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A new view of the Universe VI Fred WatsonApril 2005
A new view of the Universe VI Fred WatsonApril 2005
COSMOLOGYThe study of the origin and evolution
of the Universe as a whole…
What weneed is more money for cosmology
One will see what one
can do
Three microbes in Edinburgh…
Professor Malcolm Longair:“We are witnessing the dawn of a new realm
of precision cosmology…”August 2000
• Better described as “industrial-strength” cosmology because it is very robust…
• The robustness comes from advances in astronomical technology and theoretical physics in recent years…
Two kinds of observational cosmology…
• Near-field cosmology– History of nearby objects, e.g. stars, galaxies
• Far-field cosmology– Studies of the most distant objects: galaxies,
quasars, gamma-ray bursters etc.– Studies of gravitational lensing, the cosmic
microwave background, etc.
Both kinds tell us about the evolution of the Universe
The Nearby UniverseThe Nearby Universe
Tools of the trade
Astronomers don’t use light years.
(You can’t measure a light year.)
Astronomers use parsecs.
(Not to be confused with parsnips.)
What’s a parsec?
Earth
Earth 6 months later
Star appearsto move against
background
Sun
1 arcsecond
1 parsec = 3.27 light-years
1 parsec
Galaxies…
Basic building-blocks of the Universe
If this was our Galaxy,we’d be here •Around 100,000,000,000 stars
•Lots of gas and dust (in spirals)•Around 100,000 l.y. across (or 30 kiloparsecs)
Edge-on view of a spiral galaxy…
The gungy brown stuff is dust, which limitsthe view from the inside
The Eagle Nebula—stellar birthplace
In galaxies, stars are born…
The Vela supernova remnant
…and die
The Expanding UniverseThe Expanding Universe
The Hubble Deep Field—a core-sample of the Universe
Most of these galaxies have look-back times measured in billions of years…
But how do we know it’s expanding?
Tools of the trade
Telescopes can be used as celestial
speedometers for galaxies.
Astronomers record and measure
the spectra of the galaxies.
Blueend
Redend
A spectrum
(Not to be confusedwith a plectrum)
Spectra of about 100 galaxies arranged in order of increasing velocity
Blueend
Redend
Hubble’s Law (1929)
“The speed of recession of a galaxy, v, is proportional to its distance, d, from the observer.”
v = H0 d
The constant of proportionality, H0 is called the Hubble constant, and is in units of km/s per megaparsec. (1 Mpc = 3.27 million l.y.)
Accepted value today is H0 75 km/s/Mpc.
But what does “redshift” mean…?We now know the Hubble law comes about because space itself is expanding, stretching the
wavelength of light moving through it.
Rather than calculating a galaxy’s velocity, astronomers simply measure the fractional shift of its spectrum towards the red resulting from the expansion ( / emitted).
This is called the redshift, z
Tools of the trade
The Really Useful Quantity 1/(1 + z) tells us how big the Universe was when the light was emitted.
Remitted / Rnow = 1/(1 + z)
E.g., for a galaxy with z = 1, the Universe was half its present size when it emitted its light.
An Einstein Ring (B0047-2808)…
zforeground = 0.485; zbackground = 3.595
The Age of the UniverseThe Age of the Universe
How old is the Universe?
In 1927, Georges Lemaître realised that Hubble’s Law means the Universe itself is expanding.
He extrapolated back in time to when all the galaxies were at a single point.
The age of the Universe is then given by the “Hubble time” = 1/H0
If H0 = 75 km/s/Mpc, the Hubble time is 13 billion years.
13 billion years
The Universetoday
Origin of the Universe
Lemaître’s Picture:
Defining quantity: Hubble constant, H0 (uniform expansion)Problem: it only works if the Universe is completely empty.
About 9 billion years
The Universetoday
Origin of the Universe
Refined Model (1970s):
Defining quantities: Hubble constant, H0 (current expansion)cosmic density parameter,
Problem: the Universe is younger than most of its contents.
Dark matter and the composition of the Universe
~13 billion years
The Universetoday
Origin of the Universe
Current Model:
Defining quantities: Hubble constant, H0 (current expansion)cosmic density of all matter, m
cosmic density of ordinary matter, b
dark energy (cosmological constant, )(evidence from distant supernovae, etc.)
Age of the Universe
Mapping the UniverseMapping the Universe
Survey Regions
Pie-slice directions in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
The distribution of galaxies allows us to measure the“clumpiness” of the Universe
Then, of course, there are the quasars…
Spectra of 11,000 quasars from the 2dF surveyarranged in order of distance
The biggest survey to date—but it stillshows us only 0.1%of the Universe…
Quasars are also clumpy.
The hot Big BangThe hot Big Bang
The Hot Big Bang model
Modern equivalent of Lemaître’s picture.
It postulates a hot Big Bang—a unique event in which not only the matter in the Universe was created, but space and time as well…
Three vital pieces of evidence support it:
• the expansion of the Universe;
• the relative abundances of light elements;
• the cosmic microwave background radiation.
What’s the cosmic microwave background radiation?
• Faint background glow in the millimetre wavelength region of the radio spectrum.
• Almost perfectly uniform in all directions.
• It is the echo of the Big Bang fireball itself.
• We’re seeing back in time to a moment 300,000 years after the Big Bang when the Universe ceased to glow with brilliant white light— and became transparent…
Applause
You
Applause
Silence
YouR
R = 330 metres after 1 second; R = 660 metres after 2 seconds, etc.
i.e., R increases at the speed of sound.
Cosmic microwave background radiation • Why don’t we see a brilliant white back-ground in every direction?
• The radiation has been redshifted by the expansion of the Universe.
• The light waves have been s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d by about 1000 times to become longer wave- length microwaves. Thus, zCMBR 1000.
• The CMBR is easily the most ancient fossil remnant we can see…
COBE all-sky map showing 1-in-105 temperature fluctuationsThe hot-spots are the seeds of the structure we see
in the Universe today
What does the CMBR tell us about the Big Bang?
• The rippling in the CMBR (due to acoustic oscillations in the fireball) closely matches the clumpiness seen in the redshift surveys. It is the “baby face” of today’s Universe
• The radiation is very smooth—fluctuations in the early fireball must have been ironed out by an exceedingly short period of inflation.
• The rippling can tell us much, much more about both the Big Bang and the evolution of the Universe—hence NASA’s WMAP…
WilkinsonMicrowaveAnisotropyProbe
Launched30.6.2001
Notsucha badeffortfor a bunch ofmicrobes…
In summary…
Observing first-generation galaxies with the James Webb Space Telescope
There’s nothing wrong with a Dish – as long as it’s
not lamb casserole…