A r A S   N e w s

 

 

N E W S L E T T E R   OF  THE

ARMENIAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY   ( A r A S )

 

No. 10   (June 30, 2004)

 

 

Editor: T.Yu.Magakian, tigmag@sci.am

 

 

The ArAS Newsletter in the INTERNET:   http://www.aras.am

 

 

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CONTENTS:

 

1) ArAS III Annual Meeting

2) Ambartsumian’s Events in the Universe

3) News from the Byurakan Observatory

4) ANSEF: Call for Proposals

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ArAS III ANNUAL MEETING

 

Second Announcement

 

The ArAS III Annual Meeting will be held on August 30-31 in Byurakan. It is organized jointly by ArAS and the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO).

 

The Meeting covers all astronomical topics to allow the participation of all interested scientists, including solar, stellar and extragalactic astronomy, theoretical astrophysics and astronomical instrumentation. A number of invited talks covering different aspects of astronomy will be given. A report on ArAS activities will be presented on the first day of the meeting and ArAS organizational affairs will be discussed as well.

 

Please send the titles and abstracts of your contributions to the Organizing Committee before August 15. The summaries of talks will be published electronically through our Newsletter.

 

Organizing Committee: H.Harutyunian, T.Magakian, A.Mickaelian, T.Movsessian, E.Nikoghossian.

Contact: elena@bao.sci.am (Elena Nikoghossian)

 

ArAS meeting is sponsored by Mr. David Nelson, former President of the Jinishian foundation. All ArAS members and other scientists presenting contributions are welcome for free participation.

AMBARTSUMIAN’S EVENTS IN THE UNIVERSE

 

 

The colloquium "Cosmology: Facts and Problems" has been held recently (8-11 June 2004) in the College de France in Paris. Various reports relevant to the main subject were presented by many invited speakers. Both observational data and theoretical aspects have been discussed. The last day of sessions was dedicated to the alternative cosmologies and to the facts which are believed to be incompatible with physical picture of classical cosmology making it vulnerable. During that session and the panel discussion the ideas suggested and developed for decades in the Byurakan observatory have been recalled many times.

 

Actually already on the first day G.Burbidge had mentioned in his introductory talk that Ambartsumian had been the only scientist who had given a plausible idea on the formation of galaxies. Any other ideas and constructed on their bases theories, he said, meet insuperable problems and internal contradictions at every steps. He repeated this opinion again and then over and over again during the last session. He retold briefly the key aspects of the main idea by Ambartsumian on the ejection of new galaxies from galactic nuclei. It became clear that the most of participants never before had learned Ambartsumian's name and were absolutely unfamiliar with Ambartsumian's ideas. Burbidge went on and proposed to name ejections of matter from galactic nuclei after Ambartsumian and call henceforth these phenomena "Ambartsumian events".

 

Having some comments on intrinsic redshift phenomenon I also appreciated Burbidge's initiative and promised to use this scientific term in any paper devoted to the nuclear ejections. I believe the ArAS members should be the first ones to catch this initiative and support Burbidge's idea. Moreover, it seems very realistic to organize a meeting on "Ambartsumian events in the Universe" for instance in 2006, i.e., 40 years after the Symposium IAU29 held in Byurakan and devoted to the activity phenomena in galaxies for the first time.

 

Haik Harutyunian,

Byurakan Observatory.

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NEWS FROM THE BYURAKAN OBSERVATORY

 

The academic council of the observatory arrived at a decision after discussions for a few weeks on the main perspectives of development of BAO. One of the most important issues was the scientific strategy of the observatory. It was decided to focus the investigations on a traditional topic which was officially announced as "The role of activity phenomena in the evolution of cosmic objects". Byurakan observatory is well-known to the scientific community mainly thanks to the results obtained due to investigations of active phenomena and objects showing some forms of peculiarity. It was mentioned that the methodological approach widely implemented by Byurakan astronomers to astrophysical problems consisting in the dictate of observational data for our understandings of evolution laws and regularities has proved its viability. This approach was established by Ambartsumian since the very beginning of the observatory's foundation.

 

In the beginning of July Dr Daniel Kunth, the French coordinator of Armenian-French collaboration in astronomy visited Byurakan observatory. He had discussions in the observatory and in the French Embassy in Yerevan, met the Vice-President of Armenian National Academy of sciences. The main subject of discussions was the scientific cooperation between astronomers of two countries which fruitfully lasted nearly ten years since 1994 but has fallen into decay at present because of several organizational issues. These discussions have shown that both sides are interested in the future collaboration and are ready to do their best for the renewal of joint researches on the base of bilateral agreement.

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ANSEF: CALL FOR PROPOSALS

 

ANSEF has announced a new call for proposals on research projects for scientists residing in Armenia. The deadline is August 15, and the results of selection will be announced on December 15. The application forms and more details are available at the ANSEF web page at http://www.ansef.org.

 

 

 

CONTACT INFORMATION

 

Address:           Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), Byurakan 378433,

                        Aragatzotn province, ARMENIA

 

Tel/fax:             +374-1 53-27-51 (Areg Mickaelian)

E-mail:             aras@web.am, aras_org@freenet.am

Web page:        http://www.aras.am