Margaret Gellar

Rania Shafie
Mr. Percieval
30th April, 2010
Astronomy Honors
Margaret Gellar
Margaret Gellar is an American born astronomer who masters in mapping galaxies in some of the farthest points in the universe that have ever been reached. Born in 1947 in Ithaca, New York, Margaret, who is still alive today, was brought up with an education in math and science. Her father was a scientist as well, who studied the formation of crystals, otherwise known as a crystallographer. When Margaret was just twenty eight years old she graduated from University of California with a PhD. She was always mainly interested in mapping galaxies. Her dissertation from the University of California was entitled, “Bright Galaxies in Rich Clusters: A Statistical Model for Magnitude Distributions.” After leaving the University, Gellar went on to be a research associate at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. In 1983, only eight years after writing her dissertation in California Margaret became an astrophysicist as well as a professor at Harvard.
Although Margaret Gellar’s academic accomplishments are notable as well as rare, her astronomical accomplishments are exceptional. Ever since the eighties Margaret has dedicated her career to mapping a large scale survey of galaxies, along with fellow astronomer John P. Huchra. Gellar and Huchra’s first publication regarding the mapping of galaxies occurred in 1986, and to the astronomical society’s surprise, their research presented a view that is now referred to as the “great wall”. This is a recording of countless galaxies which seem to be surrounded by incredibly thin bubble walls. The discrepancy, however, with the publication of the research is that the great wall is simply to large to have formed in any way which astronomers are aware. Some speculate that it is simply dark matter, which occupies the majority of our universe, which causes the discrepancy.
Margaret Gellar’s accomplishments are represented by the societies which she is currently apart of as well as awards which have been presented to her. She won what some refer to as the “genius award”. Officially the honor is referred to as the MacArthur fellowship, and she was presented with the honor in 1990. The very same year Gellar also received the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Astronomy organizations which Margaret is apart of include the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Today, Margaret continues to study the origin as well as evolution of galaxies, as well as map positions of the galaxies in the universe.

4.3=)

I chose the APOD blog "The extreme ultraviolet sun", because it's just so darn pretty! The photo, which appears strangely green and blue, was taken March 30th by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The view traces the hot plasma at temperature approaching one million kelvins. The Solar Dynamics Observatory is able to send 1.5 terabytes of data back every day, which is apparently equivalent to half a million songs on an MP3. The photo is also in falls color. Preeeetty!

4.2 aPOOd blog

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/
I chose the APOD blog "Bright Points on the Quiet Sun", a photo taken by J. Sanchez Almeida. It's a high resolution photo which captures a patch of granules which are hot due to convection. You can notice rising columns of plasma, as described, which are surrounded by dark lanes of a cooler descending plasma. Although the bright points in the photo are not related to sunspots, they are sections of concentrated magnetic fields and the luminosity is caused by themagnetic pressure that opens the window to the deeper layers below the photosphere. This photo was actually recorded in 2007.

4.1 Apoooood

I chose today's apod photo entitled "disocovery's cloud". The space shuttle Discovery luanched to orbit last monday at 6:21 AM from the Kennedy Space Center pad 39A. It is now docked at the International SPace Station three hundred and fifty kilometers above Earth. The photo is called Discovery's Cloud because after take off it left a vapor cloud that is the track of the Discovery, arcing toward what is cleverly referred to as "orbital rendesvous". The picture is so pretty though because of the boats that are docked and the morning sky.