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  • Earthquake research. Geophysicist, William Prescott sketches a curve with a light pen showing a typical earthquake curve at the U.S. Geological Survey's laboratory at Menlo Park, California. MODEL RELEASED.
    USA_CA_EQ_14_xs.jpg
  • Earthquake research. Geophysicist, William Prescott in the computer data room, with earthquake data recording equipment behind him, at the U.S. Geological Survey's laboratory at Menlo Park, California. USA MODEL RELEASED.
    USA_CA_EQ_15_xs.jpg
  • This is the "iodine cell," a device developed and perfected by Butler, Marcy, and instrument specialist Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz. When light from a star passes through the iodine, molecules in the hot vapor absorb parts of the light at very specific energies. Then, a specially etched slab of glass spreads the starlight into a glorious rainbow spectrum?like a prism held up to the sun, but with exquisitely fine detail. Because the iodine has subtracted bits of the light, a forest of dark black lines covers the spectrum like a long supermarket bar code. "It's like holding the star up to a piece of graph paper," McCarthy says. "The iodine lines never move. So if the star moves, we use the iodine lines as a ruler against which to measure that motion."  Iodine cell.  Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. San Jose, California. 120-inch telescope. Exoplanets & Planet Hunters.
    USA_Lick_060513_032_B_rwx.jpg
  • This is the "iodine cell," a device developed and perfected by Butler, Marcy, and instrument specialist Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz. When light from a star passes through the iodine, molecules in the hot vapor absorb parts of the light at very specific energies. Then, a specially etched slab of glass spreads the starlight into a glorious rainbow spectrum?like a prism held up to the sun, but with exquisitely fine detail. Because the iodine has subtracted bits of the light, a forest of dark black lines covers the spectrum like a long supermarket bar code. "It's like holding the star up to a piece of graph paper," McCarthy says. "The iodine lines never move. So if the star moves, we use the iodine lines as a ruler against which to measure that motion."  Iodine cell.  Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. San Jose, California. 120-inch telescope. Exoplanets & Planet Hunters.
    USA_Lick_060513_031_rwx.jpg

Peter Menzel Photography

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