Misplaced Pages

#352647

118-473: Origins Space Telescope ( Origins ) is a concept study for a far-infrared survey space telescope mission. A preliminary concept in pre-formulation, it was presented to the United States Decadal Survey in 2019 for a possible selection to NASA's large strategic science missions . Origins would provide an array of new tools for studying star formation and the energetics and physical state of

236-566: A lower house based on population; and the Senate , an upper house based on equal representation for each state. Federalism provides substantial autonomy to the 50 states, while the country's political culture promotes liberty , equality , individualism , personal autonomy , and limited government . One of the world's most developed countries , the United States has had the largest nominal GDP since about 1890 and accounted for over 15% of

354-562: A " Special Relationship " with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada , Australia , New Zealand , the Philippines , Japan , South Korea , Israel , and several European Union countries ( France , Italy , Germany , Spain , and Poland ). The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through

472-423: A combination of transit spectroscopy and direct coronagraphic imaging. Important atmospheric diagnostics include spectral bands of ammonia ( NH 4 , a unique tracer of nitrogen), the 9 μm ozone line ( ozone , O 3 is a key biosignature ), the 15 μm CO 2 band ( carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas ), and many water wavelength bands. Its spectrographs will enable 3D surveys of

590-533: A coordinated, continent-wide military effort. Finally, deteriorating relations between the British military establishment and the colonists, relations that were already less than positive, set the stage for further distrust and dislike of British troops. Following their victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, resulting in colonial political resistance ; one of

708-499: A dark blue liquid . It is dangerous to allow this liquid to warm to its boiling point, because both concentrated gaseous ozone and liquid ozone can detonate. At temperatures below 80 K (−193.2 °C; −315.7 °F), it forms a violet-black solid . Most people can detect about 0.01 μmol/mol of ozone in air where it has a very specific sharp odour somewhat resembling chlorine bleach . Exposure of 0.1 to 1 μmol/mol produces headaches, burning eyes and causing irritation to

826-522: A decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida . The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which

944-717: A destructive action". Schönbein himself reported that chest pains, irritation of the mucous membranes and difficulty breathing occurred as a result of inhaling ozone, and small mammals died. In 1911, Leonard Hill and Martin Flack stated in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B that ozone's healthful effects "have, by mere iteration, become part and parcel of common belief; and yet exact physiological evidence in favour of its good effects has been hitherto almost entirely wanting ... The only thoroughly well-ascertained knowledge concerning

1062-407: A few prominent industrialists , largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad , petroleum , and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry . These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality , slum conditions , and social unrest , creating

1180-616: A founding member of the World Bank , Organization of American States , NATO , and the United Nations , as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council . The first documented use of the phrase "United States of America" is a letter from January 2, 1776. Stephen Moylan , a Continental Army aide to General George Washington , wrote to Joseph Reed , Washington's aide-de-camp , seeking to go "with full and ample powers from

1298-494: A mid- to far- infrared space telescope (contrasting with the near- to mid-infrared James Webb Space Telescope ) with a large gain in sensitivity over the Herschel Space Observatory (a previous far-infrared telescope), and better angular resolution with at least a four-order of magnitude sensitivity improvement over Herschel. The mission development relies on the identification of primary science drivers to establish

SECTION 10

#1732869619353

1416-583: A period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations . A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson , emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country , which would be reinforced by

1534-452: A potent respiratory hazard and pollutant near ground level , a higher concentration in the ozone layer (from two to eight ppm) is beneficial, preventing damaging UV light from reaching the Earth's surface. The trivial name ozone is the most commonly used and preferred IUPAC name . The systematic names 2λ -trioxidiene and catena-trioxygen , valid IUPAC names, are constructed according to

1652-404: A process called ozonolysis , giving alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, and carboxylic acids, depending on the second step of the workup. Ozone can also cleave alkynes to form an acid anhydride or diketone product. If the reaction is performed in the presence of water, the anhydride hydrolyzes to give two carboxylic acids . Usually ozonolysis is carried out in a solution of dichloromethane , at

1770-488: A prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon Johnson 's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism . The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality . It also encouraged open defiance of

1888-788: A reality. In 2016, NASA began considering four different space telescopes for the Large strategic science missions ; they are the Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx), Large Ultraviolet Optical Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR), Origins Space Telescope ( Origins ), and Lynx X-ray Observatory . In 2019, the four teams turned in their final reports to the National Academy of Sciences , whose independent Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey report advises NASA on which mission should take top priority. If funded, Origins would launch in approximately 2035. The Roadmap envisaged

2006-518: A sense of manifest destiny . The Missouri Compromise attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It further prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel . As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans,

2124-603: A sense of American identity as well. Men who otherwise never left their own colony now traveled across the continent to fight alongside men from decidedly different backgrounds but who were no less "American". British officers trained American officers for battle, most notably George Washington ; these officers would lend their skills and expertise to the colonists' cause during the American Revolutionary War to come. In addition, colonial legislatures and officials found it necessary to cooperate intensively in pursuit of

2242-481: A spark and can occur in ozone concentrations of 10 wt% or higher. Ozone can also be produced from oxygen at the anode of an electrochemical cell. This reaction can create smaller quantities of ozone for research purposes. This can be observed as an unwanted reaction in a Hoffman gas apparatus during the electrolysis of water when the voltage is set above the necessary voltage. Ozone will oxidize most metals (except gold , platinum , and iridium ) to oxides of

2360-611: A status solidified after its involvement in World War I . After Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II . Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War , during which both countries struggled for ideological dominance and international influence . Following the Soviet Union's collapse and

2478-853: A temperature of −78 °C. After a sequence of cleavage and rearrangement, an organic ozonide is formed. With reductive workup (e.g. zinc in acetic acid or dimethyl sulfide ), ketones and aldehydes will be formed, with oxidative workup (e.g. aqueous or alcoholic hydrogen peroxide ), carboxylic acids will be formed. All three atoms of ozone may also react, as in the reaction of tin(II) chloride with hydrochloric acid and ozone: Iodine perchlorate can be made by treating iodine dissolved in cold anhydrous perchloric acid with ozone: Ozone could also react with potassium iodide to give oxygen and iodine gas that can be titrated for quantitative determination: Ozone can be used for combustion reactions and combustible gases; ozone provides higher temperatures than burning in dioxygen ( O 2 ). The following

SECTION 20

#1732869619353

2596-401: A year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined. As of January 2023, the United States has the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in

2714-559: Is 116.78°. The central atom is sp ² hybridized with one lone pair. Ozone is a polar molecule with a dipole moment of 0.53  D . The molecule can be represented as a resonance hybrid with two contributing structures, each with a single bond on one side and double bond on the other. The arrangement possesses an overall bond order of 1.5 for both sides. It is isoelectronic with the nitrite anion . Naturally occurring ozone can be composed of substituted isotopes ( O, O, O). A cyclic form has been predicted but not observed. Ozone

2832-457: Is a federal union of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the states of Alaska to the northwest and the archipelagic Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean . The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands . The country has

2950-486: Is a reaction for the combustion of carbon subnitride which can also cause higher temperatures: Ozone can react at cryogenic temperatures. At 77 K (−196.2 °C; −321.1 °F), atomic hydrogen reacts with liquid ozone to form a hydrogen superoxide radical , which dimerizes : Ozone is a toxic substance, commonly found or generated in human environments (aircraft cabins, offices with photocopiers, laser printers, sterilizers...) and its catalytic decomposition

3068-551: Is among the most powerful oxidizing agents known, far stronger than O 2 . It is also unstable at high concentrations, decaying into ordinary diatomic oxygen. Its half-life varies with atmospheric conditions such as temperature, humidity, and air movement. Under laboratory conditions, the half-life will average ~1500 minutes (25 hours) in still air at room temperature (24 °C), zero humidity with zero air changes per hour. This reaction proceeds more rapidly with increasing temperature. Deflagration of ozone can be triggered by

3186-571: Is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture , developed agriculture , architecture , and complex societies . In the post-archaic period , the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern , eastern , and southern regions, and the Algonquian in

3304-492: Is known as the presidential system , in contrast to the parliamentary system , where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world imitated this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States , especially in the Americas. The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then,

3422-438: Is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through

3540-420: Is oxidized to lead(II) sulfate : Sulfuric acid can be produced from ozone, water and either elemental sulfur or sulfur dioxide : In the gas phase , ozone reacts with hydrogen sulfide to form sulfur dioxide: In an aqueous solution, however, two competing simultaneous reactions occur, one to produce elemental sulfur, and one to produce sulfuric acid : Alkenes can be oxidatively cleaved by ozone, in

3658-542: Is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues . The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act . The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 34th among 180 countries in

Origins Space Telescope - Misplaced Pages Continue

3776-407: Is very important to reduce pollution. This type of decomposition is the most widely used, especially with solid catalysts, and it has many advantages such as a higher conversion with a lower temperature. Furthermore, the product and the catalyst can be instantaneously separated, and this way the catalyst can be easily recovered without using any separation operation. Moreover, the most used materials in

3894-584: The Allies of World War I , helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers . In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage . During the 1920s and '30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression , which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with

4012-548: The Atlantic slave trade . The original Thirteen Colonies that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of Great Britain , and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners . The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for

4130-529: The Environmental Performance Index . The country joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2016 and has many other environmental commitments. The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a separate federal capital district, Washington, D.C. It also asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions . The U.S. is

4248-493: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights , national security and enforcing U.S. federal courts ' rulings and federal laws. State courts conduct most civil and criminal trials, and federal courts handle designated crimes and appeals of state court decisions . There is no unified "criminal justice system" in

4366-688: The Great Lakes , Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico . British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what

4484-701: The Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard , while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the southwest . Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million. Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California . France established its own settlements along

4602-580: The Midwest . At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England . During the Great Migration , millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics . African Americans endured

4720-672: The National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States . Most of this land is protected , though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes. Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy , air and water pollution , biodiversity , logging and deforestation , and climate change . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

4838-583: The New Deal , a series of sweeping programs and public works projects combined with financial reforms and regulations . All were intended to protect against future economic depressions. Initially neutral during World War II , the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan 's attack on Pearl Harbor . The U.S. developed

Origins Space Telescope - Misplaced Pages Continue

4956-759: The Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement . In South America, Colombia is traditionally considered to be the closest ally of the United States. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia , the Marshall Islands , and Palau through the Compact of Free Association . It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India , but its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Since 2014,

5074-638: The Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law , rechargeable lithium-ion batteries , the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait . The September 11 attacks on

5192-576: The Spanish–American War . (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War . The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. The United States entered World War I alongside

5310-670: The cotton gin made the institution increasingly profitable for Southern elites . This sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America , while the other states remained in the Union . War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederates bombarded Fort Sumter . After

5428-514: The end of the Cold War in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower , wielding significant geopolitical influence globally . The U.S. national government is a presidential constitutional federal republic and liberal democracy with three separate branches : legislative , executive , and judicial . It has a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives ,

5546-524: The fall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union , which marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower . The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history , a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates , and advances in technology . Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web , the evolution of

5664-400: The global economy in 2023. It possesses by far the largest amount of wealth of any country and has the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD countries. The U.S. ranks among the world's highest in economic competitiveness , productivity , innovation , human rights , and higher education . Its hard power and cultural influence have a global reach. The U.S. is

5782-485: The interstellar medium within the Milky Way using infrared radiation and new spectroscopic capabilities. Study groups, primarily composed of international community members, prioritized the science identification and science drivers of the mission architecture. The study groups drew upon input from the international astronomical community; such a large mission will need international participation and support to make it

5900-489: The substitutive and additive nomenclatures , respectively. The name ozone derives from ozein (ὄζειν), the Greek neuter present participle for smell, referring to ozone's distinctive smell. In appropriate contexts, ozone can be viewed as trioxidane with two hydrogen atoms removed, and as such, trioxidanylidene may be used as a systematic name, according to substitutive nomenclature. By default, these names pay no regard to

6018-764: The 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord , igniting the American Revolutionary War . At the Second Continental Congress , the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army , and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence . Two days after passing the Lee Resolution to create an independent nation the Declaration

SECTION 50

#1732869619353

6136-421: The 1920s, it was not certain whether small amounts of oxozone , O 4 , were also present in ozone samples due to the difficulty of applying analytical chemistry techniques to the explosive concentrated chemical. In 1923, Georg-Maria Schwab (working for his doctoral thesis under Ernst Hermann Riesenfeld ) was the first to successfully solidify ozone and perform accurate analysis which conclusively refuted

6254-515: The 2010s, political polarization in the country increased between liberal and conservative factions. This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack , when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état . The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada. The 48 contiguous states and

6372-580: The American West have an alpine climate . The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California , and oceanic in coastal Oregon , Washington , and southern Alaska . Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar . Hawaii , the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical . States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of

6490-470: The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The term "United States" and the initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government , with prescribed rules. In English, the term "America" rarely refers to topics unrelated to

6608-557: The District of Columbia occupy a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km ). The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest . The Mississippi River System ,

6726-562: The Elder concluded that major military resources needed to be devoted to North America to win the war against France. For the first time, the continent became one of the main theaters of what could be termed a " world war ". The British colonies' position as an integral part of the British Empire became more apparent during the war, with British military and civilian officials becoming a more significant presence in American life. The war increased

6844-664: The January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation , many freed slaves joined the Union army . The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg , and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House . The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln , Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect

6962-476: The Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera , is the continent's largest volcanic feature. In 2021, the United States had 8% of global permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of cropland. With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian , the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid . Many mountainous areas of

7080-451: The U.S. has become a key ally of Ukraine ; it has also provided the country with significant military equipment and other support in response to Russia's 2022 invasion . The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff . The Department of Defense , which is headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of

7198-661: The U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons , state prisons , local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities . Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold people who have been convicted of federal crimes, including pretrial detainees. State prisons, run by the official department of correction of each state, hold sentenced people serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under

SECTION 60

#1732869619353

7316-416: The United States and the peaceful transfer of power , respectively. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained , leading to the War of 1812 , which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward , many with

7434-541: The United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs . The U.S. utilized the policy of containment to limit the USSR's sphere of influence, and prevailed in the Space Race , which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth , urbanization , and population growth following World War II . The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming

7552-495: The United States has operated as a de facto two-party system , though the parties in that system have been different at different times. The two main national parties are presently the Democratic and the Republican . The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative . In the American federal system , sovereign powers are shared between two levels of elected government: national and state. People in

7670-402: The United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror , and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq . The cultural impact of the attacks was profound and long-lasting. The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession , the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Coming to a head in

7788-415: The United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper, The Virginia Gazette , on April 6, 1776. By June 1776, the "United States of America" appeared in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence . The Second Continental Congress adopted

7906-434: The United States, despite the usage of "the Americas " as the totality of North and South America. "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb. The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture , which appeared around 11,000 BC,

8024-478: The United States, except Iran , North Korea , and Bhutan . Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. The United States has

8142-509: The United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2023, "these systems [held] almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities, 181 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons , civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in

8260-509: The abundance and availability of water for habitable planets . In the Solar System , it will chart the role of comets in delivering water to the early Earth by tracing their molecular heredity of deuterium/hydrogen ratio. The Origins Space Telescope would perform astrometry and astrophysics in the mid- to far-infrared range using a telescope with an aperture of 9.1 m (concept 1) or 5.9 m (concept 2). The telescope will require cryocooler systems to actively cool detectors at ~50 mK and

8378-422: The boiling point. It is therefore used commercially only in low concentrations. Ozone is a powerful oxidant (far more so than dioxygen) and has many industrial and consumer applications related to oxidation. This same high oxidizing potential, however, causes ozone to damage mucous and respiratory tissues in animals, and also tissues in plants, above concentrations of about 0.1 ppm . While this makes ozone

8496-436: The catalytic decomposition of ozone in the gas phase are noble metals like Pt, Rh or Pd and transition metals such as Mn, Co, Cu, Fe, Ni or Ag. There are two other possibilities for the ozone decomposition in gas phase: The first one is a thermal decomposition where the ozone can be decomposed using only the action of heat. The problem is that this type of decomposition is very slow with temperatures below 250 °C. However,

8614-453: The contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali is the highest peak in the country and continent. Active volcanoes are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands , and Hawaii consists of volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in

8732-549: The country's GDP. The U.S. has 42% of the world's nuclear weapons —the second-largest share after Russia. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces . The military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under

8850-464: The country's territory would expand with the admission of new states , rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together ensured a system of checks and balances . George Washington

8968-436: The decomposition rate can be increased working with higher temperatures but this would involve a high energy cost. The second one is a photochemical decomposition, which consists of radiating ozone with ultraviolet radiation (UV) and it gives rise to oxygen and radical peroxide. The process of ozone decomposition is a complex reaction involving two elementary reactions that finally lead to molecular oxygen, and this means that

9086-699: The development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening , a series of Christian revivals , fueled colonial interest in religious liberty . For a century, the American colonists had been providing their own troops and materiel in conflicts with indigenous peoples allied with Britain's colonial rivals , especially France, and the Americans had begun to develop a sense of self-defense and self-reliance separate from Britain. The French and Indian War (1754–1763) took on new significance for all North American colonists after Parliament under William Pitt

9204-414: The dispossession of native inhabitants . As more states were admitted , a North–South division over slavery led to the secession of the Confederate States of America , which fought states remaining in the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War . With the victory and preservation of the United States, slavery was abolished nationally . By 1900, the country had established itself as a great power ,

9322-564: The environment for labor unions to begin to flourish . This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era , which was characterized by significant reforms. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy ; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico , the Philippines , and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in

9440-527: The federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation . The Trail of Tears (1830–1850) was a U.S. government policy that forcibly removed and displaced most Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to lands far to the west. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. The Republic of Texas

9558-590: The first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the " Four Policemen " who met to plan the post-war world , alongside the United Kingdom , Soviet Union , and China . The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence . After World War II,

9676-636: The first settlement of the Thirteen Colonies in Virginia in 1607. Clashes with the British Crown over taxation and political representation sparked the American Revolution , with the Second Continental Congress formally declaring independence on July 4, 1776. Following its victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War , the country continued to expand westward across North America , resulting in

9794-493: The gaseous chemical and named it "ozone", from the Greek word ozein ( ὄζειν ) meaning "to smell". For this reason, Schönbein is generally credited with the discovery of ozone. He also noted the similarity of ozone smell to the smell of phosphorus, and in 1844 proved that the product of reaction of white phosphorus with air is identical. A subsequent effort to call ozone "electrified oxygen" he ridiculed by proposing to call

9912-815: The higher elevations beneficial because of their ozone content. "There is quite a different atmosphere [at higher elevation] with enough ozone to sustain the necessary energy [to work]", wrote naturalist Henry Henshaw , working in Hawaii. Seaside air was considered to be healthy because of its believed ozone content. The smell giving rise to this belief is in fact that of halogenated seaweed metabolites and dimethyl sulfide . Much of ozone's appeal seems to have resulted from its "fresh" smell, which evoked associations with purifying properties. Scientists noted its harmful effects. In 1873 James Dewar and John Gray McKendrick documented that frogs grew sluggish, birds gasped for breath, and rabbits' blood showed decreased levels of oxygen after exposure to "ozonized air", which "exercised

10030-463: The integration of Army National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force. There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state , and federal agencies such as

10148-683: The metals in their highest oxidation state . For example: Ozone also oxidizes nitric oxide to nitrogen dioxide : This reaction is accompanied by chemiluminescence . The NO 2 can be further oxidized to nitrate radical : The NO 3 formed can react with NO 2 to form dinitrogen pentoxide ( N 2 O 5 ). Solid nitronium perchlorate can be made from NO 2 , ClO 2 , and O 3 gases: Ozone does not react with ammonium salts , but it oxidizes ammonia to ammonium nitrate : Ozone reacts with carbon to form carbon dioxide , even at room temperature: Ozone oxidizes sulfides to sulfates . For example, lead(II) sulfide

10266-477: The military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975). A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation during the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw

10384-612: The most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable. The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species : about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians , and around 91,000 insect species. There are 63 national parks , and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas , managed by

10502-642: The most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, just as additional western territories and states were created. During the colonial period, slavery had been legal in the American colonies , though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. States in the North enacted abolition laws , though support for slavery strengthened in Southern states , as inventions such as

10620-475: The oxozone hypothesis. Further hitherto unmeasured physical properties of pure concentrated ozone were determined by the Riesenfeld group in the 1920s. Ozone is a colourless or pale blue gas, slightly soluble in water and much more soluble in inert non-polar solvents such as carbon tetrachloride or fluorocarbons, in which it forms a blue solution. At 161 K (−112 °C; −170 °F), it condenses to form

10738-444: The ozone decomposition follows a first order kinetics, and from the rate law above it can be determined that the partial order respect to molecular oxygen is -1 and respect to ozone is 2, therefore the global reaction order is 1. The ozone decomposition consists of two elementary steps: The first one corresponds to a unimolecular reaction because one only molecule of ozone decomposes into two products (molecular oxygen and oxygen). Then,

10856-536: The ozone from white phosphorus "phosphorized oxygen". The formula for ozone, O 3 , was not determined until 1865 by Jacques-Louis Soret and confirmed by Schönbein in 1867. For much of the second half of the 19th century and well into the 20th, ozone was considered a healthy component of the environment by naturalists and health-seekers. Beaumont, California , had as its official slogan "Beaumont: Zone of Ozone", as evidenced on postcards and Chamber of Commerce letterhead. Naturalists working outdoors often considered

10974-590: The physiological effect of ozone, so far attained, is that it causes irritation and œdema of the lungs, and death if inhaled in relatively strong concentration for any time." During World War I , ozone was tested at Queen Alexandra Military Hospital in London as a possible disinfectant for wounds. The gas was applied directly to wounds for as long as 15 minutes. This resulted in damage to both bacterial cells and human tissue. Other sanitizing techniques, such as irrigation with antiseptics , were found preferable. Until

11092-408: The policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation . An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor led to rapid economic expansion during the late 19th and early 20th centuries , allowing the United States to outpace the economies of England, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by

11210-553: The primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen , particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them . To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association , a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in

11328-453: The radicality of the ozone molecule. In an even more specific context, this can also name the non-radical singlet ground state, whereas the diradical state is named trioxidanediyl . Trioxidanediyl (or ozonide ) is used, non-systematically, to refer to the substituent group (-OOO-). Care should be taken to avoid confusing the name of the group for the context-specific name for the ozone given above. In 1785, Dutch chemist Martinus van Marum

11446-540: The reaction order and the rate law cannot be determined by the stoichiometry of the fitted equation. Overall reaction: 2 O 3 ⟶ 3 O 2 {\displaystyle {\ce {2 O3 -> 3 O2}}} Rate law (observed): V = K ⋅ [ O 3 ] 2 [ O 2 ] {\displaystyle V={\frac {K\cdot [{\ce {O3}}]^{2}}{[{\ce {O2}}]}}} It has been determined that

11564-420: The respiratory passages. Even low concentrations of ozone in air are very destructive to organic materials such as latex, plastics and animal lung tissue. The ozone molecule is diamagnetic. According to experimental evidence from microwave spectroscopy , ozone is a bent molecule, with C 2v symmetry (similar to the water molecule). The O–O distances are 127.2  pm (1.272  Å ). The O–O–O angle

11682-565: The rights of African Americans . National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads , spurred growth in the American frontier . From 1865 through 1917 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City , and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish , Irish , and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to

11800-596: The rocky Great Basin and Chihuahua , Sonoran , and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona , carved by the Colorado River over millions of years, is the Grand Canyon , a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape. The Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast . The lowest and highest points in

11918-563: The six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army , Marine Corps , Navy , Air Force , and Space Force . The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. The United States spent $ 916 billion on its military in 2023, which is by far the largest amount of any country , making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of

12036-575: The sky that will discover and characterize the most distant galaxies, Milky-Way, exoplanets, and the outer reaches of the Solar System. Based on the final report, three instruments are required, plus a fourth optional upscope: United States The United States of America ( USA ), commonly known as the United States ( U.S. ) or America , is a country primarily located in North America . It

12154-528: The sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor . They are distinct from the state's National Guard units in that they cannot become federalized entities. A state's National Guard personnel, however, may be federalized under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933 , which created the Guard and provides for

12272-543: The states are also represented by local elected governments , which are administrative divisions of the states. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents , and further divided into municipalities . The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. . The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Federally recognized tribes govern 326 Indian reservations . The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, and it has

12390-504: The structure and responsibilities of the national federal government and its relationship with the individual states. The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest national constitution still in effect (from March 4, 1789). Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. It is regulated by a strong system of checks and balances . The three-branch system

12508-473: The technical requirements for the observatory. The workgroups have identified these baseline science topics: Early and preliminary goals for the Origins Space Telescope mission include the study of water transport as both ice and gas from the interstellar medium to the inner regions of planet-forming disks, from interstellar clouds , to protoplanetary disks , to Earth itself—in order to understand

12626-447: The telescope optics at ~4 K . It will attain sensitivities 100–1000 times greater than any previous far-infrared telescope. Targeting exoplanet observations in the 3.3–25 μm wavelength range, it will measure the temperatures and search for basic chemical ingredients for life in the atmospheres of small, warm planets at habitable temperatures (~300 K (27 °C)) and measure their atmospheric composition. This may be accomplished by

12744-565: The world's fourth-longest river system , runs predominantly north–south through the heart of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains , west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado . Farther west are

12862-567: The world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024 . It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council , and home to the United Nations headquarters . The United States is a member of the G7 , G20 , and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with

12980-509: The world's third-largest land area , largest exclusive economic zone , and third-largest population , exceeding 334 million. Its three largest metropolitan areas are New York , Los Angeles , and Chicago , and its three most populous states are California , Texas , and Florida . Paleo-Indians migrated across the Bering land bridge more than 12,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations and societies . British colonization led to

13098-444: The world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of national government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization . It is a liberal representative democracy "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law ". The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document , also establishing

13216-538: The world's tornadoes occur in the country , mainly in Tornado Alley . Overall, the United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. Extreme weather became more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves as in the 1960s. In the American Southwest , droughts became more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as

13334-539: The world, with almost 2 million people incarcerated . An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher". Ozone Ozone's odor is reminiscent of chlorine , and detectable by many people at concentrations of as little as 0.1  ppm in air. Ozone's O 3 structure

13452-570: Was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest . Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California, Nevada, Utah, and much of present-day Colorado and the American Southwest . The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of

13570-754: Was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution included liberty , inalienable individual rights ; and the sovereignty of the people ; supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy , aristocracy , and all hereditary political power; civic virtue ; and vilification of political corruption . The Founding Fathers of the United States , who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams , Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , John Jay , James Madison , Thomas Paine , and many others, were inspired by Greco-Roman , Renaissance , and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 and established

13688-399: Was conducting experiments involving electrical sparking above water when he noticed an unusual smell, which he attributed to the electrical reactions, failing to realize that he had in fact created ozone. A half century later, Christian Friedrich Schönbein noticed the same pungent odour and recognized it as the smell often following a bolt of lightning . In 1839, he succeeded in isolating

13806-459: Was determined in 1865. The molecule was later proven to have a bent structure and to be weakly diamagnetic . In standard conditions , ozone is a pale blue gas that condenses at cryogenic temperatures to a dark blue liquid and finally a violet-black solid . Ozone's instability with regard to more common dioxygen is such that both concentrated gas and liquid ozone may decompose explosively at elevated temperatures, physical shock, or fast warming to

13924-565: Was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in

#352647