Related papers: The Cosmos in Your Pocket: How Cosmological Scienc…
It goes without saying that we are stuck with the universe we have. Nevertheless, we would like to go beyond simply describing our observed universe, and try to understand why it is that way rather than some other way. Physicists and…
Although cosmology is usually considered an observational science, where there is little or no space for experimentation, other approaches can (and have been) also considered. In particular, we can change rather drastically the above, more…
Advances in astronomy are often enabled by adoption of new technology. In some instances this is where the technology has been invented specifically for astronomy, but more usually it is adopted from another scientific or industrial area of…
The history of astrometry, the branch of astronomy dealing with the positions of celestial objects, is a lengthy and complex chronicle, having its origins in the earliest records of astronomical observations more than two thousand years…
The paper discusses the problem of demarcation between the dimensions of natural and the human sciences in contemporary cosmology. In spite of a common presumption that cosmology is a natural science, the specificity of its alleged subject…
This brief overview stresses the importance of laboratory data and theory in analyzing astronomical observations and understanding the physical and chemical processes that drive the astrophysical phenomena in our Universe. This includes…
Astronomy, of all the sciences, is possibly the one with the most public appeal across all age groups. This is also evidenced by the existence of a large number of planetaria and amateur astronomy societies, which is unique to the field.…
We aim to bring a new perspective about some aspects of the current research in Cosmology. We start with a brief introduction about the main developments of the field in the last century; then we introduce an analogy that shall elucidate…
Since more than a century we investigate cosmic particles coming from the Universe with the aim of understanding their nature, their origin and how they are accelerated. So far, cosmic rays have provided many impressive results, giving…
In the last decade a new generation of telescopes and sensors has allowed the production of a very large amount of data and astronomy has become, a data-rich science; this transition is often labeled as: "data revolution" and "data…
Perhaps more than any other of the physical sciences, cosmology exemplifies the inevitable contact between science and philosophy, including the problem of the demarcation criteria that distinguish science from non-science. Although modern…
Both the basic educational contents for students and study programs for science teachers include several topics in physics and astronomy, from the simplest ones to others as advanced as nuclear fusion to explain stellar evolution and…
Laboratory astrophysics and complementary theoretical calculations are the foundations of astronomy and astrophysics and will remain so into the foreseeable future. The mission enabling impact of laboratory astrophysics ranges from the…
From a modern perspective cosmology is a historical science in so far that it deals with the development of the universe since its origin some 14 billion years ago. The origin itself may not be subject to scientific analysis and…
Cosmology provides a unique and very powerful laboratory for testing neutrino physics. Here, I review the current status of cosmological neutrino measurements. Future prospects are also discussed, with particular emphasis on the interplay…
As a scientific discipline, Astronomy is rather unique. We only have one laboratory, the Universe, and we cannot, of course, change the initial conditions and study the resulting effects. On top of this, acquiring Astronomical data has…
It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst observations of distant…
Much of the progress in Astronomy has been driven by instrumental developments, from the first telescopes to fiber fed spectrographs. In this review we describe the field of astrophotonics, a combination of photonics and astronomical…
Observatories, Institutes and Centers that support major astronomical facilities have, for decades, played a key role in maximizing the scientific return from their facilities and telescopes. It is crucial to realize that an "observatory"…
Cosmology is undergoing an explosive period of activity, fueled both by new, accurate astrophysical data and by innovative theoretical developments. Cosmological parameters such as the total density of the Universe and the rate of…