Still widely used in cosmology and astrophysics today, the technologies Walker developed are used in NASA’s solar telescopes, and the fabrication of microchips.
Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty ImagesĪrthur Bertram Cuthbert Walker, II (AugApril 29, 2001) was a Black American solar physicist and educator who was instrumental in developing the x-ray and ultraviolet telescopes used to capture the first detailed photographs of the Sun’s outermost atmosphere, the corona, in 1987. UV color image of a solar flare taken by NASA’s Apollo Telescope mounted on Skylab, 1973. “The time, it is hoped is not very remote, when those ill-fated people, dwelling in this land of freedom, shall commence a participation with the white inhabitants, in the blessings of liberty and experience the kindly protection of government, for the essential rights of human nature,” he wrote. In 1791, he began corresponding with Thomas Jefferson appealing for Jefferson’s assistance in ending the practice of enslavement and securing racial equality for Black Americans. Though never enslaved himself, Banneker was vocal in his support of abolition. Any formal education he might have received is believed to have come in a Quaker school near his home. Largely self-educated, he read voraciously about astronomy, mathematics, and history from borrowed books. Working alongside Major Andrew Ellicott, he completed the survey setting the original borders of the District of Columbia in 1791.īorn a freeman on November 9, 1731, in Baltimore County, Maryland, Banneker was raised on a farm he would eventually inherit from his father.
In 1788, he accurately predicted a solar eclipse that occurred in 1789. In his late teens, he built a wooden pocket watch that kept precise time for over 40 years until it was destroyed in a fire.
African american nasa astronauts series#
Utilizing his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, he authored one of the first series of almanacs accurately predicting the positions of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets.
African american nasa astronauts archive#
Stock Montage / Contributor/ Archive Photos/ Getty Imagesīenjamin Banneker (Novem– October 19, 1806) was a free Black American mathematician, author, surveyor, landowner, and farmer heralded as the first Black astronomer in the United States.
0 kommentar(er)
