How can astronomy benefit us

Engaging students in the active process of inquiry can help them to develop a deeper understanding of both scientific concepts and the nature of science. Through inquiry, students can gain an appreciation of how we know what we know about science. Astronomy lends itself extraordinarily well to inquiry-based teaching and allows teachers to take advantage of the natural fascination students have with the field.

Many astronomical phenomena can be observed by students directly with no special equipment, and astronomy-based investigations focusing on topics like light and color, for example; see Figure 4.

Consequently, astronomers and astronomy educators have invested significantly in developing hands-on activities to support science curricula at all levels. Fraknoi et al. Over the past decade, astronomers also began to work closely with educators to bring data from spacecraft and observatories directly into the classroom and museums an example is shown in Chapter 5 in Figure 5.

Simple image analysis tools are now widely available and, when used in connection with images from planetary exploration and telescopic observations, can be powerful tools in engaging the imaginations of students. Programs like these have already led to well-publicized examples of students discovering a supernova and a new Kuiper Belt object. An increasing number of schools are able to connect to the Internet, thereby making access to astronomical data and images widely available.

A number of astronomical organizations and groups have also been working directly with K teachers, providing training, materials, and classroom visits by teams comprising both professional and amateur astronomers see Figure 5.

By the end of , for. Photographs provided by D. The astronomical community has recognized the value of such efforts and is seeking ways to expand their reach to a larger number of teachers throughout the United States. Photograph courtesy of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The variety of organized science education outreach efforts built on astronomical themes has been growing rapidly and promises to increase throughout the decade as NASA and the National Science Foundation encourage investigators and teams to add education components to their funded research.

Because of the importance of linking the public investment in research to advancing public science education goals, the astronomical community has worked hard to identify areas where successes have been achieved, efforts that are highly leveraged, and ways that those gains can be propagated.

Recommendations aimed at better coordinating these efforts in the new decade are described in Chapter 5. Federal support of curiosity-driven scientific research has historically led to a broad range of contributions to technological advances with long-term benefits to society.

Indeed, national investment in curiositydriven scientific research is widely viewed as an essential element of U. Despite its focus on the extraterrestrial, astronomy has made important contributions on Earth as well.

In large measure, these contributions derive from the need to measure precise positions, luminosities, and structural details in faint and distant cosmic sources, to measure time with exquisite precision, and to analyze large statistical samples of objects spanning a wide range of physical, chemical, and evolutionary conditions. All these activities have led to numerous benefits to society that are discussed in more detail below.

In some areas, astronomers have pioneered the technology, while in others they have worked symbiotically with industry and the defense sector in developing and perfecting the appropriate technologies. Large mirrors or antennas that focus and image light, infrared radiation, or radio waves are used not only by astronomers but also by, for example, the communications industry, the military e.

In order to produce a sharp image, either large-diameter mirrors or antennas are required, or the radiation must be collected on widely spaced individual mirrors or antennas and then combined—a technique called interferometry. Besides size, another key to a high-quality image is producing a very accurately shaped mirror or antenna. Astronomers have made major contributions to mirror and antenna technology. Examples include developing mirror materials lightweight materials in particular , mirror designs, precision shaping and metrology shape testing , procedures for correcting the effects of bending under the force of gravity, technologies to correct for the blurring effect of the atmosphere e.

Besides the obvious applications noted above, there are additional spinoffs. One notable example is in the area of adaptive optics. Adaptive optics techniques and techniques to manufacture and figure ultralightweight, ultrahigh-precision mirrors are examples of synergy between investments in defense-related technology and in astronomy. The rapid growth of adaptive optics over the past decade owes much to the declassification of techniques developed in the service of national security interests.

Mirrors for the Hubble Space Telescope are a direct descendent of efforts in service of surveillance during the s and s, while today, NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office are partners in efforts to develop next-generation, large space-based mirrors. Perhaps the biggest technology spinoff contributed by astronomy has been the development or improvement of devices that convert light and other forms of radiation into images. Historically, astronomy pushed the development of photographic film to greater sensitivities and resolution.

However, film has now been largely replaced by electronic sensors, detectors, and amplifiers—devices that enable accurate digitized mea-. The most common version of this device is a spinoff from space x-ray astronomy, where the requirement to observe weak cosmic signals resulted in the development of high-sensitivity x-ray detectors.

Application of these detectors to luggage scanners enabled the use of low x-ray dosages to obtain good images, thus enhancing their safety for operators and passengers alike.

X-ray astronomy detectors, with their sensitivity to single photons and to low-energy x rays, are also ideally suited for fundamental biomedical research, for cancer and AIDS research, and for drug and vaccine development. These sensitive detectors have led to a plethora of x-ray medical imaging devices, including those used to search for breast cancer, osteoporosis, heart disease the thallium stress test , and dental problems. The last is a new development that uses x-ray charge-coupled devices CCDs; miniature electronic detectors to replace dental x-ray film, a change that will reduce exposure to x rays.

Another exciting development is the x-ray microscope. A microscope is, in effect, a miniature telescope. X-ray astronomy has led to the development of the Lixiscope, a portable x-ray microscope to be used to image small objects and fine detail, with applications in energy research and biomedical research.

It is widely used in neonatology, out-patient surgery, diagnosis of sports injuries, and Third World clinics. This technique utilizes the interference of the x rays with each other after they scatter off a sample surface. X rays are preferred because they resolve molecular structure. Astronomical advances in detector sensitivity and focused beam optics have allowed the development of systems with much shorter exposure times, and have allowed researchers to use smaller samples, avoid damage to samples, and speed up their data runs.

Biomedical and pharmaceutical researchers have used these systems for basic research on viruses, proteins, vaccines, and drugs, as well as for cancer, AIDS, and immunology research. Cooled silicon CCD arrays developed for optical astronomy now dominate in a multitude of industrial imaging applications.

The basic performance of these detectors has been improved by a thinning process developed by astronomers. CCD manufacturers have adopted this technique for use on Earth satellites e. In addition, UV detectors developed for the Hubble Space Telescope are being considered as a key element in a helicopter-based system aimed at rapid detection of power-line failures in remote areas. Objects on Earth radiate most of their energy at infrared IR frequencies. In this area, there has been a symbiotic relationship with the Department of Defense, which has invested large amounts of money in IR detector development for defense applications.

Improvements made by astronomers have contributed to the final versions of the detectors used in the Strategic Defense Initiative and for night-vision devices. In the industrial sector, IR detector arrays developed by astronomers are being used in the semiconductor industry in IR microscopes that examine computer chips for flaws. In the medical sector, IR detectors and spectroscopes are being used to diagnose cervical cancer and genetic diseases and to image malignant tumors and vascular anomalies.

Not only radio and television, but also all satellite and much telephone communication is accomplished with radio waves.

Radio astronomers have provided the impetus to many technical advances that have improved the stability, widened the bandwidth, and reduced the noise and interference of radio communications: low-noise maser, parametric, and other transistor amplifiers that have had wide application in the communications industry. Astronomers have perfected highradio-frequency systems that have found application in devices to detect concealed weapons, to see through fog and adverse weather for aircraft landing systems, and to image human tissue e.

Astronomers have driven the development of ever more precise instruments, called spectrometers, that separate and analyze the different frequencies present in a beam of radiation. In addition, they have perfected precision techniques to focus radiation into spots too small to be visible.

These developments have been highly beneficial to the industrial, defense, and medical sectors of the economy. NASA supported the development of a novel x-ray spectrometer, the microcalorimeter, for x-ray astronomy, but this new device can also be used to analyze the chemical elements in a small sample.

Applications include materials science research, rapid trace-element analysis for the semiconductor industry semiconductor wafer testing , and biomedical research, which requires low doses for biological samples.

X-ray spectrometers developed in part in response to the needs of astronomy are also used in x-ray laser materials science and in fusion energy research, as well as in the nuclear nonproliferation program. UV spectrometers are used in laboratory analysis equipment. IR spectrometers remotely analyze the composition of the atmosphere.

Spaceborne and ground-based radio spectrometers remotely monitor temperature, winds, humidity, and chemical composition in the atmosphere with applications to weather prediction, global warming, and pollution monitoring. The depletion of ozone has been monitored with astronomical radio telescopes equipped with radio spectrometers. Spaceborne radio spectrometers also sense ground-level quantities such as soil moisture, vegetation cover, ocean height and sensitivity, oil spills, snow cover, and iceberg hazards.

Essential components of all these spectrometers have been invented or perfected by the astronomical community. Efforts in UV and x-ray astronomy pioneered the development of technologies crucial for UV and x-ray lithography, a process by which fine beams of radiation etch lines in a material.

Very fine line widths are needed by the semiconductor and microchip manufacturing sector to make advanced computer chips, transistors, and other microelectronic devices. In the medical sector, astronomical technology invented to focus x rays is being put to use in precision deposition of x-ray radiation to destroy cancerous tumors.

Astronomers are bedeviled by faint and blurred images that are often swamped by large amounts of noise or static. An analogous problem would be faint TV reception, superimposed on the static produced by a hair dryer operating nearby. Consequently, astronomers have been at the forefront of efforts to improve and sharpen images, to reduce extraneous noise, and to extract the maximum information from the radiation received. One example of this effort is a system of image analysis tools and computer applications programs developed by astronomers at the National Optical Astronomy Observatories: IRAF, the Image Reduction and Analysis Facility.

IRAF has been used not only by thousands of astronomers worldwide, but also by researchers outside astronomy engaged in underwater imaging, mapping of the aerosols in the atmosphere, medical imaging for detection of breast cancer, decoding of human genetic material in connection with the Human Genome Project , numerous defense-related applications, visualization of the images from electron microscopes, and many other applications.

AIPS, the Astronomical Image Processing System developed at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, is another software package for manipulation of multidimensional images that is used routinely in nonastronomical image analysis applications. Astronomers have also contributed to the advancement of tomography, which enables construction of three-dimensional images out of a series of two-dimensional pictures. Tomographic imaging is used widely in both medical x-ray imaging and industrial applications.

The image reconstruction work of R. Bracewell, a pioneering radio astronomer, is widely cited by the medical imaging community. Where did we come from? Are there other intelligent life forms? Every advance in astronomy moves society closer to being able to answer these questions. With advanced technology — increasingly complex CCDs and larger ground- and space-based telescopes — we have peered into the distant, early universe, we have searched for habitable worlds, and we have come to the conclusion that we, ourselves, are stardust.

First that the universe is infinite and we are of but the tiniest fraction of importance. And Second that life is rare and precious. A home as beautiful and unique as earth does not come often. We must protect it. An upcoming version of this paper will not only cover the tangible aspects of astronomy discussed here, but also the intangible aspects of astronomy. The paper has been accepted has been published on the International Astronomical Union website and is available for download here.

Spinoff goes both ways. The economy is a djungle of unforseeable interdependencies. Investments in consumer goods have been necessary to make any space travel and any astronomy science instrument possible the telescope was developed for naval travel, the rocket for artillery and so on.

Please stop arguing for astronomy by arguing for how it makes frying pans better! Please start arguing for why astronomy has a value in itself. It is rethorically very destructive to ignore the value of space itself, to instead argue for spinoffs, which goes at least as much the other way too.

Please stop this self-destruction and public devaluation of astronomy! We need astronomy because astronomy is important in itself. Nice sentiment, but unrealistic. People who believe the earth is years old and that caring for the environment is pointless because the end times are near. Face it, people are stupid and a better frying pan will make more of an impression than a logical argument. If people are stupid, none of them should be allowed to decide anything over anyone else of them!

If people are stupid, there is no possible argument for having any government at all. Astronomy and a great space program are needed for that.

One good smack by an asteroid, climate change gone out of control, a new pathogen or some other unforeseen event could decimate or even wipe out the human race. If some of us go elsewhere we increase our chances of survival.

Government is the definition of putting all eggs in one basket! We could start with stop doing that. They are voting about thousands of different things at once every few years. No one can know anything about all that. No single plant in the djungle knows about the entire djungle. We only have our vantage point and cannot travel around the remnant to view the intricacies of its structure.

Supernova researchers are putting this data into medical imaging software originally designed for brain scans to get a 3D model that can be viewed in degrees. To take it one step further, the models can then be 3D printed, allowing you to hold a dead star in your hand. By pursuing scientific research, our scientists never know what might be the next big breakthrough.

New detector technology means better lighter cameras. Astronomical data analysis software can be reconfigured to make cars safer. Novel techniques in radio astronomy paved the way for wireless internet. Support Our Science.

Utility Menu News Events. How can astronomy improve life on earth? Share this Page. Facebook Share on Facebook. Twitter Share on Twitter. Share on LinkedIn. Share via Email. Protecting the Planet In , the Sun launched an enormous magnetized mass of plasma at the Earth, shorting electrical lines, starting electrical fires and knocking out telegraph communication. Research Topics.

See All Staff. Our Work The need for extremely precise instrumentation in astronomy can often be transferred into the medical field. Related News. With techniques developed in quantum mechanics, molecular spectra can be modeled by a set of discrete fundamental parameters. The knowledge of these reference molecular spectroscopic parameters is essential to correctly characterize constituents of their environments, model their spectra and atmospheric conditions.

Telescopes and Instruments. However, the magnetic fields in the solar corona are very hard to observe, despite their importance in creating space weather. AIR-Spec was inaugurated during the total solar eclipse visible across the United States; an improved version will fly during the eclipse visible from South America and the southern Pacific Ocean. Visit the Hi-C Website. Hinode The Sun is the closest star to Earth, and the single most important influence on the worlds of the Solar System in terms of the light and particles it emits.