Related papers: Hubble's Nobel Prize
For most of its history, cosmology was a qualitatively constrained discourse on the universe, shaped by limited observational access and the absence of global dynamical laws. This situation has changed decisively in recent decades. Modern…
Astrobiology has been gaining increasing scientific prominence and public attention as the search for life beyond Earth continues to make significant headway on multiple fronts. In view of these recent developments, the fascinating and…
Measuring the rate at which the universe expands at a given time -- the 'Hubble constant' -- has been a topic of controversy since the first measure of its expansion by Edwin Hubble in the 1920's. As early as the 1970's, Sandage et de…
Astroparticle physics is a field rich of perspectives in investigating the ultra-high energy region which will never be accessible to man made machines. Many efforts are underway in order to detect the first cosmic neutrinos, messengers of…
As a short introduction to the astronomy session, the response of the community to the Call for Themes issued by ESA and the specific themes selected by the Astronomy Working Group are briefly presented in connection with the four grand…
Public engagement (PE) initiatives can lead to a long term public support of science. However most of the real impact of PE initiatives within the context of long-term science policy is not completely understood. An examination of the…
Cosmology is the dot com of the sciences. Boom or bust. It is about nothing less than the origin and evolution of the Universe, the all of everything. It is the boldest of enterprises and not for the fainthearted. Cosmologists are the…
The ProAm effort in modern astronomy and astrophysics is now a reality. The achievements of amateur astronomers throughout the early history of astronomy are well known. However, during the 20th century, the high specialisation and the…
The fact that no evidence of new physics was found so far by LHC experiments has led some to call for the abandonment of the naturalness criterion. Others, on the contrary, have felt the need to break a lance in its defense by claiming that…
The scientific status of physical cosmology has been the subject of philosophical debate ever since detailed mathematical models of the Universe emerged from Einstein's general theory of relativity. Such debates have revolved around whether…
Exotic workplace locales, amazing discoveries, and fame (but probably not fortune) await those who persevere on the path leading to a career as a professional astronomer. So how do you join the elite ranks of professional astronomy? Here…
In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF), anticipating the no growth in funding, has commissioned a review of NSF-funded astronomy assets with the goal of determining how to best allocate funding for this decade. Inputs…
Nobel laureates cluster together. 696 of the 727 winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics belong to one single academic family tree. 668 trace their ancestry to Emmanuel Stupanus, 228 to Lord Rayleigh…
Strikingly few Nobel laureates within medicine, natural and social sciences are women. Although it is obvious that there are fewer women researchers within these fields, does this gender ratio still fully account for the low number of…
Stellar astronomy, fueled by massive capital investments, advances in numerical modeling and theory, is resurgent and arguably is on the verge of a magnificent renaissance. Powerful time domain optical surveys, both on ground and in space,…
This is a (very) personal attempt to summarize the status of neutrino astronomy: its scientific motivations, our understanding of natural water and ice as particle detectors and, finally, the detector technology.
The Hubble constant is of paramount importance in astrophysics and cosmology. A large number of methods have been developed with different electromagnetic probes to estimate its value. The most recent results show a tension between values…
Hubble's announcement of the magnitude-redshift relation \cite{Hub29} brought about a major change in our understanding of the Universe. After tracing the pre-history of Hubble's work, and the hiatus in our understanding which his…
One of main sources of uncertainty in modern cosmology is the present rate of the universe's expansion, H0, called the Hubble constant. Once again, different observational techniques bring about different results, causing new 'Hubble…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…