Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution (33 page)
Read Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution Online
Authors: Neil deGrasse Tyson,Donald Goldsmith
Spitzer Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), 142
squarks, 46
star cluster M13, 285
star clusters, 138–39, 157–58, 285
globular, 139
star 55 Cancri, 217, 218, 219
star HD73256, 214
stars, 27
age of youngest, 157
binary, 87
Cepheid variable, 114
closest, 208
formation of, 132–33, 138–39, 149–52, 154, 185–86
and heavy element creation, 158–66, 171, 173–74
high-mass, 133, 153, 154, 165, 173
masses of, 153–54, 158
radiation of, 152–53, 154
red giant, 150, 158, 165–66, 175
spectral analysis of, 155–57
white dwarf, 87
Star Trek,
50, 277
Star Wars,
277
steady state theory, 57, 58
Steinhardt, Paul, 106
string theory, 106
strong nuclear force, 26, 38, 39–40, 72, 75, 76, 152, 163
subatomic particles, 48
see also
specific particles
sublimation, 264
sulfur, 234, 235, 246, 247
Sun, 27, 168, 208, 209–10, 216, 251, 254, 279
average density of, 125
as center of solar system, 204–5
core of, 44, 169
death of, 158, 248
habitable zone of, 266–68
neutrino production of, 75
orbit of, 121
radio wave propagation of Earth vs., 285
temperature of, 169
supermassive black holes, 134–38
Supernova 1987A, 118
supernovae, 86, 100, 118, 139, 158–59
and heavy element creation, 164–65, 171, 174
Type Ia, 87–89, 90–91, 97, 158
surface of last scatter, 61
Swift, Jonathan, 199
Sycorax, 201
“Synthesis of the Elements in Stars, The” (Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler, and Hoyle), 159, 160, 161, 164–65
Tarantula nebula, 118
Taurus constellation, 111
technetium, 165, 175
telescopes, 172, 173, 175, 186
radio, 186, 285–89
television, 286, 287–88
tellurium, 176
thorium, 177, 251
time, 25, 35
logarithmic approach to, 101–2
Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe
(Gott), 57
Titan, 173, 191, 254, 274
atmosphere of, 270–71
Cassini-Huygens
probe to, 202, 271–72
life on, 270–72
titanium, 172–73
titanium oxide, 173
Tombaugh, Clyde, 178
Toomre, Alar, 119–20
Toomre, Juri, 119–20
tree of life, evolutionary, 244–45
Tremaine, Scott, 184–85
tritium, 43
Triton, 191
tube worms, 246
Turner, Michael, 102
Turok, Neil, 106
2001: A Space Odyssey,
231
Tycho (lunar crater), 240
Tyson, J. Anthony, 69
Umbriel, 201
unidentified flying objects (UFOs), 280–84
unified field theory, 25
universe:
asymmetry of matter in, 26, 41, 42, 51–52
distribution of matter in, 124–28, 131–32
ekpyrotic model of, 106–7
expansion of, 26–27, 41, 43, 53–55, 57, 62, 71, 80–81, 83, 84–86, 90, 91–92, 98–99, 127–28, 129
first elements formed in, 27
formation of, 25–29, 35, 38–40, 41–44, 53, 57, 61, 71, 92, 96
gas and dust clouds in, 147–52
inflationary model of, 84, 85, 86, 92, 97, 129–30
missing mass in, 65–70
and multiverse theory, 98–107
origin of structure in, 122–43
parallel, theory of, 76
as part of multiverse, 103
post-big bang, 38
steady state theory of, 57, 58
temperature of, 37, 41, 42, 43, 53, 54, 55, 56–57
see also
big bang
uranium, 177–78, 251
Uranus, 177, 187, 189, 200, 215
Urey, Harold, 242–43
van Helden, Albert, 148
n
Venus, 176, 191, 202, 205, 212, 215, 216
atmosphere of, 259, 260, 261
craters of, 259–60
Earth compared with, 259
surface temperature of, 261
water of, 260–61, 266
Virgo supercluster, 27, 126
viruses, 293
vortex model for planetary formation, 189–90
Voyager
program, 178, 179, 268
Wächtershäuser, Günter, 246–47, 250
water, 168
density inversion of, 255
on Earth, 233, 235, 237, 238, 245–47, 253, 254, 255–56, 257, 267
on Europa, 200, 268–70
on Mars, 196, 262–65, 265, 266
on Moon, 257–59
and rise of life, 233, 238, 242, 249, 253, 254, 256–57, 272, 274
on Venus, 260–61, 265, 266
wavelength, 54, 55, 207
weak nuclear force, 26, 38, 39–40, 75, 76
Weinberg, Stephen, 104–5
white dwarfs, 87–88
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), 62, 71, 92–94, 95, 132
Williams, Robert, 140–41
Wilson, Robert, 58–59
Woese, Carl, 244
World War, II, 179
X rays, 38, 54, 134, 175, 293
Yucatán Peninsula, 28, 239
Zohner, Nathan, 265
“Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper” (Einstein), 35
Zwicky, Fritz, 65, 66, 67
: This map of the mottled cosmic background radiation was produced by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The slightly hotter regions of the sky are coded red in the image, and the slightly cooler regions blue. These deviations from an unchanging temperature everywhere betray variations in the density of matter during the earliest years of the universe. Superclusters of galaxies owe their origin to the slightly denser regions of this cosmic baby picture.
The Hubble Space Telescope’s Ultra Deep Field, obtained in 2004, revealed the faintest cosmic objects ever recorded. Nearly every object in the image, no matter how small, is a galaxy, sitting anywhere from 3 to 10 billion light-years away from us. Because their light has traveled for billions of years before reaching the telescope, the galaxies appear not as they are today but as they once were, from their origins through the subsequent stages of their evolution.
This giant cluster of galaxies, called A2218 by astronomers, lies about 3 billion light-years from the Milky Way. Behind the galaxies in this cluster lie still more distant galaxies, whose light is bent and distorted primarily by the gravity from the dark matter and the most massive galaxies lurking within A2218. This bending produces the long, thin arcs of light visible in this image obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Another giant cluster of galaxies, A1689, about 2 billion light-years away, also bends light from still more distant galaxies that happen to lie behind the cluster, producing short, bright arcs of light. By measuring the details of these arcs, revealed in images obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have determined that most of this cluster’s mass resides not in the galaxies themselves, but in the form of dark matter.
The quasar catalogued as PKS 1127-145 lies about 10 billion light-years from the Milky Way. In the top panel, a Hubble Space Telescope image in visible light, the quasar reveals itself as the bright object at the lower right. The actual quasar, which occupies only the innermost portion of this object, owes its enormous energy output to superheated matter falling into a titanic black hole. The bottom panel shows the same region of the sky in an X-ray image obtained by the Chandra Observatory. A jet of X-ray-emitting material more than a million light-years long spews forth from the quasar.
