Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division o Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.In collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Understanding Hubble’s Contributionsto the Study o the Cosmos
Summary
by Dr. Jerey HomanThe rst USA TODAY Hubble Case Study (“The Hubble Legacy,” all 2008) explained the original reasons orbuilding the Hubble Space Telescope, the initial crippling problem HST experienced due to the misshapenprimary mirror (spherical aberration) and how the problem was solved. Finally, it showed a ew examples o the extraordinary observations that the repaired HST has been able to make.Astronauts have visited Hubble our more times since the original rescue/repair mission in December 1993,xing or replacing ailed electronic and mechanical units, and, most importantly, installing new, up-to-datescientic instruments that keep Hubble on the cutting edge o astronomical technology. The result has beenteen years o unprecedented scientic exploration and discovery.This second USA TODAY Hubble Case Study looks more closely at three areas in which discoveries made withHubble (oten working together with other telescopes, both on the ground and in space) have undamentallychanged scientists’ ideas about astronomy: extrasolar planets (i.e. planets circling other stars), the orma-tion and evolution o galaxies, and the nature o the expansion o the universe. Discoveries related to this lasttopic have been so revolutionary that they have led to the realization that all the normal matter and energythat physics currently deals with comprises less than 5% o the universe. About a quarter o the universeseems to be made o “dark matter,” which has normal gravitational attraction or regular matter but seemsnot to interact at all with light or other orms o electromagnetic radiation (hence the term “dark” matter).The largest component o the universe, however, seems to be something that repels other matter —just theopposite o gravity. Astronomers call this “dark energy,” but even though they have given it a name, they havealmost no understanding o what it is.
Extrasolar Planets
Astronomers have speculated or a long time on the possible existence o planets circling other stars. It wasnot until 1995, however, that astronomers rst detected unambiguously an extrasolar planet. Since that time,hundreds o such planets have been detected, all around stars relatively close to the sun. Most o these plan-ets are relatively large, like Jupiter. Recently, however, scientists’ instruments have become sensitive enoughto detect smaller planets. The goal o extrasolar planet searches is to understand better how planetary sys-tems are ormed and, o particular interest to human beings, to discover Earth-like planets which might pos-sibly harbor lie.The Hubble Space Telescope has an extraordinarily small eld o view, and as such, it is not ideally suited tosearching or new planets. However, once extrasolar planets have been discovered using other telescopes,such as the recently launched Kepler Mission, Hubble’s powerul instruments can analyze the nature o theseplanets. In a ew cases, Hubble has even been able to make measurements o the atmospheres o these plan-ets — an extraordinary eat.
Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division o Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.In collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Formation and Evolution o Galaxies
Because Hubble is so sensitive, it can see aint objects very ar away; and because light rom araway objectstakes a long time to reach the Earth, Hubble sees these objects as they were a long time ago. Hubble has beenable to photograph and study galaxies ormed early in the history o the universe, shortly ater the rst starswere born. These early galaxies dier in many respects rom galaxies ormed later in the universe, and thedierences between young and old galaxies have taught astronomers a lot about how galaxies evolve overtime.
The Expansion o the Universe Reconsidered – Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Ever since Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding, and that the rate o expansion seems toincrease linearly with distance rom an observation point on the Earth, astronomers have tried to determinethe proportionality constant (the “Hubble constant”) that relates the expansion velocity and the distance.Moreover, since all matter in the universe attracts by the orce o gravity, scientists have assumed that theexpansion o the universe is gradually slowing down. Astronomers are hoping to measure the rate o decel-eration o the universe’s expansion. One o the primary research programs o the Hubble Space Telescope hasbeen to determine accurately the Hubble constant and the rate o deceleration o the universe’s expansion.The Hubble constant has now been measured quite accurately, which has in turn led to a determination o the “age” o the universe: the Big Bang took place about 13.7 billion years ago. As scientists gathered moreand more data, however, it became apparent that, contrary to all expectations, the expansion o the uni-verse does not seem to be slowing down at all — just the opposite: the expansion o the universe seems tobe speeding up! Since gravity wants to slow down the expansion, there must be another orce pushing theuniverse apart. Astronomers call this orce “dark energy.”Observations o the universal microwave background, the remnant o radiation let over rom shortly ater theBig Bang, have allowed astronomers to measure how much o the universe is composed o dark energy, howmuch o dark matter, and how much o ordinary matter and energy. The astounding discovery that ordinarymatter and energy constitute less than 5% o the universe indicates that scientists’ knowledge o physics is arrom complete! This is an excellent example o the nature o scientic discovery – every time new discoveriesare made, they open up many new questions. This is one reason that science is always so interesting!Hubble has, o course, produced many important discoveries in areas other than the three dealt with in thiscase study. However, many astronomers believe that these three areas are among the most important andrevolutionary that Hubble has dealt with, which is why they were selected. In reading the attached materialand trying to answer the accompanying questions, students will share the excitement o scientic investiga-tions with Hubble astronomers and gain an appreciation or how the Hubble Space Telescope has undamen-tally changed basic concepts about the nature o the universe.Page 2
Understanding Hubble’s Contributionsto the Study o the Cosmos
Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division o Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.In collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
By Dan VerganoTuesday, May 12, 2009High overhead, NASA astronauts arescheduled this week to begin repairson the Hubble Space Telescope. The 360-mile-high “brain surgery” inspace, in the words o astronaut JohnGrunseld, promises a brighter viewo the cosmos or Hubble astrono-mers and ans alike. Sometimes thetwo are interchangeable.“We are waiting on the edge o ourseats or the incredible results wewill get rom a repaired Hubble,”says cosmologist Mario Livio o theSpace Telescope Science Institute inBaltimore. “We are only going to getmore great science.”“Hubble will go rom a VW SuperBeetle to a high-powered race car,”says astronomer Julianne Dalcantono the University o Washington-Se-attle. Hubble will peer at stars andgalaxies ormed 500 million yearsater the Big Bang, equipped with anew camera 30 times more sensitiveto light and a chemical spectrom-eter 10 times more eective. “Wewill be able to plan observations wenever could beore, simply becausethe telescope will be more ecient,”Livio said in April.Hubble has delivered so many astro-nomical ndings, that picking outa “greatest hits” list is a challenge,Dalcanton says. When she wrotea retrospective o Hubble nds orthe Nature, she says, “I had to leavethings out, there was just too much.”Among the highlights:
Looking back at Hubble as it takes a leap orward
The 19-year-old spacetelescope undergoes ‘brainsurgery’ this week to makeit more powerul
Cosmic ‘yardsticks’:
Cepheids, pulsating stars thousandso times brighter than our sun, serve as ready-made distancemarkers in space. Measuring Cepheids in galaxies — such asthe Spiral Galaxy M100, above — allows astronomers to cre-ate a ramework by which they can precisely gauge distancesthroughout the sky.
Stellar nurseries:
Images o the Orion Nebula, a star birthactory, revealed that the youngest stars are surrounded bydust disks bueted by the winds rom nearby exploding giantstars. These are exactly the conditions astronomers suspectedwould lead to solar system ormation. More than 3,000 starsappear in this composite o 100 images.
Star blasts:
Ater stars consume their hydrogen uel, an ex-plosion can’t be ar behind. Images o nearby explosions revealthe “light echoes” o blast waves shocking clouds o dust thatescape rom stars on the edge o eruption, such as this star20,000 light years away on the outer edge o the Milky Way.
Black holes:
Hubble has observed the stars orbiting nearsuspected supermassive black holes, rom which nothing —not even light — can escape, such as the Sagittarius A* at thecenter o our own Milky Way galaxy. Hubble also has detect-ed previously unsuspected middle-size black holes (merely10,000 times more massive than the sun) in nearby galaxies.Above, a star cluster with a black hole in its dense core.
Galaxy growth:
“Deep eld” images — such as this 2004composite o the telescope’s arthest looks into the universe— surprised astronomers by showing that the most distant,and earliest, galaxies don’t resemble the spiral and ootball-shaped galaxies o the modern universe but look more like“insects spattered on a windshield,” Dalcanton says.
Age o the universe:
Hubble has honed the precision o the “Hubble constant” (also named or the astronomer EdwinHubble), the measure o the universe’s expansion rate. Hubblemeasurements o exploding stars in distant galaxies, suchas the one shown above, led to the 1998 discovery o “darkenergy,” the unexplained observation that galaxies across thecosmos are moving apart at an accelerating rate
Remarkably, Hubble isn't a very advanced observatory compared with massive telescopes on Earth, such as the33-oot-wide mirror o Hawaii's Keck telescopes, Dalcanton says. But its location in orbit rees it rom clouds, atmo-spheric distortion and city lights on Earth, which makes it invaluable to astronomers. "It's hard to conceive o a worldwithout Hubble," she says. "And the repairs will, hopeully, mean we won't have to."Page 3
Understanding Hubble’s Contributionsto the Study o the Cosmos
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions to the Study of the Cosmos
This USA TODAY Hubble Case Study looks closely at three areas in which discoveries made with Hubble (often working together with other telescopes, both on the ground and in space) have fundamentally changed scientists’ ideas about…
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