numbered named minor planet is 99942 Apophis [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/NumberedMPs095001.html].
The Minor Planet Circular (MPC) of October 19, 2005 was a historical one, as it saw the highest numbered asteroid jump from 99947 to 118161, causing a small "Y2k" like crisis for various automated data services —up until then, only five digits were allowed in most data formats for the asteroid number. This has been addressed in some data fields by having the leftmost digit, the ten-thousands place, use the alphabet as a digit extension. A=10, B=11,…, Z=35, a=36,…, z=61. The highest number 120437 thus is cross-referenced as C0437 on some lists. Also, the fictional asteroid of The Little Prince, B612, now could be connected with the real (110612) 2001 TA142 which is listed as (B0612) 2001 TA142 in the compacted lists —although it is already present as 46610 Bésixdouze (B612 in hexadecimal translates to 46610 in decimal notation).
Current estimates put the total number of asteroids in the solar system at several million. The largest asteroid in the inner solar system is 1 Ceres, with a diameter of 900-1000 km. Two other large inner solar system belt asteroids are 2 Pallas and 4 Vesta; both have diameters of ~500 km. Vesta is the only main belt asteroid that is sometimes visible to the naked eye (in some very rare occasions, a near-Earth asteroid may be visible without technical aid; see 99942 Apophis).
The mass of all the asteroids of the Main Belt is estimated to be about 2.3x1021 kg, or about 3% of the mass of our moon. Of this, 1 Ceres comprises 940 to 950x1018 kg, some 40% of the total. Adding in the next three most massive asteroids, 4 Vesta (12%), 2 Pallas (9%), and 10 Hygiea (4%), bring this figure up 66%; while the three after that, 511 Davida (1.6%), 704 Interamnia (1.4%), and 3 Juno (1.2%), only add another 4% to the total mass. The number of asteroids then increases exponentially as their individual masses decrease.
See also a List of noteworthy asteroids in our Solar System, or a sequentially-ordered List of asteroids.
Asteroid classification
Asteroids are commonly classified into groups based on the characteristics of their orbits and on the details of the spectrum of sunlight they reflect.
Orbit groups and families
Many asteroids have been placed in groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. It is customary to name a group of asteroids after the first member of that group to be discovered. Groups are relatively loose dynamical associations, whereas families are much "tighter" and result from the catastrophic break-up of a large parent asteroid sometime in the past.
For a full listing of known asteroid groups and families, see minor planet.
Spectral classification
minor planet.]]
In 1975, an asteroid taxonomic system based on colour, albedo, and spectral shape was developed by Clark R. Chapman, David Morrison, and Ben Zellner. These properties are thought to correspond to the composition of the asteroid's surface material. Originally, they classified only three types of asteroids:
- C-type asteroids - carbonaceous, 75% of known asteroids
- S-type asteroids - silicaceous, 17% of known asteroids
- M-type asteroids - metallic, most of the remaining asteroids
This list has since been expanded to include a number of other asteroid types. The number of types continues to grow as more asteroids are studied. See Asteroid spectral types for more detail or :Category:Asteroid spectral classes for a list.
Note that the proportion of known asteroids falling into the various spectral types does not necessarily reflect the proportion of all asteroids that are of that type; some types are easier to detect than others, biasing the totals.
Problems with spectral classification
Originally, spectral designations were based on inferences of an asteroid's composition:
- C - Carbonaceous
- S - Silicaceous
- M - Metallic
However, the correspondence between spectral class and composition is not always very good, and there are a variety of classifications in use. This has led to significant confusion. While asteroids of different spectral classifications are likely to be composed of different materials, there are no assurances that asteroids within the same taxonomic class are composed of similar materials.
At present, scientists have been unable to agree on a better taxonomic system for asteroids and as a result, the spectral classification has stuck.
Asteroid discovery
Historical discovery methods
Asteroid discovery methods have drastically improved over the past two centuries.
In the last years of the 18th century, Baron Franz Xaver von Zach organized a group of 24 astronomers to search the sky for the "missing planet" predicted at about 2.8 AU from the Sun by the Titius-Bode law, partly as a consequence of the discovery, by Sir William Herschel in 1781, of the planet Uranus at the distance "predicted" by the law. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the zodiacal band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, be spotted. The expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernable by observers.
Ironically, the first asteroid, 1 Ceres, was not discovered by a member of the group, but rather by accident in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi director, at the time, of the observatory of Palermo, in Sicily. He discovered a new star-like object in Taurus and followed the displacement of this object during several nights. His colleague, Carl Friedrich Gauss, used these observations to determine the exact distance from this unknown object to the Earth. Gauss' calculations placed the object between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Piazzi named it after Ceres, the Greek goddess of agriculture.
Three other asteroids (2 Pallas, 3 Juno, 4 Vesta) were discovered over the next few years, with Vesta found in 1807. After eight more years of fruitless searches, most astronomers assumed that there were no more and abandoned any further searches.
However, Karl Ludwig Hencke persisted, and began searching for more asteroids in 1830. Fifteen years later, he found 5 Astraea, the first new asteroid in 38 years. He also found 6 Hebe less than two years later. After this, other astronomers joined in the search and at least one new asteroid was discovered every year after that (except the wartime year 1945). Notable asteroid hunters of this early era were J. R. Hind, Annibale de Gasparis, Robert Luther, H. M. S. Goldschmidt, Jean Chacornac, James Ferguson, Norman Robert Pogson, E. W. Tempel, J. C. Watson, C. H. F. Peters, A. Borrelly, J. Palisa, Paul Henry and Prosper Henry and Auguste Charlois.
In 1891, however, Max Wolf pioneered the use of astrophotography to detect asteroids, which appeared as short streaks on long-exposure photographic plates. This drastically increased the rate of detection compared with previous visual methods: Wolf alone discovered 248 asteroids, beginning with 323 Brucia, whereas only slightly more than 300 had been discovered up to that point. Still, a century later, only a few thousand asteroids were identified, numbered and named. It was known that there were many more, but most astronomers did not bother with them, calling them "vermin of the skies".
Modern discovery methods
Until 1998, asteroids were discovered by a four-step process. First, a region of the sky was photographed by a wide-field telescope. Pairs of photographs were taken, typically one hour apart. Multiple pairs could be taken over a series of days. Second, the two films of the same region were viewed under a stereoscope. Any body in orbit around the Sun would move slightly between the pair of films. Under the stereoscope, the image of the body would appear to float slightly above the background of stars. Third, once a moving body was identified, its location would be measured precisely using a digitizing microscope. The location would be measured relative to known star locations [http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/People/CarolynShoemaker/].
These first three steps do not constitute asteroid discovery: the observer has only found an apparition, which gets a provisional designation, made up of the year of discovery, a code of two letters representing the week of discovery, and of a number so more than the one discovered one took place in this week (example: 1998 FJ74).
The final step of discovery is to send the locations and time of observations to Brian Marsden of the Minor Planet Center. Dr. Marsden has computer programs that compute whether an apparition ties together previous apparitions into a single orbit. If so, the object gets a number. The observer of the first apparition with a calculated orbit is declared the discoverer, and he gets the honour of naming the asteroid (subject to the approval of the International Astronomical Union) once it is numbered.
Latest technology: detecting hazardous asteroids
There is increasing interest in identifying asteroids whose orbits cross Earth's orbit, and that could, given enough time, collide with Earth (see Earth-crosser asteroids). The three most important groups of near-Earth asteroids are the Apollos, Amors, and the Atens. Various asteroid deflection strategies have been proposed.
The near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros had been discovered as long ago as 1898, and the 1930s brought a flurry of similar objects. In order of discovery, these were: 1221 Amor, 1862 Apollo, 2101 Adonis, and finally 69230 Hermes, which approached within 0.005 AU of the Earth in 1937. Astronomers began to realize the possibilities of Earth impact.
Two events in later decades increased the level of alarm: the increasing acceptance of Walter Alvarez' theory of dinosaur extinction being due to an impact event, and the 1994 observation of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter. The U.S. military also declassified the information that its military satellites, built to detect nuclear explosions, had detected hundreds of upper-atmosphere impacts by objects ranging from one to 10 metres across.
All of these considerations helped spur the launch of highly efficient automated systems that consist of Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) cameras and computers directly connected to telescopes. Since 1998, a large majority of the asteroids have been discovered by such automated systems. A list of teams using such automated systems includes [http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/programs]:
- The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) team
- The Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) team
- Spacewatch
- The Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) team
- The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS)
- The Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Objects Survey (CINEOS) team
- The Japanese Spaceguard Association
- The Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS)
The LINEAR system alone has discovered 50,484 asteroids as of May 24, 2005 [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/MPDiscSites.html]. Between all of the automated systems, 3353 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Unusual.html] including over 600 more than 1 km in diameter.
Naming asteroids
The naming format
Newly discovered asteroids are given a provisional designation consisting of the year of discovery and an alphanumeric code, such as 2001 FH. When its orbit is confirmed, it is given a number, and later may also be given a name (e.g. 1 Ceres). The formal naming convention uses parentheses around the number (e.g. (433) Eros), however, dropping the parentheses is quite common. Informally, especially when a name is repeated in running text, it is common to drop the number altogether, or to drop it after the first mention.
Unnamed asteroids
Unnamed asteroids that have been given a number keep their provisional designation, e.g. (29075) 1950 DA.
As modern discovery techniques have discovered vast numbers of new asteroids, they are increasingly being left unnamed. The first asteroid to be left unnamed was (3360) 1981 VA. On rare occasions, an asteroid's provisional designation may become used as a name in itself: the still unnamed (15760) 1992 QB₁ gave its name to a group of asteroids which became known as cubewanos.
Sources for names
The first few asteroids were named after figures from Graeco-Roman mythology, but as such names started to run out, others were used —famous people, literary characters, the names of the discoverer's wives, children, and even television characters.
The first asteroid to be given a non-mythological name was 20 Massalia, named after the city of Marseilles. For some time only female (or feminized) names were used; Alexander von Humboldt was the first man to have an asteroid named after him, but his name was feminized to 54 Alexandra. This unspoken tradition lasted until 334 Chicago was named; even then, oddly feminised names show up in the list for years afterward.
As the number of asteroids began to run into the hundreds, and eventually the thousands, discoverers began to give them increasingly frivolous names. The first hints of this were 482 Petrina and 483 Seppina, named after the discoverer's pet dogs. However, there was little controversy about this until 1971, upon the naming of 2309 Mr. Spock (which was not even named after the Star Trek character, but after the discoverer's cat who supposedly bore a resemblance to him). Although the IAU subsequently banned pet names as sources, eccentric asteroid names are still being proposed and accepted, such as 6042 Cheshirecat, 9007 James Bond, or 26858 Misterrogers.
For a full list, see meanings of asteroid names.
Special naming rules
Asteroid naming is not always a free-for-all: there are some types of asteroid for which rules have developed about the sources of names. For instance Centaurs (asteroids orbiting between Saturn and Neptune) are all named after mythological centaurs, Trojans after heroes from the Trojan War, and trans-Neptunian objects after underworld spirits.
Asteroid symbols
The first few asteroids discovered were assigned symbols like the ones traditionally used to designate Earth, the Moon, the Sun and planets. The symbols quickly became ungainly, hard to draw and recognise. By the end of 1851 there were 15 known asteroids, each (except one) with its own symbol. The first four's main variants are shown here:
:1 Ceres 1851 1851 1851 1851
:2 Pallas 1851 1851
:3 Juno 1851 1851
:4 Vesta 1851 1851 1851
Johann Franz Encke made a major change in the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch (BAJ, "Berlin Astronomical Yearbook") for 1854. He introduced encircled numbers instead of symbols, although his numbering began with Astraea, the first four asteroids continuing to be denoted by their traditional symbols. This symbolic innovation was adopted very quickly by the astronomical communi | | |
