Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society FROM SOUTHWOLD SKIES TO THE UNIVERSE - a journey through space astronomy Michael Rowan-Robinson

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Atmospheric transmission first detection of electromagnetic radiation outside the optical band: Herschel (1800) detected infrared radiation from the sun

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Radio astronomy 1933 Karl Jansky, detected Milky Way at radio wavelengths 1940s Grote Reber, mapped the Milky Way 1945, John Hey, discovered point sources Cambridge, Parkes, surveyed the sky and catalogued extragalactic radio sources - radio-galaxies and quasars 1967 discovery of pulsars

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society X-ray astronomy from space 1948 T.R.Burnight detects X-rays from sun using V Giacconi detects X-ray binary Sco-X1 using Aerobee rocket 1963 Boyer detects Crab Nebula in X-rays (rocket) 1965 first extragalactic X-ray source (M87, Byram, rocket) 1970 Uhuru X-ray satellite maps sky at 2-20 KeV The Uhuru satellite before launch many subsequent X-ray missions, through to Chandra and XMM, both launched in 1999

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Uhuru detected X-rays from compact sources in binary systems (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes), from quasars (massive black holes) and from very hot gas in clusters of galaxies (100 million degree)

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Kitt Peak, Arizona, 1974, my first observing run

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society JCMT 1987

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society first submillimetre survey of the sky, using JCMT. several very luminous galaxies found - galaxies in the midst of their main star and heavy element formation.

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society 1983 saw the launch of IRAS, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, which made the first all-sky survey at infrared wavelengths, from microns IRAS

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society The launch of IRAS

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society IRAS - the infrared ‘cirrus’ south celestial pole emission from clouds of interstellar dust in our Galaxy

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society IRAS - star forming regions constellation Orion LMC, the Large Magellanic Cloud

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society IRAS discovered ultraluminous infrared galaxies, forming stars times faster than our Galaxy, probably caused by mergers between two galaxies this is an image of Arp 220 Uultraluminous infrared galaxies

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society IRAS - dust debris disks IRAS also discovered dust debris disks around stars, confirmed by imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope, evidence for planetary systems in formation. Today over 300 exoplanets are known.

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society IRAS the IRAS all-sky survey of infrared point-sources: white: star-forming regions, blue: red giant stars, green: galaxies

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, used to follow up IRAS galaxies

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Mapping the Universe

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Large scale structure The 3-dimensional distribution of distribution of galaxies shows galaxies shows structure on structure on different scales. This can be used to estimate the to estimate the average density average density of the universe. of the universe. In dimenionless units: units:    ~ 0.27    ~ 0.27

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society How much matter is there in the universe ? The light elements D, He, Li are generated from nuclear are generated from nuclear reactions about 1 minute reactions about 1 minute after the Big Bang. The after the Big Bang. The abundances turn out to abundances turn out to depend sensitively on the depend sensitively on the density of ordinary matter density of ordinary matter in the universe. in the universe. density ~ kg/cu m density ~ kg/cu m  b ~ 0.04  b ~ 0.04

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Evidence for Dark Matter the speed at which stars orbit round a galaxy points to the existence of a halo of dark matter. sensitive surveys show that this can not be due to stars, or gas.

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Evidence for Dark Matter 2 images of clusters of galaxies with HST show arcs due to gravitational lensing. These can be used to weigh the cluster. Again, the cluster is dominated by dark matter. Abell 2218

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Need for Dark Matter So there is far more matter (    ~ 0.27 ) out there than can be accounted for by the stuff we are made of (  b ~ 0.04). 85% of the matter in the universe is ‘dark’ matter (the neutralino ?) Particle Physicists hope to detect this at the Large Hadron Collider

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Audit of the mass-energy of the Universe: 4% ordinary matter 23% dark matter 73% dark energy Dark en

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society History of the universe

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society SPITZER, 2003

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society IC1396, the Elephant’s Trunk - a dark globule inside an emission nebula - a pair of newly formed stars have created a cavity - the animation shows how the appearance changes from the optical, where dust absorbs light to the infrared where the dust radiates

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society infrared emission from debris along a comet orbit

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Sombrero galaxy - end-point of a galaxy merger

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Two interacting galaxies

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Visible and infrared images of the star-forming galaxy Messier 82

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society two new European Space Agency missions due for launch in April 2009 Planck Herschel

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society Keck and VLT (Very Large Telescopes)

Nov 27th 2008Southwold and Reydon Society James Webb Space Telescope how to detect z = 10 galaxies ?