The Great Debate of 1920: how it changed astronomy
April 28, 2021 at 10:10 am
In 1920, astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis came together to take part in the Great Debate about the scale of the Universe. But what ultimately, was astronomy’s Great Debate about, and how did it change the way we look at the Universe?
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Harlow Shapley, a 34-year-old journalist-turned-astronomer, must have been nervous when he climbed the stage in the Baird Auditorium of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC on 26 April 1920. Facing him was a crowd of fellow scientists and lay people alike.
On stage after Shapley would be his opponent in the Great Debate, eminent astronomer Heber Curtis – a man 13 years his senior, more experienced and eloquent at speaking, and who disagreed with Shapley on just about everything.
July 24, 2020 at 5:00 pm
The question of how the Universe began is something each of us has wondered at some point, but how will everything end? What will happen to the stars, the planets and the galaxies?
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What will happen to the supermassive black holes and spinning neutron stars? What will happen at the end of the Universe?
Astrophysicist Dr. Katie Mack has been contemplating this a lot over the past few years and her new book
We got the chance to speak to Katie to find out the latest theories on the subject and what it means to contemplate the end of the Universe.