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Some items of interest this month!
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Firstly, the Line Dancers are pleased to be able to announce that, not only are they going from strength to strength, with the easing of Covid restrictions they now have room for more members:
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"Now that the use of face masks in indoor settings is no longer obligatory we will be able to increase the number of dancers that can join us on a Monday morning. Any form of dancing is good for the body and the mind so if you are looking for something to do that will get you doing some gentle exercise while listening to some great music why not come along and give it a try? Don't worry if you have never done it before...we were all beginners at one time! All of the details are on the website here."
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Would you be interested in a 'Mind & Body Class'?
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We have a group leader and instructor, we would now like to judge the interest. Please send an email to flamenco@u3aoliva.org if you would like to be involved.
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And on a similar subject, we are considering setting up a beginners Flamenco group; please use this email to let us know if you are interested.
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And from our Astronomy group:
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The Scale of the Universe
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April and May are the months when amateur astronomers have the best evening views of the dim galaxies which are located in the constellations, Virgo and Coma Berenices. We now know that these dim objects are galaxies and not “Spiral Nebulae”. In the early part of the 20th Century astronomers were not aware of the size of our galaxy or if we were the only galaxy in the Universe. It was in 1920 when a famous debate was held in the Natural History Museum in Washington DC to consider if the “Spiral Nebulae” were close to our Milky Way Galaxy or were in fact far off galaxies lying at unimaginable distances from us. The opposing views were from Harlow Shapley, who considered the “Spiral Nebulae” are close to the Milky Way and Heber D Curtis who was confident the “Spiral nebulae” were other galaxies and that they are many millions of light years distant. The debate closed with no decisive answer to the question, proof of the distance to these objects was needed to confirm whether the Universe consisted of just The Milky Way galaxy, or were the spiral shaped nebulae actually other galaxies millions of light years distant.
It was the work of 2 brilliant astronomers who found the answer. Henrietta Swan Leavitt had studied stars in the nearby Magellanic Cloud and she had found a special type of star, a cepheid, which changed its brightness over a set period of time. These stars pulsate and the longer the period between pulsations the brighter the star actually is. This brightness could be used as a measure of distance, the same as seeing a car headlamp at night, we can estimate it’s distance by how bright it appears. The other brilliant astronomer was Edwin Hubble. Hubble was able to use the newly completed 100-inch Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson and produce glass plate images of the so- called Spiral Nebulae in attempt to find their distance from us. One photographic plate showed a dim star which he had seen some weeks before, it was a Cepheid. When Hubble saw this image, he realised this star’s brightness could give a measure of the distance to it. The distance proved to be over 1 million light years or more. Hubble’s photographic plate had provided astronomers the answer to the Great Debate, we live in a Universe which has billions of galaxies, many of which are billions of light years distant we now see Hubble Space telescope images and take it for granted that the dim spiral shapes are actually galaxies like our home, the Milky way.
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Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis
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100 inch Hooker Telescope
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You can read more about this fascinating subject here, and don't forget to come along to our interesting group meetings!
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Finally, don't forget our AGM takes place next month, watch out for our special newsletter with more information.
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