Research 



21 



try. A major symposium at the National Museum of Natural 

 History featured an international group of scholars who con- 

 tributed to the exhibition "Vikings: The North Atlantic 

 Saga" and also attracted a large audience. 



Star Party for the Multiple-Mirror 

 Telescope 



The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory threw a party in 

 June to celebrate its latest accomplishment. At the Fred 

 Lawrence Whipple Observatory, 35 miles south of Tucson, 

 Arizona, the public was invited to a Community Day in 

 honor of the new 6.5-meter mirror in the multiple-mirror 



telescope, or MMT After the sun went down, the "star 

 party" began, as amateut astronomers gazed at the night 

 skies from the observatory's site on top of Mount Hopkins. 



The converted telescope, one of the 10 largest in the 

 world, has one gigantic lightweight mirror, which replaced 

 six smaller mirrors mounted together in a common struc- 

 ture — the most practical design at the time the original 

 MMT was built in the late 1970s. 



Dozens of research projects are under way using the MMT, 

 including the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of 

 quasars, distant astronomical objects that emit radio waves, 

 and a study of the remnants of supernovas, or exploding 

 stars, to understand their role in stellar evolution and in de- 

 termining the age of the universe. 



The MMT is a joint venture of the Smithsonian Astro- 

 physical Observatory and the University of Arizona. 



