一家に１枚 天体望遠鏡400年ポスター英語版ができました

RELEASE OF THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE “400 YEARS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL TELSCOPE” POSTER

18th December, 2009
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan

 MEXT promotes Science and Technology Week every year and distributes a “One Per Household” poster in museums all over Japan during that week. In the 50th Science and Technology Week from April 13th to 19th, 2009, about 150,000 copies of the “400 Years of the Astronomical Telescope” poster were distributed. This is the 5th poster in the “One Per Household” poster series produced by MEXT. The English version as well as the original Japanese version were developed by the same authors, led by Kumiko S. Usuda of Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).

 The year 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first observations with his telescope. This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the first light of the Japanese Subaru Telescope, one of the world’s largest optical and infrared telescopes, located atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai`i. The theme of this poster is “From Galileo to the Subaru Telescope, and Moving Toward the Future”. It introduces the history of astronomical telescopes and their scientific discoveries. “The Universe, Yours to Discover”, the slogan of IYA, is the message adopted by the authors to young people who are interested in becoming astronomers or engineers.

The poster begins from the top left and ends at the bottom right. The main part of the poster describes technical innovations of the telescope. Over the past 400 years, technology has enabled us to make larger and more versatile telescopes. The aperture of the Subaru Telescope is about 300 times larger than those of Galileo’s telescopes. In the midst of the telescope’s 400-year history, spectroscopy, a breakthrough technique, was established for analyzing light. By observing a spectrum and studying lines, astronomers can obtain information of a star or a galaxy such as its existing elements, temperature, or motion. In the last 100 years of the history of the telescope, observations in various electromagnetic waves have begun. In addition to optical astronomy using visible light, radio astronomy started in 1930’s. The first infrared and X-ray telescopes have followed. The bottom right part of the poster lists unsolved mysteries, the answers for which astronomers are still searching. Additional information to help people to read the poster is at the bottom left and top right: How an Astronomical Telescope Works, Stargazing at an Observatory, and Studying the Universe in Various Ways.

Download: One Per Household poster
“400 Years of the Astronomical Telescope”
こちらよりダウンロードしてください

To the press release page in Japanese:
日本語の報道発表については こちら