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All items in the Cosmos and Culture Exhibition

  • Model (scale 1:200) of the Jodrell Bank Lovell Telescope — 1961

    The 76-metre Lovell Telescope is the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world. It was originally built to track cosmic rays, high-energy particles from space, with radio waves. Designer Bernard Lovell drew on expertise he had developed for radar ... read more

  • XMM-Newton grazing mirror (flight spare) — Mid 1990s

    This is one of 58 cylindrical mirrors that nest together in each of the three telescopes aboard the XMM-Newton spacecraft. Incoming X-rays skim the inside of each mirror and come to a focus at the telescope’s detector. The mirror array ... read more

  • Mirror segment for FUSE (Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer) satellite — Mid 1990s

    This mirror segment has been left without its reflective coating to reveal its lightweight glass-ceramic structure. It was used in developing NASA’s FUSE satellite. During its eight-year run, each of FUSE’s four mirrors collected ultraviolet light emitted by gas atoms ... read more

  • Scale model (1:30) of a single telescope from the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) — 2009

    Namibia’s HESS observatory studies some of the most violent events in the universe, including exploding stars and supermassive black holes. Its four identical telescopes detect high-energy cosmic gamma rays produced by these objects. Gamma rays are the most energetic form ... read more

  • Spare mirror segment for the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) — c. 2002

    This is a spare mirror segment for one of HESS’s four gamma-ray telescopes. Gamma rays are given off in violent cosmic events, such as a star exploding. When these rays are absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere they produce flashes of ... read more

  • Scale model (1:10) of Swift gamma-ray burst satellite — c. 2000

    The Swift spacecraft responds to gamma-ray bursts – unimaginably large explosions that originate from all points of the cosmos. Scientists are not sure exactly what causes them. Within minutes of a gamma ray burst being detected, Swift can turn towards ... read more

  • European celestial globe — 1878

    This globe features beautiful constellation figures such as Taurus the Bull and Aries the Ram. The star patterns are the reverse of what we see in the night sky, because many celestial globes depict the sky as if you were ... read more

  • Clock-driven Chinese celestial globe — 1830

    This celestial globe has an internal clockwork drive so that it turns to represent the motion of the stars. On the surface you can see the stars grouped according to Chinese constellations. The Milky Way is shown by a band ... read more

  • Arabic celestial globe — 1601-1700

    The silver stars on this globe are labelled with their Arabic names. We still use many Arabic names to describe the stars today – in the constellation of Orion the Hunter, the star Rigel is named after the Arabic word ... read more

  • Epitome of the Almagest — 1496

    This book summarises Claudius Ptolemy’s theories – the basis of astronomy for over a thousand years. Around AD 150, Ptolemy wrote a work in Greek outlining known theories of astronomy. During the Middle Ages this was lost in Europe, but ... read more

  • De revolutionibus celestium orbium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) — 1543

    Nicolaus Copernicus’s book, published shortly after the author’s death in 1543, offered scholars a new vision of the cosmos. Making the Sun rather than the Earth the centre of the universe offered a solution to many puzzling observations of the ... read more

  • Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) — 1632

    In this book Galileo compared the Earth-centred Ptolemaic and Sun-centred Copernican systems. He wrote in Italian, rather than the Latin of scholars, to reach a wider audience. Galileo clearly favoured the Copernican system, but he misjudged the reception the book ... read more

  • Astronomia nova (New Astronomy) — 1609

    Johannes Kepler’s book, outlining his theories of planetary motion, made the radical claim that the planets move in ellipses, not perfect circles. Kepler’s work provided significant support for the Copernican theory of a Sun-centred universe. Kepler’s theories were based on ... read more

  • Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica — 1687

    This book, first published in 1687, is one of the most important scientific works ever written. It outlined Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation. This law applied to everything, from why apples fall to the ground to why planets orbit ... read more

  • Ptolemaic armillary sphere — 1500–99

    This model depicts Ptolemy’s Earth-centred cosmos. The bands illustrate the motion of the Sun, Moon and stars. Armillary spheres were used in medieval times to teach priests how to calculate the hours of prayer at sunrise and sunset. Portraits of ... read more

  • Copernican armillary sphere — 1807-46

    With the Sun at the centre, this model demonstrates Nicolaus Copernicus’s vision of the cosmos. The central band shows the Sun’s apparent annual path through the zodiac, while the crossed bands mark the seasons. Copernican theory was firmly established by ... read more

  • Seven-foot telescope made by William Herschel — c.1780

    This is William Herschel’s own telescope. It may be the one he used in his back garden in the spring of 1781 to study what appeared to be a comet. Repeated observation revealed it was a new planet – the ... read more

  • Speculum mirror made by William Herschel — 1770-1820

    A mirror like this sits at the bottom of William Herschel’s telescope. It is made of highly polished speculum, a mix of copper and tin. Herschel was obsessed with making perfect mirrors to accurately gather light from faraway objects. His ... read more

  • ‘Epitome of Astronomy’ or ‘A Compendius View of Our Solar System’ — c. 1781-1800

    This chart calls the seventh planet ‘Herschell’, after the man who discovered it in 1781. The name ‘Uranus’ only became common decades later. The distance table shows the new planet twice as far from the Sun as Saturn. William Herschel ... read more

  • Mean motion orrery — 1813-22

    This orrery, or planetary model, shows six satellites around Uranus, the farthest planet then known. William Herschel discovered the innermost two, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. By 1798 he had reported four additional satellites. However, no other astronomer managed to ... read more