Georges Lemaître And Albert Einstein: The Strange Tale Of The Cosmological Constant
Saturday, January 9, 2010 - 01:56
in Astronomy & Space
When William Herschel attempted to map out the Milky Way, he correctly realized that the general shape of our galaxy was that of a flattened disk. He, however, mistakenly placed our sun at its center--an understandable error given what was known about the interstellar medium at the time. Herschel perceived the interstellar dust that he observed as “vacancies” or "holes" in the heavens. Astronomers soon realized that these could not be holes in the heavens because that would entail that all of the holes were pointing towards the Earth, and that just seemed highly unlikely. read more