Hubble

[tw]

This week should be the launching of what may be the most important Shuttle Mission in ten years. Complete with two shuttles on the pads. The rescue of Hubble was probably the result of a small rebellion in the astronaut corp. I believe the launch is Monday 1800 hrs GMT - 2 PM for the astronauts.

This will be the first manned science mission since Columbia was lost. And such a risky mission that two shuttles must be made ready complete even with a second mission control in Houston.

[Beestie]

Isn't there a new space telescope in the works?

Hey, you're a smart guy so maybe you can answer this question. I read where the Hubble captured a pic of an object 13B light years away so they figure its almost as old as the universe itself.

So if it took 13B years for the light to reach earth, doesn't that mean it was in that location 13B years ago? That would seem to be impossible since, it would not be possible for any two objects to be 13B light years apart 13B years ago.

I can't figure that one out.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It was on a treadmill.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Beestie

Isn't there a new space telescope in the works? ... That would seem to be impossible since, it would not be possible for any two objects to be 13B light years apart 13B years ago.

That assumes they are not the same source? Welcome to why we need this research and (if America wants to be #1) also need to be doing quantum physics in America. Especially in the past decade, most fundamental research had been leaving the US due to extremists who hate what is not justified by their political agenda.

I believe the other scope is named Webb. Scientists are very excited to have both observatories working simultaneously. Work performed by Hubble can be calibrated against future work by Webb. And other techniques (including combining both images into a super telescope) are expected. The waiting list for access to Hubble has been massive. A traffic jam that Webb alone cannot alleviate.

I believe Webb is still something like four years away. But science expects great things from both scopes in combination with a constellation of other gamma ray, X-ray, and infrared observatories. Basic science that was being killed by some stupid fools who found glory in "Man to Mars".

Value of Hubble was a surprise. Hubble could very well be the greatest science experiment in 20 years in everything from deep space study to sub-atomic quantum physics to understanding the very nature of what Einstein desperately wanted to solve - the fundamental relations of all matter (ie dark matter) and energy (including time and gravity).

Webb is expected to provide a decade improvement on the results from Hubble.

I don't even try to answer a 13billion light year question since even the best of minds have numerous and contrasting theories. We can only go with what we know – follow the evidence. And keep getting more facts.

Meanwhile, based upon what we have learned, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek concept has held up surprisingly well. Compare that to Jules Verne's Nautilus.

[Shawnee123]

I want a Porter Garden telescope, which I saw on CBS Sunday Morning.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Beestie

Isn't there a new space telescope in the works?

Hey, you're a smart guy so maybe you can answer this question. I read where the Hubble captured a pic of an object 13B light years away so they figure its almost as old as the universe itself.

So if it took 13B years for the light to reach earth, doesn't that mean it was in that location 13B years ago? That would seem to be impossible since, it would not be possible for any two objects to be 13B light years apart 13B years ago.

I can't figure that one out.

I don't fully understand you question. You write

it would not be possible for any two objects to be 13B light years apart 13B years ago.

Which two? Object X (as seen by Hubble) and ... what, Earth? If so, why not?

Perhaps this might help confuse the shit out of you:

The universe is appx 14B years old. It is MUCH more than 14B light years across. Matter is scattered at least as far as we can see in BOTH directions, vastly more than 14B light years from side to side. How could this be, if nothing can move faster than C, the speed of light?

The answer, (and I hope it answers your questions too) is "inflation"; the idea that the universe underwent an incredibly rapid expansion very early in its existence.
Imagine a few flies crawling about the surface of an infinitely stretchy balloon. Neither can crawl faster than C. After one second, they might be two light seconds apart. But if someone is blowing up the ballon (really really fast and big) you might go back and measure the distance and find it a lot more than two light seconds, because the skin of the balloon has stretched because of the inflation.

Got that? This will be in the exam next week.



Bruce ... you're evil

[Beestie]

Yep - that answers my question.

And replaces it with a bigger one. But at least I now know what the explanation is even if I don't quite understand how it works.

The only way I can understand that is to ... well, let me ask this: Has the amount of gravity in the universe changed since inception? If yes, then that would make inflation a little more comprehensible. I think.

Alas, I understood the universe a lot better when I didn't know anything about it.

[ZenGum]

Inflation is just a theory that some whitecoats were twisted into to explain the observable facts. It is not clear what could drive it.

The really weird thing is that the expansion of the universe seems to be speeding up.

I was about to post a general link to New Scientist magazine which regularly runs accessible articles about this kind of stuff, but I went and checked and their lead story RFN is about exactly this stuff. The European Space Agency is about to launch the Plank satellite to study it.

[The cosmic microwave background (CMB)] ...was released when the universe was about 380,000 years old. The expanding cosmos had cooled enough for free electrons and nuclei to combine to form neutral atoms, mainly hydrogen. Photons, which until then had been continually scattered by the free electrons, were suddenly able to zip away unhindered, and it is this radiation - since stretched to microwave wavelengths by the universe's expansion - that makes up the CMB. It is all around us, and constitutes about 1 per cent of the "noise" on untuned analogue TV screens.
.... WMAP has measured variations in the temperature of the CMB as small as a few microkelvin.... These so-called anisotropies are believed to be due to inflation, a process thought to have occurred just 10-34 seconds after the big bang, during which a speck about 10-20 times the size of a proton expanded to a mind-boggling size in a flash.

During inflation, quantum fluctuations in space-time were extended to cosmological scales: by the time the CMB was released, these fluctuations had led to variations in the distribution of matter across the universe. Denser regions of the universe produced CMB photons slightly colder than average, and vice versa.

There is a chance that this will even give us a means of testing string theory.

That's 10 to the minus 34, and ten to the minus 20. Should be in superscript.

[classicman]

:head explodes:

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Beestie

So if it took 13B years for the light to reach earth, doesn't that mean it was in that location 13B years ago? That would seem to be impossible since, it would not be possible for any two objects to be 13B light years apart 13B years ago.

That is how I understand it.

[Cloud]

rebellion in the astronaut corps?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Cloud

rebellion in the astronaut corps?

Back then, George Jr's administration was using science for their greater glory. One political agenda was to redirect all space programs; to put a man on the moon and 'Man to Mars'. Numerous other space projects were being killed or canceled (including eight satellites to perform earth atmospheric research - one that was soon to launch) to pay for that political agenda.

When Columbia was destroyed (the only shuttle that did any science), the administration had plenty of reason (excuses) to eliminate the expensive Hubble rescue / upgrade.

Deep inside NASA, hundreds (mostly astronauts) began a campaign to save Hubble. What you now see is the all but outright rebellion in NASA to save science. These people were rumored to divert funds at any opportunity to fund studies on how to save Hubble. Of course, it had to be performed covertly because a political agenda had replaced science as the important objective.

Meanwhile, science no longer uses man for its greatest discoveries. Best space science is now done by machines. In fact, almost all NASA's science is done in the less than 10% of budget spent only on non-manned missions. Mars Rover being a perfect example. ISS being the perfect example of massive expenditures and almost no science.

In deep ocean research, Ballard also came to the same stunning concluson while maybe a mile under the ocean. He suddenly noticed crew members would rather view outside on cameras rather than use viewing ports. Even deep sea research is better conducted by machines - not by man.

Same applies to sub-atomic research. Or space. Even astronomers no longer go to the telescopes. Work is better conducted elsewhere while telescopes - machine operated - do the work.

[TheMercenary]

Hubble, hubble toil and trouble.

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Hubble, hubble toil and trouble.

Especially when we sought advise by looked into its mirror.

"Mirror mirror. Out in space"
"What can you tell me about this place."

'No poison apples grow out here?"

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

I want a Porter Garden telescope, which I saw on CBS Sunday Morning.

Well, that's going on my list of really cool but tremendously impractical, expensive things I want to own some day.