Inside and Outside Our Universe
Though a little off subject, last week I happened to stumble across a couple of lectures on the UW TV Station that I thought were fascinating. One was about the Hubble Telescope, and the other about DNA.
Probably, the thing about the Hubble lecture that I found absolutely 'wow' was an image it had take from an area of 'dark' space somewhere in the big dipper. First he showed an image from a regular ground based telescope where virtually nothing was visible, then the Hubble image that showed the same space filled with 100's, should I say 1000's, of Galaxies far far away. That wasn't the fascinating 'element' to the image though; rather he pointed out elongated arc's of light that were captured by the image. Turns out that these elongated arc's of light are light are from galaxies beyond the galaxies in the foreground whose light has been bent by the gravity of the galaxies in between; i.e. a gravitational lens and proof positive of one of Einstein's relativity theories (special or general, I forget which...) He showed images of the last supernova and what scientists think might be the next supernova. Volcanoes on Titan, stars being born... Oh, I had work to do, but I couldn't pull myself away from the TV...
The lecture about DNA pointed out that the DNA molecules in a human being are quite long; I forget whether he was talking about individual DNA molecules or all combined but he was saying they stretch out to be about a yard or so in length (are DNA molecules the biggest molecules around?) . Mr Lecturer (I know, I should have written his name down so I could give him credit) pointed out that this is problematic when trying to fit these molecules inside cells so he tried to explain how it happens. Basically it all boils down to spirals inside spirals inside spirals, folds upon folds; amazing crap!
Probably, the thing about the Hubble lecture that I found absolutely 'wow' was an image it had take from an area of 'dark' space somewhere in the big dipper. First he showed an image from a regular ground based telescope where virtually nothing was visible, then the Hubble image that showed the same space filled with 100's, should I say 1000's, of Galaxies far far away. That wasn't the fascinating 'element' to the image though; rather he pointed out elongated arc's of light that were captured by the image. Turns out that these elongated arc's of light are light are from galaxies beyond the galaxies in the foreground whose light has been bent by the gravity of the galaxies in between; i.e. a gravitational lens and proof positive of one of Einstein's relativity theories (special or general, I forget which...) He showed images of the last supernova and what scientists think might be the next supernova. Volcanoes on Titan, stars being born... Oh, I had work to do, but I couldn't pull myself away from the TV...
The lecture about DNA pointed out that the DNA molecules in a human being are quite long; I forget whether he was talking about individual DNA molecules or all combined but he was saying they stretch out to be about a yard or so in length (are DNA molecules the biggest molecules around?) . Mr Lecturer (I know, I should have written his name down so I could give him credit) pointed out that this is problematic when trying to fit these molecules inside cells so he tried to explain how it happens. Basically it all boils down to spirals inside spirals inside spirals, folds upon folds; amazing crap!
posted by quantom qurkington at 9:36 AM
2 Comments:
I'm not sure what the current status of Hubble is, but because of budget cuts and shuttle problems, NASA was going to let Hubble go w/out servicing, meaning that it would start falling into the atmosphere in a few years. Astronomers and eventually congressmen started raising a fuss about this, and I think the latest idea was to send a robot up to service Hubble and keep it operating for another decade or so, though I'm not sure NASA has actually agreed to do that yet.
Latest headline about Hubble from the NY Times:
"Money to Fix Space Telescope May Be Cut by White House"
(January 23, 2005).
I'd provide more details, but I'd have to pay to read the article.
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