Through Gravity's Lens

Hubble photo of the gravitational lens in cluster Abell 383. The curving arcs are galaxies behind Abell, their images bent by gravity. This cluster has far more mass than is visible. Abell 383 would also be a good place to seek massive Black Holes.

Monday night attendees at the Humans in Space Symposium were treated to a showing of the Hubble IMAX 3-D movie at Houston's Museum of Natural Science. The film was introduced by astrophysicist, former astronaut and Hubble repairman Dr, John Grunsfeld. (The very next night HMNS was site of a Tweetup celebrating Yuri's night.)

A galaxy newly found by Hubble and the Swift telescope has been found to have formed only 950 million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers used our Keck 2 telescope atop Mauna Kea to determine the galaxy's redshift. Stars within this galaxy appear to be 750 milllion years old, meaning they were formed when the Universe was only 200 million years old. Space.com story. Old theories of star formation can not explain how they could have formed when the Universe was so young. The cores of these stars may have formed around primordial Black Holes.

Fire

Astronomer Michael Brown is known for his observations of Kuiper Belt objects like Sedna. This weekend, from his 9th floor window at Caltech, he made this photo of the fire raging in the California hills. JPL has already been evacuated, but appears to be out of danger. Presently Mount Wilson and it's famous telescopes are in the line of fire.

From Mount Wilson's 100 inch telescope Edwin Hubble found evidence that the Universe was expanding. Hubble's initial graph of redshift vs. magnitude was so scattered that it is amazing that anyone could see a trend. Despite the fuzzy data, Hubble's chart convinced even Einstein that the Universe expanded. In a well-publicized 1932 visit to Mount Wilson, Einstein conferred with Hubble and peered through the telescope. To the assembled reporters Einstein happily admitted that his Cosmological Constant was an error.

Old ideas eventually give way to better theories. Out of the ashes of the cosmological constant came the Big Bang theory. A simple expression like R = ct can predict an expanding Universe. Out of today's speculation about cosmological constants and "dark energies" will come a better theory of the Universe.

Happy Birthday Hubble

Atlantis (right) on Pad 39-A and Endeavour (left) on 39-B. The latter pad has lightning towers installed in anticipation of the Ares 1-X test.

On April 24, 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. The dream of an observatory in Space was achieved after many delays, including Challenger's accident in 1986. Hubble was the first free-flying Space observatory designed to be serviced by astronauts. Having humans in space was very fortunate when Hubble was found to have a spherical aberration. STS-125, the fourth Hubble servicing mission, is scheduled to launch May 11 onboard Atlantis. (This week the date was moved forward from May 12.) Endeavour will be sitting on Pad 39-B in case of rescue.

Albert Einstein thought that the Universe was spherical, but of a fixed radius. Einstein's equations showed that the static Universe would be unstable, UNLESS it were expanding. If Einstein had foreseen an expanding Universe, it would have been one of history's great scientific predictions. Instead he added a repulsive energy, a "cosmological constant."

By comparing the luminosity of Cepheid Variables with the host galaxies' redshifts, Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe was expanding. After visiting Hubble atop Mount Wilson, Einstein withdrew his cosmological constant. Later Einstein would call the CC his greatest blunder.

Edwin Hubble's rough graphs showed the galaxies recede in proportion to their distance, indicating expansion. This ratio is called the "Hubble Constant" though everyone knows that it would change with time. Finding the precise value of the Hubble "constant" was a key science mission of HST. When physicists used HST to look at distant supernovae, they found that expansion appeared to accelerate with respect to the speed of light. If they had announced that the speed of light was slowing it would have been one of history's great discoveries. Instead physicists concluded that a cosmological constant or "dark energy" was causing acceleration.

Once even Einstein thought that the Universe was static. Observations by Edwin Hubble, Milton Humason, and others showed that its size changed. Once upon a time physicists thought that the speed of light was also static. As with Hubble's constant, observations show that even constants can change.

1-minute video: 10,000 galaxies seen by the Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Zoom Into NGC 3324

From the Hubble Space Telescope, currently out of action. The star-forming nebula NGC 3324, in one corner of the Carina Nebula. The Nebula also contains the Keyhole Nebula and the tumultuous star Eta Carina. Pillars of gas are stars being born, possibly seeded by tiny Black Holes.

Alice's Astro hosts the new Carnival of Space!

Hubble Trouble

10,000 galaxies from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

The Hubble Space Telescope has suffered a failure in the Control Unit/Science Formatter. This device stores and transmits all telescope data. This will almost certainly delay Servicing Mission STS-125 scheduled for next month. The astronaut's training in Houston has already been impacted by Hurricane Ike. In turn STS-126 to the Space Station will be delayed, for which Endeavour is sitting on Pad 39-B for Launch On Need rescue.

Both Shuttle missions were intended to launch before late November, when the Sun's inclination on solar panels makes ISS missions more difficult. Also "workforce issues" come into play, as NASA personnel wish to take holiday! After flight Pad 39-B was to be modified for the Ares 1-X launch. That flight was scheduled for April 009, then June, and now will be delayed further. The effect of this system failure will cascade down the line.

As befitting its name, Hubble's primary scientific mission is to measure expansion of the Universe. That is expressed in the famous "Hubble Constant." Hubble's constant is not really constant; astronomers agree it changes with time. By measuring redshifts of distant supernovae, astronomers came to the paradoxical conclusion that the universe is accelerating! That would violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, so a repulsive "dark energy" was inferred to oppose gravity. Pursuit of DE has misled physics for a decade. If scientists had realised that data pointed to the speed of light changing, it would have been one of history's great discoveries. Humans may lack the wisdom to use an instrument like Hubble.

Launch Complex 39 with two Shuttles on the pads simultaneously. Atlantis sits on Pad 39-A in preparation for STS-125. In the background Endeavour is poised on Pad 39-B for Launch On Need.

Jennifer of Twisted Physics hosts this week's Carnival of Space!

M81 in Three Bands

Atlantis lifted off at 7:38 PM EST on a planned 11-day mission. These are old spacecraft, which makes one concerned for the crew's safety. Like the 1960's families who gathered around the TV set for every launch, we will ignore the media's fixation on suicide bombing heiresses and watch 7 people try to make a difference. I will delay my announcement about spaceflight until after they have returned safely.

A shuttle has many thousands of parts, any one of which could fail. The engines are pressurised via 24 spherical tanks filled with helium or nitrogen. The tanks are made of metal wrapped in kevlar, and must contain pressures up to 4600 psi. Failure of one of the tanks would be catastrophic. In 1988 the tanks were certified for an additional 10 years use. Since then the tanks' manufacturer has gone out of business. Two more flights to go for Atlantis, whose last flight will be the Hubble servicing mission scheduled for September 10, 2008.

One more three-colour picture for the week. Galaxy M81 in Ursa Major seen in infrared by the Spitzer Space Telescope (red), in visible light by Hubble (white) and in ultraviolet by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The youngest stars, seen in blue, line the galaxy's edges while older stars cluster near the centre. Interstellar dust appears in red. Hidden even from these eyes is a halo of "dark" mass, detectable only by its gravitational influence.

At the centre of this and every other galaxy is a supermassive Black Hole. Singularities were formed from quantum fluctuations shortly after the Big Bang. Giant Black Holes formed the seeds of clusters, galaxies and even smaller structures. Smaller Black Holes were attracted by the big ones and formed haloes around the galaxies. The matter we see is only a fraction of what is out there.

Check out the new Carnival of Space!

UPDATE: As this is published, a 3.5 inch hole has been found in Atlantis' thermal blanket. The fault has been judged to be non-critical and the mission goes on.

Echoes From the Darkness

Two discoveries announced in the past day, seemingly from different scales and regions of the Universe, may be related. The Hubble Space Telescope has found that Galaxy Cluster Cl 0024+17 is surrounded by a halo of dark mass. (This is distinct from "dark energy," which doesn't exist.) This cluster, 5 billion light-years away, apparently formed from a collision of two clusters about 1 billion years before this picture was taken or 6 billion years ago. The impact formed an expanding ring of dark mass which can be detected through gravitational lensing. Though mounting evidence exists, the nature of "dark matter" is still just a subject of speculation.

Just last week we learned of a hot gas giant orbiting inexplicably close to its star. Again using stellar occultation, astronomers have discovered that planet TrES-3 orbits its sun in only 31 hours! It's orbit takes the planet barely 3 million km from a sun. Current theories can not explain these hot Jupiters. In the immense heat near a star almost anything would boil away before forming a planet.

The Big Bang created billions of Black Holes in a variety of sizes. The biggest ones formed the seeds of galaxies and clusters. Smaller singularities formed great haloes around the galaxies, as seen near Cl 0024+17. Many times these objects have collided with a galaxy's disk. They could have formed the seeds of stars and even smaller objects like planets. Presence of a singularity inside "hot Jupiters" would explain their formation and number.

There is new evidence of disk of dark mass deep within our solar system, something I will write about sometime. There is far more out there than meets the eye.

Griffith Park Above the Fire

Griffith Observatory was first opened in 1935 and reopened after a long renovation in November 2006. It has been backdrop for movies from REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE to THE ROCKETEER. The site has a wonderful view of Los Angeles lights, which makes it terrible for observing but a great asset to the community.

Visitors: You can no longer drive here. You must purchase your tickets online and take one of the shuttle buses up the hill. Thus place is popular as a Hollywood premiere, and is expected to be very busy this Summer. It is nice to see so many people interested in astronomy!

Nearby atop Mount Wilson stands the 100-inch Hooker telescope, once the largest in the world. When this telescope saw first light in 1917, astronomers disagreed whether our Milky Way represented the entire Universe. Andromeda was called a nebula, and no one agreed whether it was part of our galaxy or outside. Using the Hooker telescope, Edwin Hubble determined that "spiral nebulae" were in fact distant galaxies.

Albert Einstein theorised that the Universe was spherical in four dimensions rather than three. Every bit would resemble every other bit. He realised that gravity would cause the Universe to collapse, UNLESS it were already expanding. Einstein could have predicted an expanding Universe, but instead introduced a repulsive "cosmological constant" opposing gravity.

Hubble and his colleague Milton Humason relied upon a class of stars called Cepheid Variables. These stars vary periodically in brightness, with a period related to their luminosity. Observing a Cepheid’s period would tell them how much light the star gave off. By measuring how much of that light reached Earth, they cold determine distance to the star and galaxy. Cepheid Variables were standard candles measuring the distance to their galaxies.

Redshift is approximately v/c, an object’s velocity divided by the speed of light. When the redshifts of many galaxies were plotted against their distances, those redshifts increased linearly with distance. This did not indicate that our galaxy was unpopular. If the Universe was spherical like a balloon, the galaxies were like spots on its surface. As a balloon expanded, the spots would increase their distance uniformly. A galaxy twice as distant would recede twice as fast. The distance-redshift relation was convincing evidence that our Universe was expanding.

In a well-publicised 1931 visit to Mount Wilson, Einstein conferred with Hubble and peered through Hubble’s telescope. The world’s most famous scientist happily accepted the expanding Universe. Hubble’s data convinced Einstein to drop the cosmological constant, later calling the CC his “greatest blunder.” If Einstein called something a blunder he was probably right.

UPDATE: As this was posted, a huge fire has erupted in Griffith Park, visible for miles. Fortunately it is a big park and the fire is on the opposite side. The observatory has been closed as a precaution. Southern California has been very hot and dry.

UPDATE: As of midnight PST, the fire has not been contained and is inching closer to the observatory. Residents of Los Feliz have been ordered out. The view is eerily similiar to the Oakland Hills fire of 1991. This could get bad.


UPDATE: This morning the observatory appears out of danger. The fire had been moving North toward the zoo, and was expected to die down by sunset. Instead the wind shifted South toward the observatory and the Los Feliz neighbourhood. The fire is still burning and large parts of Griffith Park are black.

Jupiter Poles

This photo of Jupiter combines a visual image from Hubble with X-ray data from the Chandra spacecraft. The North and South poles are alive with X-rays. Like Earth's aurora, this display occurs in both poles simultaneously 140,000 km distant! Something in Jupiter's core links the poles. Jupiter has an immense magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system. Presence of a singularity would explain Jupiter’s field, and why Jupiter gives off nearly twice as much heat as it receives from the Sun.

Cassini has seen a huge hurricane at Saturn's South Pole. The largest planet does not have a storm centred at the South Pole because Jupiter’s magnetic poles do not line up with the geographic poles. The magnetic field is angled 9.5 degrees, indicating that Jupiter’s singularity is offset like that of Earth. Jupiter completes its day in less than 10 Earth-hours. A southern jet radiating from Jupiter’s core would be bent further outward by the rapid rotation. Magnetic fields would cause the storm to rotate in an anti-clockwise direction as seen from above. For signs of such a storm, we can look at the latitude of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

Astronomers like Geoffrey Marcy and Debra Fisher have found "hot Jupiters" in other solar systems, giant planets orbiting very close to stars. Old ideas of planet formation can not explain these objects. They could not have formed solely from condensing gas, for solar radiation would cause the gas to evaporate. Presently astronomers speculate that they formed farther from their suns, and then drifted closer after formation. All of them? If that is true, why haven't our giant planets drifted into the Sun?

If giant planets formed around singularities, a Black Hole's gravity would prevent them from dissipating. Hot Jupiters could then form extremely close to stars. Rotating Black Holes could also account for the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune, and why those fields are far offset from the planets’ rotation axes. Jupiter's X-rays could result from the polar jets of a Black Hole.