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Riccardo Giacconi to Receive National Inventors Hall of Fame's Lifetime Achievement Award 01 May 2008
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Riccardo Giacconi, founding director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., will receive the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Inventors Hall of
Fame, Inc. on May 3 at the Hall's headquarters in Akron, Ohio. The annual Lifetime
Achievement Award is given to an individual who has fostered innovation throughout his
or her lifetime. The Hall honors those who have demonstrated an extended commitment
to progress in technical innovation and the protection of that innovation. Each year a new
class of inventors is inducted into the Hall of Fame in recognition of their patented
inventions that make human, social, and economic progress possible.
| Compact Galaxies in Early Universe Pack a Big Punch 29 Apr 2008
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Imagine receiving an announcement touting the birth of a baby 20 inches long and
weighing 180 pounds. After reading this puzzling message, you would immediately think
the baby's weight was a misprint. Astronomers looking at galaxies in the universe's
distant past received a similar perplexing announcement when they found nine young,
compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun. The
galaxies, each only 5,000 light-years across, are a fraction of the size of today's grownup
galaxies but contain approximately the same number of stars. Each galaxy could fit inside
the central hub of our Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to study the galaxies
as they existed 11 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 3 billion years old.
| STScI and JHU Astronomer Adam Riess Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28 Apr 2008
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The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected Space Telescope Science
Institute (STScI) astronomer and professor at the Johns Hopkins University Adam Riess as an
Honorary Member. The Academy honors excellence by electing to membership remarkable
men and women who have made preeminent contributions to their fields, and to the world.
Riess joins a new class of Academy members drawn from the sciences, the arts and
humanities, business, public affairs, and the nonprofit sector. The 212 scholars, scientists,
artists, civic, corporate and philanthropic leaders come from 20 states and 15 countries, and
range in age from 37 to 86. Represented among this year's newly elected members are more
than 50 universities and more than a dozen corporations, as well as museums, national
laboratories and private research institutes, media outlets and foundations. Riess is a leader
of a team that, in 1998 co-discovered "dark energy", a mysterious repulsive force in the universe.
Dark energy is the biggest mystery now confronting astrophysics, and Riess continues doing
observations to deduce what dark energy is. The 38-year-old astrophysicist has been at STScI
since 1999.
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