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The first USA TODAY Hubble Case Study (“The Hubble Legacy,” fall 2008) explained the original reasons for
building the Hubble Space Telescope, the initial crippling problem HST experienced due to the misshapen
primary mirror (spherical aberration) and how the problem was solved. Finally, it showed a few examples of
the extraordinary observations that the repaired HST has been able to make.
Astronauts have visited Hubble four more times since the original rescue/repair mission in December 1993,
fixing or replacing failed electronic and mechanical units, and, most importantly, installing new, up-to-date
scientific instruments that keep Hubble on the cutting edge of astronomical technology. The result has been
fifteen years of unprecedented scientific exploration and discovery.
This second USA TODAY Hubble Case Study looks more 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 astronomy: extrasolar planets (i.e. planets circling other stars), the forma-
tion and evolution of galaxies, and the nature of the expansion of the universe. Discoveries related to this last
topic have been so revolutionary that they have led to the realization that all the normal matter and energy
that physics currently deals with comprises less than 5% of the universe. About a quarter of the universe
seems to be made of “dark matter,” which has normal gravitational attraction for regular matter but seems
not to interact at all with light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation (hence the term “dark” matter).
The largest component of the universe, however, seems to be something that repels other matter —just the
opposite of gravity. Astronomers call this “dark energy,” but even though they have given it a name, they have
almost no understanding of what it is.
Extrasolar Planets
Astronomers have speculated for a long time on the possible existence of planets circling other stars. It was
not until 1995, however, that astronomers first detected unambiguously an extrasolar planet. Since that time,
hundreds of such planets have been detected, all around stars relatively close to the sun. Most of these plan-
ets are relatively large, like Jupiter. Recently, however, scientists’ instruments have become sensitive enough
to detect smaller planets. The goal of extrasolar planet searches is to understand better how planetary sys-
tems are formed and, of particular interest to human beings, to discover Earth-like planets which might pos-
sibly harbor life.
The Hubble Space Telescope has an extraordinarily small field of view, and as such, it is not ideally suited to
searching for new planets. However, once extrasolar planets have been discovered using other telescopes,
such as the recently launched Kepler Mission, Hubble’s powerful instruments can analyze the nature of these
planets. In a few cases, Hubble has even been able to make measurements of the atmospheres of these plan-
ets — an extraordinary feat.
The Expansion of the Universe Reconsidered – Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Ever since Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding, and that the rate of expansion seems to
increase linearly with distance from an observation point on the Earth, astronomers have tried to determine
the proportionality constant (the “Hubble constant”) that relates the expansion velocity and the distance.
Moreover, since all matter in the universe attracts by the force of gravity, scientists have assumed that the
expansion of the universe is gradually slowing down. Astronomers are hoping to measure the rate of decel-
eration of the universe’s expansion. One of the primary research programs of the Hubble Space Telescope has
been to determine accurately the Hubble constant and the rate of deceleration of the universe’s expansion.
The Hubble constant has now been measured quite accurately, which has in turn led to a determination of
the “age” of the universe: the Big Bang took place about 13.7 billion years ago. As scientists gathered more
and more data, however, it became apparent that, contrary to all expectations, the expansion of the uni-
verse does not seem to be slowing down at all — just the opposite: the expansion of the universe seems to
be speeding up! Since gravity wants to slow down the expansion, there must be another force pushing the
universe apart. Astronomers call this force “dark energy.”
Observations of the universal microwave background, the remnant of radiation left over from shortly after the
Big Bang, have allowed astronomers to measure how much of the universe is composed of dark energy, how
much of dark matter, and how much of ordinary matter and energy. The astounding discovery that ordinary
matter and energy constitute less than 5% of the universe indicates that scientists’ knowledge of physics is far
from complete! This is an excellent example of the nature of scientific discovery – every time new discoveries
are made, they open up many new questions. This is one reason that science is always so interesting!
Hubble has, of course, produced many important discoveries in areas other than the three dealt with in this
case study. However, many astronomers believe that these three areas are among the most important and
revolutionary that Hubble has dealt with, which is why they were selected. In reading the attached material
and trying to answer the accompanying questions, students will share the excitement of scientific investiga-
tions with Hubble astronomers and gain an appreciation for how the Hubble Space Telescope has fundamen-
tally changed basic concepts about the nature of the universe.
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Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Looking back at Hubble as it takes a leap forward
The 19-year-old space mers and fans alike. Sometimes the after the Big Bang, equipped with a
two are interchangeable. new camera 30 times more sensitive
telescope undergoes ‘brain to light and a chemical spectrom-
surgery’ this week to make “We are waiting on the edge of our eter 10 times more effective. “We
it more powerful seats for the incredible results we will be able to plan observations we
will get from a repaired Hubble,” never could before, simply because
By Dan Vergano says cosmologist Mario Livio of the the telescope will be more efficient,”
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Space Telescope Science Institute in Livio said in April.
Baltimore. “We are only going to get
High overhead, NASA astronauts are more great science.” Hubble has delivered so many astro-
scheduled this week to begin repairs nomical findings, that picking out
on the Hubble Space Telescope. “Hubble will go from a VW Super a “greatest hits” list is a challenge,
Beetle to a high-powered race car,” Dalcanton says. When she wrote
The 360-mile-high “brain surgery” in says astronomer Julianne Dalcanton a retrospective of Hubble finds for
space, in the words of astronaut John of the University of Washington-Se- the Nature, she says, “I had to leave
Grunsfeld, promises a brighter view attle. Hubble will peer at stars and things out, there was just too much.”
of the cosmos for Hubble astrono- galaxies formed 500 million years Among the highlights:
Cosmic ‘yardsticks’: Cepheids, pulsating stars thousands Stellar nurseries: Images of the Orion Nebula, a star birth
of times brighter than our sun, serve as ready-made distance factory, revealed that the youngest stars are surrounded by
markers in space. Measuring Cepheids in galaxies — such as dust disks buffeted by the winds from nearby exploding giant
the Spiral Galaxy M100, above — allows astronomers to cre- stars. These are exactly the conditions astronomers suspected
ate a framework by which they can precisely gauge distances would lead to solar system formation. More than 3,000 stars
throughout the sky. appear in this composite of 100 images.
Star blasts: After stars consume their hydrogen fuel, an ex- Black holes: Hubble has observed the stars orbiting near
plosion can’t be far behind. Images of nearby explosions reveal suspected supermassive black holes, from which nothing —
the “light echoes” of blast waves shocking clouds of dust that not even light — can escape, such as the Sagittarius A* at the
escape from stars on the edge of eruption, such as this star center of our own Milky Way galaxy. Hubble also has detect-
20,000 light years away on the outer edge of the Milky Way. ed previously unsuspected middle-size black holes (merely
10,000 times more massive than the sun) in nearby galaxies.
Above, a star cluster with a black hole in its dense core.
Galaxy growth: “Deep field” images — such as this 2004 Age of the universe: Hubble has honed the precision of
composite of the telescope’s farthest looks into the universe the “Hubble constant” (also named for the astronomer Edwin
— surprised astronomers by showing that the most distant, Hubble), the measure of the universe’s expansion rate. Hubble
and earliest, galaxies don’t resemble the spiral and football- measurements of exploding stars in distant galaxies, such
shaped galaxies of the modern universe but look more like as the one shown above, led to the 1998 discovery of “dark
“insects spattered on a windshield,” Dalcanton says. energy,” the unexplained observation that galaxies across the
cosmos are moving apart at an accelerating rate
Remarkably, Hubble isn't a very advanced observatory compared with massive telescopes on Earth, such as the
33-foot-wide mirror of Hawaii's Keck telescopes, Dalcanton says. But its location in orbit frees it from clouds, atmo-
spheric distortion and city lights on Earth, which makes it invaluable to astronomers. "It's hard to conceive of a world
without Hubble," she says. "And the repairs will, hopefully, mean we won't have to."
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Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Matter matters to American, 2 Japanese sharing Nobel
Tiniest particles explain origin of the universe
Insights into the peculiarities of the smallest sub- Antimatter, a form of matter not found outside labo-
atomic particles and the existence of the universe ratories, has particles with opposite electrical and
have netted one American and two Japanese theo- nuclear force charges that annihilate normal matter
rists the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics. on contact.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded half Kobayashi and Maskawa predicted the existence of
of the $1.4 million prize Tuesday to Yoichiro Nambu, the “top” and “bottom” quarks in research that “ranks
87, of the University of Chicago and the remainder to among the 100 most cited papers in physics in the last
Makoto Kobayashi, 64, of Japan’s High Energy Accel- century,” says science historian David Pendlebury.
erator Research Organization and Toshihide Maska-
wa, 68, of Kyoto University. The academy said their Quarks come in pairs and triplets, and in this case,
work allows “deeper understanding of what happens the discovery of the new quark pair fully explained
far inside the tiniest building blocks of matter.” radioactivity.
“I was surprised. I did not expect it,” Nambu said. “My In its announcement, the academy said the Japanese
wife didn’t believe it for 30 minutes.” theorists’ work contributed to an understanding of
why more matter than antimatter appeared in the
In 1960, Nambu introduced particle physics to the Big Bang, the cosmic explosion that began the uni-
idea of spontaneous “symmetry-breaking” to explain verse 13.7 billion years ago. “One extra particle of
why subatomic particles possess particular magnetic matter for every 10 billion particles of antimatter
strengths and electrical charges rather than sym- was enough to make our world survive. This excess
metrically possessing every possible value of these of matter was the seed of our whole universe, which
things. filled with galaxies, stars and planets — and eventu-
ally life.”
“The award to Nambu is long overdue,” says Steven
Weinberg of the University of Texas-Austin, who won Physicist H. Frederick Dylla, head of the American In-
the Nobel for physics in 1979. “He was the first to stitute of Physics, said, “Such fundamental discover-
realize the importance of spontaneous symmetry ies, which have laid the groundwork for experiments
breaking,” which “allows you to see that beneath the that themselves later won the Nobel, suggest the
apparent messiness of nature, there is an underlying award this year was long overdue.”
simplicity.”
With public interest in particle physics piqued by
Nambu’s work contributed to the discovery of quarks, September’s start-up of Europe’s Large Hadron Col-
the sub-atomic particles hidden inside the protons lider, the world’s largest atom-smasher, Dylla said the
and neutrons at the center of atoms. Nobel Prize “points to the groundwork for the phys-
ics we’ll be seeing in the next few years.”
In turn, Kobayashi and Maskawa in 1973 explored
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
‘Super-Earth’ planets make selves known
By Dan Vergano Since Mayor announced the first discovery of a planet
Tuesday,June 17, 2008 outside our solar system in 1995, astronomers have
gone on to document about 300 such planets, includ-
Nearby stars probably abound with planets only ing the latest ones, orbiting nearby stars.
slightly larger than our own, an international astron-
omy team suggested Monday as it reported the dis- Most are giant gas planets as big or bigger than Sat-
covery of 45 of these “super-Earth” planets. urn and Jupiter, but lately astronomers have turned
up more planets close to Earth in size.
All of the planets, including a solar system of three
super-Earths reported by team leader Michel Mayor “Probably the true abundance of these planets is even
of Switzerland’s University of Geneva Observatory, or- larger,” says Notre Dame astronomer David Bennett,
bit too close to their stars to harbor life. Their surface who attended Mayor’s presentation in Nantes, France.
temperatures exceed Mercury’s in our solar system. Bennett announced a similar super-Earth discovery
Mercury has a mean temperature of 354 degrees. this month, and his planet was too cold for life.
“If you are considering life on these planets, forget it,” The latest discoveries include a solar system of three
says Mayor’s colleague, astronomer Didier Queloz, a planets orbiting the sunlike star HD 40307 about 42
co-author on two studies detailing the discoveries light-years away. (One light-year is about 5.9 trillion
submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. miles.) Planets weigh 4.2, 6.7, and 9.4 times as much
“But what is exciting is that we can say about one- as Earth and complete their orbits in less than 21
third of stars have these kind of low-mass planets.” days.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Earth-like planet? Seems logical
Astronomers look to Epsilon Eridani
By Dan Vergano The circular asteroid belt that, like ours, orbits within
Monday,October 27, 2008 300 million miles of the star is particularly surprising,
Marengo says, because earlier studies had suggested
Star Trek fans, take heart — Mr. Spock’s fabled home the star’s Jupiter-like planet followed a looping path
star, the nearby Epsilon Eridani, could harbor an that would have destroyed the narrow belt. Instead,
Earth-like planet. it must follow a nearly circular orbit.
NASA astronomers today report that the triple-ringed Because Epsilon Eridani is smaller, dimmer and
star has an asteroid belt and a Jupiter-like giant planet younger than the sun, the “habitable zone” for Earth-
in roughly the same orbits as in our own solar system. like planets there is closer to the star, says planetary
Only 850 million years old, a fifth the age of Earth’s theorist Sean Raymond of the University of Colora-
sun, Epsilon Eridani resembles a younger twin to our do-Boulder. “An Earth-like planet could actually form
solar system. About 62 trillion miles away, it is the in the (star’s) habitable zone,” he says, if the report
closest known solar system. of a well-behaved Jupiter-sized planet bears out. An-
other planetary theorist, Alan Boss of the Carnegie
It was borrowed by the creators of the TV series Star Institute of Washington (D.C.), is doubtful, suggesting
Trek as the location of Vulcan, the planet that gave us such a planet is “likely to be too massive and too close
the super-logical science officer Mr. Spock. to allow Earth-like planets to form in the habitable
zone.”
“We certainly haven’t seen it yet, but if its solar sys-
tem is anything like ours, then there should be plan- Jokes Marengo: “Of course there is disagreement
ets like ours,” say astronomer Massimo Marengo of among Star Trek fans about whether the planet of Mr.
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Spock could be at Epsilon Eridani, because it is such
Cambridge, Mass. a young star and Vulcans are supposed to be an ad-
vanced civilization.”
The NASA Spitzer space telescope results, which
measure the infrared heat given off by dust and ice
rings circling the star, suggest Epsilon Eridani pos-
sesses three jumbo worlds, revealed by dust-free cir-
cular lanes in its asteroid belt and more distant comet
belts.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Search for Super-Earths gains momentum
NASA to launch Kepler mission to find more
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Kepler’s on a mission to discover ‘Earths’
NASA telescope will keep an eye out for planets like ours in the neighborhood
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Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
uAbout 870 Jupiter-size planets (89,000 miles wide) by orbiting planets to discover new worlds. Planets in
orbiting close in to their stars, the most easily detect- our solar system follow nearly circular orbits, and the
ed transits. massive outer gas giants block comets from wreaking
too much havoc with closer planets, including Earth.
uAt least 50 Earth-size planets (8,000 miles wide), But many of the solar systems so far detected possess
and possibly hundreds more if rocky planets average planets with looping, or eccentric, orbits that swing
bigger diameters than Earth. them close to their star and then further out. One
recently observed transit planet, HD 80606b, sees
uA handful of planets as small as Mercury (3,000 its temperature increase from 980 to 2,240 degrees
miles wide) orbiting the more common stars that are Fahrenheit in just six hours as it whips around its star
dimmer and smaller than our sun. during the close-in part of its orbit.
“The big outcome that Kepler provides is a picture In April 2007, European astronomers led by Steph-
of both small, Earth-size worlds and planets really ane Udry of Switzerland’s Geneva Observatory an-
far enough away from their stars to be habitable,” nounced the detection of an Earth-size planet po-
says astronomer Greg Laughlin of the University of tentially in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star
California-Santa Cruz, who is not part of the project. Gliese 581, about 20 light-years away. (One light-year
“Kepler will provide a whole crop of them and give us is about 5.9 trillion miles.) That discovery relied on
the numbers to really know what’s out there.” the gravitational wobbles method. Kepler, with its
transit detections, should uncover many similar plan-
Not too hot and not too cold ets residing in its 3,000 light-year-deep field of view,
if they are there to be found.
Transit detection provides planetary width and, in
some cases, atmospheric chemistry, results that The discovery of many Earths “certainly may well
other planet-detection methods can’t, adds Boss, au- mean that life may be common throughout our gal-
thor of The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living axy,” Borucki says.
Planets. He expects discovery of transit planets in the
“habitable zone” — not too hot and not too cold for “On the other hand, if we don’t find anything, that
water — of stars will spur efforts to detect whether may well mean that life is very rare.”
they possess atmospheres rich in water or methane,
signatures of life. Our solar system resides in the suburbs of the Milky
Way, a spiral-shaped galaxy of at least 200 billion stars
Kepler’s unblinking stare and wide viewing area dif- about 100,000 light-years across. NASA’s Kepler space
fer from the Hubble Space Telescope, which can look telescope will peer at a wedge 3,000 light-years deep
only briefly at one nearby star at a time. with roughly 100,000 stars running along the “Orion
Spur,” a streamer of stars between the major spirals
“One of the mysteries Kepler should address is wheth- of the galaxy. Kepler will reveal how often stars like
er solar systems like Earth’s are normal or not,” says our sun possess planets like Earth and open a new
Laughlin, an investigator on the Lick Carnegie Exo- era in planet discovery.
planet Survey, which uses the better-known method
of detecting gravitational wobbles of stars induced
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Direct evidence of ‘dark matter’ claimed
By Larry Wheeler The researchers said they’re confident their findings will
Gannett News Service help settle the lingering question over whether dark
Monday,August 21, 2006 matter really exists.
WASHINGTON — Astronomers used an array of power- Now, cosmologists and other specialists in related fields
ful telescopes and cosmological measuring techniques can focus on trying to figure out the nature of dark mat-
to capture images that are the first direct evidence of ter.
“dark matter,” the unseen material believed to comprise
most of the mass of the universe, researchers announced Monday’s announcement strengthens the case that dark
Monday. matter consists of particles that neither absorb nor emit
light or any other easily measurable electromagnetic ra-
The breakthrough came from observing the aftermath of diation — such as X-rays.
the collision of two massive galaxies — together known
as the bullet cluster because of its telltale bullet-shaped “There absolutely is a new particle, something beyond
cloud. what we’ve detected that physicists have to go out there
and find,” said Sean Carroll, an assistant professor of
The cosmic crash separated the gas clouds that normally physics, University of Chicago, Ill., who participated in a
surround the galaxies from the stars within the galaxies, conference call to announce the results.
researchers from several universities said in a conference
call. Observations were made using NASA’s orbiting Chan-
dra X-ray observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, the
Knowing that gravity follows mass, astronomers mapped European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope
the concentration of gravity and found it had separated and the Magellan optical telescope.
from the gas clouds and remained with the swirling col-
lection of billions of stars moving through space at mil- Images posted on the Internet by the team of astrono-
lions of miles per hour. The gravity of the stars them- mers show gas clouds and gravitational fields depicted in
selves wouldn’t account for the gravity the astronomers hues of red and blue surrounding a pair of galaxies that
detected. appear to hang in the night sky like two delicate jewels.
This meant there had to be some material — hidden from But the serene beauty disguises the awesome violence
view — accounting for all the gravity that remained with that accompanied the collision, which occurred an esti-
the stars. mated 100 million years ago.
“We have seen for the first time a large spatial separa- “The kinetic energy was enough to completely evapo-
tion in the sky between the majority of the (visible) mat- rate the planet Earth 10 trillion times over,” said Maxim
ter and where the gravity is found,” said Doug Clowe, a Markevitch, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smith-
University of Arizona postdoctoral fellow who led the sonian Center for Astrophysics and a member of the re-
research team. “This provides the first direct proof dark search team.
matter must exist and must make up a majority of matter
in the universe.” A paper describing the dark matter findings will be pub-
lished in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal
Letters.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Scientists still in the murk about cosmic ‘dark energy’
It could hold key to universe’s fate
By Ron Cowen “It’s not very often that theorists face a situation in
Special for USA TODAY which they need to explain something that is 74% of
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 everything there is and they don’t have a clue,” says
Mario Livio, theorist for the space telescope insti-
Nearly a decade after scientists discovered that a tute.
mysterious force is pushing the universe to expand
at an ever-faster rate, they still don’t understand how Coming to the opposite conclusion
that is happening.
Astronomer Adam Riess remembers the moment
University of Chicago cosmologist Michael Turner he realized that instead of pulling galaxies together,
calls the acceleration “the most profound mystery gravity was pushing them apart.
in all of science.” It was Turner who coined the term
“dark energy” for the unknown substance that pro- A decade ago, Riess was a 26-year-old postdoctoral
vides this cosmic push. Studies have shown that it researcher at the University of California-Berkeley,
comprises 74% of all the mass and energy of the uni- part of a team using the light from distant superno-
verse. vae to study how rapidly the universe has been ex-
panding over the past several billion years.
Scientists say that if they can understand dark ener-
gy, they may learn the fate of the universe — whether Researchers had known since the 1920s that the uni-
it will keep on expanding, tear itself apart or implode verse has been expanding in all directions but had
cataclysmically billions of years from now. assumed that the expansion was slowing, weighed
down by the combined tug of all the galaxies.
Science writers took part in a workshop last month
at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore But when Riess examined the supernova data in the
to focus on the question of why gravity, on the larg- fall of 1997, he found just the opposite: Cosmic ex-
est scales, has switched roles — pushing out instead pansion was speeding up. Something was undermin-
of holding in. ing gravity’s pull, turning it into a push and inflating
the universe like a balloon. “I still recall feeling very
NASA plans to explore the question in a big way as excited — excited that it was true and also very anx-
well. The National Research Council recommended ious ... because most things you discover in science
in early September that a dark-energy probe be the are wrong, and they have a half-life of about five min-
first spacecraft NASA launches in its delayed “Be- utes.”
yond Einstein” series of missions designed to explore
the formation of the universe and some of its most But this time, the finding didn’t fizzle. Instead, a rival
unique features. team studying supernovae, led by Saul Perlmutter of
the University of California’s Lawrence Berkeley Na-
Jointly sponsored by the Department of Energy, the tional Laboratory, had arrived at the same conclu-
series has three proposed missions, one of which sion.
would be selected and launched around 2015.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Three destinies The most compelling evidence of dark energy relies on some
Three theories on what could happen as dark energy
expands the universe: of the most brilliant objects in the cosmos. Type 1a superno-
vae are stars that have blown themselves to smithereens and
are bright enough to be seen in galaxies several billion light-
years from Earth.
1. Accelerated expansion By combining this information, scientists find that the 13.7-
If dark energy is a constant, expansion will continue at billion-year-old universe began revving up its rate of expan-
an accelerated pace. In 30 billion years, we will see only
a handful of galaxies — all the others will have sped out
sion about 5 billion years ago.
of sight.
Over the past 10 years, other studies have reinforced the dark-
energy picture, Turner notes. These include images of the mi-
crowave glow left over from the universe-forming Big Bang
and studies of X-rays that bathe distant clusters of galaxies.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Merging galaxies magnified
Hubble photos provide look at how stars form
By Paul Hoversten The galaxies are so named because long tails of glow-
Wednesday,October 22, 1997 ing gas, formed by the gravitational forces of their
encounter, flow from them, resembling an insect’s
WASHINGTON — Two nearby galaxies are slamming antennae.
into each other and giving birth to a profusion of stars
in what astronomers call a brilliant “fireworks” dis- The Antennae “is an excellent laboratory for studying
play in space. the formation of stars and star clusters since it is the
nearest and youngest example of colliding galaxies,”
New photos from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope re- says astronomer Francois Schweizer of the Carnegie
leased Tuesday give the first close-up look at one of Institution of Washington, D.C.
nature’s most violent events, the collision of galaxies.
Out of the maelstrom are coming more than 1,000 Although the forces at work in such a collision are
bright young star clusters — each containing up to 1 enormously powerful, scientists estimate it takes al-
million stars. most a half-billion years before merging spiral galax-
ies settle into an elliptical galaxy with a billion stars.
The clusters seem to blaze and pop like a string of “It certainly isn’t gentle,” says NASA’s Edward Weiler,
firecrackers and provide new clues into how stars a Hubble scientist. “It’s a train wreck.”
form, evolve and eventually die, astronomers say.
Until now, astronomers, using ground-based tele-
The new pictures also might settle an old controversy scopes, could see the Antennae only as a few bright
about how a type of galaxy is formed. dots with tails.
Spiral galaxies, such as our Milky Way, have long curv- Hubble was able to probe much deeper, into the very
ing arms of stars and dust that rotate about a center. center of the collision.
Elliptical galaxies are oval and more compact, lacking
the arms. About 80% of all galaxies are spiral. Both are It found two bright orange-colored galactic cores
held together by the gravitational pull of the matter ringed by more than 1,000 young, bluish star clus-
within them. ters.
Based on the Hubble photos, the astronomers say it “The sheer number of these young star clusters is
is now clear that elliptical galaxies are formed when amazing,” says Brad Whitmore, Space Telescope Sci-
two spirals collide. ence Institute, Baltimore. “The discovery will help us
put together a chronological sequence of how collid-
“Here is the smoking gun,” says astronomer Bruce ing galaxies evolve.”
Margon, University of Washington. “It’s not just a
theoretical computer model.” The origin of these clusters appears to lie in huge
puffy clouds of super cold hydrogen gas. The clouds
Astronomers used Hubble to look at the heart-shaped range from 50 to 300 light-years across. A light-year
nucleus of the Antennae galaxies, located 63 million is the distance light travels in a year, about six trillion
light-years from Earth in the southern constellation miles.
Corvus.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
A typical spiral galaxy contains from 1,000 to 2,000 “It’s almost like a pressure cooker,” Schweizer says.
clouds, which float harmlessly until disturbed in “The collision crunches the hydrogen gas and new
something like a collision. stars form all over the place.”
The gravitational force created when galaxies collide Earlier Hubble pictures have shown that nearly one-
sets off a string of cataclysmic events: Old stars can third of very distant galaxies — those that existed
explode even as new ones are born. early in the history of the universe — are colliding
galaxies.
Stars usually don’t crash into each other when galax-
ies collide because they generally are too far apart. “By looking at the nearby mergers, which are quite
rare, we can get a glimpse of what happened early
The gravitational force heats cold hydrogen gas clouds in the universe when mergers were quite prevalent,”
to super-high temperatures. Stars are formed out of Whitmore says.
the gas when the heat and pressure cause the clouds
to collapse. Reservoirs of gas light up like firecrackers
as the stars are formed.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Hubble spies two spiral galaxies aligning
By Jess Zielinski
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Page 17
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Overarching Theme and Goal:
From capturing the nearby, violent death of a massive star, to staring far back in time to see embryonic galaxies, the
Hubble Space Telescope’s many awe-inspiring observations have changed humans’ understanding of the universe.
The iconic Earth-orbiting observatory collects and analyzes light from wavelengths that span from ultraviolet to
near- infrared, seeing sharply because of its exquisite optics and by virtue of its location above Earth’s turbulent
atmosphere. Hubble’s razor-sharp view of the heavens has “rewritten the textbooks” by answering many astronomi-
cal questions while uncovering many new surprises. While Hubble has thus advanced humans’ understanding of
the cosmos on many fronts, many more questions remain. Both ground-based and space-based observatories are
marshaled in the effort to find them.
The goal of this case study is to more deeply understand select topics in modern astronomy by researching pub-
lished literature on the subjects, while concurrently learning to appreciate the unique contributions that Hubble has
made to these fields of investigation.
The following overarching theme questions should be answered in concert with a select topic below:
uWhat are some of the astrophysical phenomena that the Hubble Space Telescope can study?
uHow have Hubble’s capabilities advanced humans’ understanding of those phenomena?
uHow have Hubble observations changed your personal view of humans’ place in the universe?
Scientists had no confirmed knowledge of the existence of extrasolar, or exoplanets when Hubble was launched
in 1990. It wasn’t until five year later in 1995 that the first exoplanet orbiting another Sun-like star was confirmed
using special techniques with ground-based telescopes. While Hubble was not specifically designed to view exo-
planets, its powerful vision and instrumentation suite have added significantly to the knowledge of these remote
worlds.
Inquiry Questions:
uWhat kinds of stars are most likely to have planets that could support Earth-like life? Why?
Describe a few of the different methods that astronomers use to search for planets around other stars? What
u
factors may dictate whether these planets harbor life? Can you think of any ways that such signatures can be ob-
served. (Imagine looking back at the Earth from a distant planet, what would you search for to verify life?)
2. Dark matter and dark energy
Evidence gathered over the last two decades has convinced astronomers that the ordinary matter and energy locked
up in stars and galaxies comprise less than five percent of the makeup of the universe. An invisible form of matter
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
called “dark matter” and a smooth medium called “dark energy” (which generates a repulsive force) appear to make
up the rest of the universe’s constituency. Hubble has provided important evidence for the existence of dark energy
and dark matter, although a detailed understanding of these mysterious phenomena is not yet at hand.
Inquiry Questions:
What is the difference between ordinary matter and dark matter? What is the difference between dark matter and
u
dark energy?
uWhy are dark matter and ordinary matter separated when two clusters of galaxies collide?
When something is mysterious we call it “dark.” Can you think of a better descriptive name for dark energy and
u
dark matter?
Briefly summarize how astronomers have used Hubble observations of supernovae as beacons in tracing the evo-
u
lution of the universe.
Hubble’s sharp vision allows it to view faint, faraway galaxies, whose light takes a long time to reach Earth. Hubble
sees these galaxies as they appeared a long time ago. Many of them formed just several hundred million years after
the Big Bang. By studying these distant galaxies, astronomers are learning how galaxies have evolved over time.
Inquiry Questions:
uIf the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, how is it possible that some galaxies are colliding?
uHow can a galaxy have old and young stars at the same time?
uAre collisions between galaxies more or less common in the early universe? How do scientists know?
What are the differences between two objects on earth colliding (e.g., billiard balls on a pool table) and two galax-
u
ies colliding in space?
What are examples of analogies that scientists use to describe collisions between galaxies? How are these
u
analogies helpful? How can they lead to misconceptions?
uWhat type of galaxy is the Milky Way? How do scientists know this?
Page 19
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Subject Matter Experts
Bonnie Eisenhamer oversees Hubble Space Telescope education in her role as Formal Edu-
cation Program Manager, Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Bonnie has had the opportunity to see a variety of classroom work samples that include po-
etry about the telescope, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations about how it works, and models
of it made from recycled materials. Ms. Eisenhamer had the interesting experience of leading
a workshop for local middle school students during Queen Elizabeth’s Goddard visit in 2007.
Dr. Jeffrey A. Hoffman is an astronaut and Professor of the Practice of Aerospace Engineer-
ing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronau-
tics; Jeff’s fourth space flight was as an EVA crewmember on Hubble’s first servicing mission in
1993 (STS-61). He was one of the four astronauts who performed a record five space walks,
and has logged more than 1,211 hours and 21.5 million miles in space. Jeff’s interests focus
on the future of human spaceflight (operations, technology, human-machine interactions and
extra-vehicular activity) and in the use of the International Space Station as a test-bed for fu-
ture aerospace technology. Jeff has a bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Amherst College, a
master’s degree in materials science from Rice University and a doctorate in astrophysics from
Harvard University.
Dr. Jason Kalirai is an astrophysicist and new team member at the Space Telescope Science
Institute, having joined the Institute in the fall of 2008. He is fresh off a four-year post-doctoral
research term at the University of California at Santa Cruz as a Hubble Fellow. Jason enjoys
tackling interesting astrophysical research problems that can be solved through the study of
resolved stellar populations such as nearby star clusters and galaxies. He is a frequent user
of both ground-based telescopes, such as the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and
space-based telescopes such as Hubble. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in honors physics, and
master’s and doctorate degrees in astrophysics from the University of British Columbia in Van-
couver, BC, Canada.
Dr. Mario Livio, the head of the new Institute Science Division at the Space Telescope Sci-
ence Institute, joined the Institute in 1991 as head of the Archive Branch. Mario was a professor
of physics in the physics department of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology from 1981
until 1991. He has published over 400 scientific papers and received numerous awards for re-
search, for excellence in teaching and for his books. His interests span a broad range of topics
in astrophysics, from cosmology to the emergence of intelligent life. His latest book entitled “Is
God a Mathematician?” appeared in January 2009. Prior to coming to STScI, Mario completed
his undergraduate studies (majoring in both physics and mathematics) at the Hebrew Univer-
sity in Jerusalem, his M.Sc. degree (in theoretical particle physics) at the Weizmann Institute,
and his Ph.D. (in theoretical astrophysics) at Tel-Aviv University.
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Understanding Hubble’s Contributions
to the Study of the Cosmos
Subject Matter Experts (continued)
Ray Villard serves as news director for the Space Telescope Science Institute at the Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Ray has specialized in communicating astronomy
to the public for the past 30 years and is responsible for disseminating news about the most re-
cent discoveries made with the Hubble Space Telescope. Ray has written a variety of freelance
articles for varied media and instructs astronomy courses and hosts public seminars through
the Johns Hopkins University, the Smithsonian Institution and Howard Community College in
Columbia MD. Ray holds a bachelor’s degree in communication arts from State University of
New York at Albany and a master’s degree in science communication from Boston University.
Kevin Hartnett is the Deputy Science Operations Manager for the Hubble Space Telescope
Project. Kevin directly supported the last three Hubble Servicing Missions, manning a con-
sole position that coordinated the activities of the Johnson Space Center and Goddard Hubble
teams during SM4 in May 2009. Kevin has worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center since
the early 1980s in various positions related to the operation of scientific satellites. Kevin is an
active amateur astronomer. He is a member of the Goddard Astronomy Club, an amateur orga-
nization comprised of government and contractor employees at Goddard. He enjoys general
observing, celestial photography, public lecturing and writing poetry. Kevin studied physics
and astronomy at the University of Delaware.
Malcolm Niedner is an astrophysicist and the Observatory Project Scientist, Hubble Space
Telescope. Mal’s professional specialties are the interaction between solar wind and large-
scale cometary plasma environment, origin and dynamics of plasma-tail transients, role of
solar wind and solar EUV in ionization of cometary neutrals, and the use of cometary plasma
tails as 3D probes of solar wind and interplanetary magnetic fields to high heliospheric lati-
tudes. Recently, his interests have focused on properties and evolution of distant galaxies,
protoplanetary disks and young stellar objects. Mal holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from
Brown University and master’s and doctorate degrees in astronomy from Indiana University.
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