Jul 14 2000
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
NASA released to the Internet a database of 1.9 million celestial images, the largest collection of images of stars and other celestial bodies ever made freely available for public use. The rapid improvement of technology had made possible the release, which brought to home computers information that could have filled 6,000 CD-ROMs. The Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), which used two 51-inch (130-centimeter) telescopes to survey the sky, had collected the images. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory had collaborated on 2MASS, creating a database of great value to scholars and the public alike.
William G. Fastie, known for helping establish the prestigious Johns Hopkins University space program and for inventing the spectrometer, died in Baltimore at the age of 83. Fastie, often called the father of the Hopkins space program, was one of the United States' preeminent astrophysicists. His spectrometer, which measured the spectrum of light, helping scientists gather data about other planets, was not only innovative but also rugged enough to travel into space.
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