caty pilachowskiiub astronomy giant telescopes, ancient skies:
TRANSCRIPT
Caty Pilachowski IUB Astronomy
Giant Telescopes, Ancient Skies:
Beginnings…
This sketch of a telescope was included in a letter
written by Giovanpattista della Porta in August 1609
Thomas Harriet’s Drawings of the
Moon and Sun
Telescopes and
how they work
from lenses…
to mirrors
Technology moves forward…
The 3.5-meter WIYN telescope Kitt Peak, Arizona
New Telescope Technology
“Fast” mirror Lightweight mirror
Mirror shape controlled Mechanically simpler
mount Temperature control
The WIYN Mirror
The WIYN New Technology “Dome”
Compact telescope chamber Open for ventilation Insulated to keep cool Heated spaces kept separate
Breaking the “cost curve”
New technology provides better performance at lower cost
WIYN
in 6-8 meter telescopes
WIYN TECHNOLOGY
New technology telescopes give new views of the universe
How is the Universe put together?What is the Universe made of?Is there life elsewhere?
How is the Universe put together? The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
Probe tells us about the state of the Universe 400,000 years after the Big Bang.
How did the UniverseHow did the Universeevolve from this…evolve from this…
…to this?
The cosmic web of intergalactic gas and galaxies in a young universe
Intergalacticgas
Clumpsconcentratedby darkmatter lead to galaxies
Observing the assembly of galaxies
Galaxy building blocks
observed withHubble
Simulation
WMAP also providesevidence of the first stars
Tiny fluctuations in polarization
About 200 million years after the Big Bang
Can we see the first stars?
Simulation
What we might see with a 30-meter telescope(Barton et al., 2004)
4 million LY
hydrogen emission from hot stars
Green=hot gas yellow=stars
The composition of stars and gas:
everythingelse
90% hydrogen atoms
10% helium atoms
Less than 1% everything else
What is the Universe made of?
But ordinary matter is only part of the story…
96% of the Universe is something else
Galaxy interactions require more mass than we can see
Antennae Galaxy (HST)
Computersimulation
The real thing
Dark Matter The universe contains additional matter
we cannot see Dark matter interacts with normal
matter through gravity Dark matter does NOT interact with light
the way the normal matter does The Universe contains 5 or 6 times
MORE dark matter than normal matterAll galaxies are embedded in clouds of
dark matter We do not know what it is!
“Redshift” of Galaxies
The spectra of galaxies are shifted to the red: galaxies are moving away from us.
The farther away a galaxy is, the faster it recedes from us!
Hubble’s Law
Distance - Velocity Relation
0
1000
2000
3000
0 20000 40000
Velocity (km/sec)
Dis
tan
ce (
LY
)
The speeds of very distant galaxies tell us the Universe
is expanding faster today than in the past
The brightness of stellar explosions tells
us how far away galaxies are
The universe is expanding faster today than it did in early times
This expansion cannot be caused by ordinary or dark matter, which slows expansion.
The acceleration suggests a new repulsive force (anti-gravity) acting on very large scales
The Universe is speeding up!
Dark energy accounts for 73% of the content of the universe
Dark matter accounts for 23%The content we’re familiar with is only 4%
The New Force Is Called “Dark Energy”
We don’t know
What is Dark Energy?
Identifying what dark energy is requires bigger
telescopes and new techniques
Is there life elsewhere?
Artist’s conception of 55 Cancri’s planetary system
More than 150 planets found around other stars
Most are vastly different fromour Solar System
detecting planets directly is hardplanets are small and dimplanets are near much brighter stars
detecting planets directly requires large telescopes (30-meters) and/or special instruments
Detecting Planets
Imaging planets around other stars
“Brown Dwarf” orbiting a star
at the same distance as
Saturn from our Sun
Gemini/Keck AO detectionby Michael Liu (IfA), 2002
With a 30-metertelescope we canobtain the spectraof planets aroundother stars to searchfor the signatures of life
Simulation by Sudarskyet al. 2003
Simulation of the spectra of 55 Cancri’s planets
Connecting the First Nanoseconds to the Origin of Life
New Telescopes to Answer
New Questions 30-meter telescope 8-meter survey telescope James Webb Space Telescope Virtual Observatory
The giant, segmented-mirror
telescope
To study the formation of the first
stars and galaxies will require a new
generation of larger telescopes
JWST
8.4-meters Triple-fold optical design 3 billion pixel-camera 30,000 gigabytes each night
LSSTLarge-apertureSynoptic
SurveyTelescope
Survey the sky each weekReal-time data analysis3 billion sources + transients
Exploring the Dark Universe
with LSST
WIYN and the Future:
ODI
One Degree Imager1 billion pixels:
32,000 x 32,000 pixels“on chip” image correction
text
The importance of image quality
typical ground-based image
Hubble image
WIYN image
The Ring Nebula
ODI in the Astronomical LandscapeThe best wide-field imager, current or planned
Diagnostic Imaging
Information rate 2nd only to LSST (in 2012+)
Image qualitymedian seeing 0.7”sampling 0.11”image correction
Time resolution2-4s readoutsfaster for small regions
IU Science with ODI
Star clusters and stellar evolution
The history of nearby galaxiesSurveys of faint and distant
galaxies
Astronomy is looking up