[Spoken Word]
In these days of super rocke- super rockets gets set of atomic power, one frequently hears the prediction that, before long, man will be able to explore space
But such statements fail to remember that the astronomers have been exploring space for centuries
Exploring it with beams of light and with the imaginative power of their scientific minds
While their colleagues, the atomic physicists, have concerned themselves with the infinitesimally small, the astronomers have boldly pushed out to the very limits of the universe
Astronomy is the study of the universe, the study of its structure and its behavior
From our home on the earth we look out into the dim distances, and we strive to imagine the sort of world into which we are born
We are confined to the earth
Our knowledge of outer space is derived from light waves and other radiations which come flooding in from all directions
From time immemorial, men studied the heavens with their unaided eyes
Finally, about three centuries ago, the telescope was invented
With the growth and development of these giant eyes, the exploration of space has swept outward in great waves
Today we explore with a telescope 100 inches. It has the light gathering power of more than 200,000 human eyes
We observe a volume of space so vast that it may be a fair sample of the universe itself
The explorations fall into three phases
The first phase led long ago to a picture of the solar system - the sun with its family of planets, including the earth, isolated and lonely in space...
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