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Moscow State University

(Encyclopedia)Moscow State University, at Moscow, Russia, officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State Univ.; founded 1755 as Moscow Univ. by the Russian scientist M. V. Lomonosov, renamed Moscow State Univ. after the R...

Thomas, Cyrus

(Encyclopedia)Thomas, Cyrus, 1825–1910, American anthropologist and entomologist, b. Kingsport, Tenn. He was a lawyer, then a minister (1865–69) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was associated with the U....

Tereshkova, Valentina Vladimirovna

(Encyclopedia)Tereshkova, Valentina Vladimirovna, 1937–, Soviet cosmonaut. She was the first woman to orbit the earth, in Vostok 6 on June 16–19, 1963. She left the Soviet space program soon after and married c...

Flavin, Dan

(Encyclopedia)Flavin, Dan flāˈvĭn [key], 1933–96, American sculptor, b. New York City. In the early 1960s, Flavin experimented with fluorescent lights, bending them into complex, angular shapes. His sculptures...

Braille

(Encyclopedia)Braille brāl [key], in astronomy, a small asteroid notable because it has the same atypical geologic composition as the larger asteroid Vesta. In 1999 the space probe Deep Space 1 passed within 16 mi...

air lock

(Encyclopedia)air lock, compartment connecting two different environments, usually at different pressures, that enables personnel to transfer from one environment to the other. Space capsules have air locks to enab...

relativity

(Encyclopedia)relativity, physical theory, introduced by Albert Einstein, that discards the concept of absolute motion and instead treats only relative motion between two systems or frames of reference. One consequ...

observatory

(Encyclopedia)observatory, scientific facility especially equipped to detect and record naturally occurring scientific phenomena. Although geological and meteorological observatories exist, the term is generally ap...

Strategic Defense Initiative

(Encyclopedia)Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), former U.S. government program responsible for research and development of a space-based system to defend the nation from attack by strategic ballistic missiles (se...

empyema

(Encyclopedia)empyema ĕmpē-ēˈmə [key], persistent purulent discharge into a cavity such as the pleural space or the gallbladder. Empyema results as a complication of bacterial infections such as pneumonia and ...