PASSPORT TO THE UNIVERSE
Program 1: "LIVE FROM A BLACK HOLE"
Premiere feed: Tuesday March 6, 2001, 13:00-13:29 Eastern
Underwriter announcement:
LIVE FROM A BLACK HOLE IS MADE POSSIBLE, IN PART, BY NASA... THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION...
Program tease:
IN 30 YEARS BLACK HOLES HAVE EMERGED FROM CENTURIES OF SPECULATION AND BECOME ACCEPTED FACT.
ASTRONOMERS NOW EXPLAIN SOME AS THE END STATE OF MASSIVE, STARS...
AND THINK GIANT BLACK HOLES LIVE AT THE HEART OF MANY GALAXIES.
THE HUNT FOR BLACK HOLES INVOLVES THE LATEST TELESCOPES, THE APPLICATION OF KEY SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES... AND THE MINDS AND IMAGINATIONS OF TEAMS OF ENTHUSIASTIC MEN AND WOMEN.
BUT AS YOU'LL SEE, STUDYING THE STARS IS SOMETHING THAT CAN BEGIN AT SCHOOL... AND SOMETIMES LEAD TO NATIONAL RECOGNITION!
ALL THIS AND MUCH MORE, IN THIS "PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE" SPECIAL...
"LIVE FROM A BLACK HOLE"
Program titles:
PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE presents
LIVE FROM A BLACK HOLE
IN THIS VIDEO WE'LL EXPLORE SOME OF THE MOST EXCITING AND MYSTERIOUS PHENOMENA IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.
WE'LL SEE WHY BLACK HOLES HAVE GONE FROM FICTION TO SCIENCE FACT...
AND WE'LL TRACK THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STARS.
THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE "CHANDRA" X-RAY TELESCOPE, WILL SHOW US THE CONNECTION BETWEEN "X-RAY ASTRONOMY AND X-TREME PHYSICS."
WE'LL FIND OUT HOW SOME HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS USED CHANDRA DATA TO WIN ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS BY DISCOVERING A PULSAR!
THEN, SINCE ITS TAKES INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY TO UNDERSTAND OUR UNIVERSE WE GO "BEHIND THE SCENES" TO MEET "CHANDRA" AND THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO BUILT, LAUNCHED AND OPERATE EARTH'S MOST POWERFUL X-RAY TELESCOPE.
WE'LL USE SOME SIMPLE MATH TO "WEIGH" A BLACK HOLE!
...AND WE'LL SHOW HOW YOU CAN INTERACT WITH CHANDRA ASTRONOMERS AND EXPLORE ASTRONOMICAL OBJECTS-ONLINE.
P2K Link icon appears
SPEAKING OF ONLINE-WHEN YOU SEE THIS ICON DURING THE PROGRAM, THERE'S LOTS MORE INFORMATION AT THE "PASSPORT TO THE UNIVERSE" SITE... ALONG WITH LINKS TO THE VERY BEST RESOURCES ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB.
YOU'LL BE EXPLORING SOME CUTTING EDGE SUBJECTS, BUT DON'T WORRY. THROUGHOUT THE VIDEO YOU'LL SEE THAT SOME FUNDAMENTAL SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES HELP MAKE THINGS CLEAR.
CALL THEM... "THE FOUNDING FORCES OF THE UNIVERSE."
HERE ARE SOME OF THE BASIC CONCEPTS YOU'LL SEE ASTRONOMERS USING TO EXPLAIN THE UNIVERSE WE LIVE IN:
GRAVITY: THE FORCE WHICH ATTRACTS ALL OBJECTS DEPENDING ON THEIR MASS AND THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THEM.
MASS: A MEASURE OF THE AMOUNT OF MATTER IN AN OBJECT.
THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM: VISIBLE LIGHT IS JUST PART OF A RANGE OF DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS AND ENERGIES OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION WHICH HELP US SEE THE OTHERWISE INVISIBLE UNIVERSE.
HEAT AND ENERGY: YOU'LL DISCOVER THAT COLOR, WHICH RELATES TO WAVELENGTH AND TO ENERGY IS A CLUE TO HOW HOT OBJECTS ARE.
FUSION: THE NUCLEAR REACTION IN WHICH PARTICLES FUSE TOGETHER, RELEASING LARGE AMOUNTS OF ENERGY AND MAKING THE STARS SHINE.
WITH THOSE TOOLS OF UNDERSTANDING, AND SOME OF AMERICA'S LEADING ASTRONOMERS AS YOUR GUIDES, YOU'RE READY TO TACKLE THE UNIVERSE.
"Black Holes: from Fiction to Fact" chapter head:
SO LET'S BEGIN BY FINDING OUT WHY BLACK HOLES ARE NOW CONSIDERED "SCIENCE FACT", NOT "SCIENCE FICTION."
BLACK HOLES... THEY'RE SOME OF THE STRANGEST OBJECTS IN THE UNIVERSE-WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GRAVITY TRIUMPHS OVER ALL OTHER FORCES.
THEIR DISCOVERY ALSO SHOWS HOW INNOVATIVE THINKERS HAVE APPLIED FUNDAMENTAL SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES TO CONVINCE THEMSELVES THAT THE UNLIKELY MIGHT BE TRUE...
...AND THEN INVENTED TECHNOLOGY TO LET US SEE THE INVISIBLE.
Name super:
STEPHEN MURRAY
Assoc. Dir., High Energy Astrophysics Div.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Stephen Murray
Black holes are really the most exotic thing that we know about-or one of the most exotic things we know about-in the Universe.
Name super:
ANDREA PRESTWICH
Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Andrea Prestwich
You can only see a black hole if there's material falling into it. A black hole is black. Nothing can escape from a black hole, even light.
Stephen Murray
Studying them is really interesting, because it's pushing, pushing hard at the edge.
Name super:
MIKE GARCIA
Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Mike Garcia
The reason I like to study black holes is basically just because they are so neat-they are such a cool object. They are, y'know, so exotic.
Stephen Murray
I am fascinated by trying to observe the unobservable. We can't look inside of a black hole, we can only look to the edges of it, but that information can tell us a lot about what's going on where we can't see. It's sort of like being a forensic scientist or a "Sherlock Holmes." You look for clues and and you use the clues to help you understand the bigger picture. And a black hole is a vast sea of clues and we just have to go and find them.
THE IDEA OF A PLACE WHERE GRAVITY IS SO STRONG THAT NOT EVEN LIGHT CAN ESCAPE DATES BACK TO THE 18TH CENTURY.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S THEORIES OF GRAVITY GOT AN ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MICHELL THINKING ABOUT EXTREME GRAVITY.
Ghostly outline of "John Michell" with dates: 1724-1793
NO PORTRAIT OF MICHELL SURVIVES-PERHAPS APPROPRIATE FOR SOMEONE WHO THOUGHT UP PLACES WHICH CAN'T BE SEEN-BUT WE KNOW HE WAS A PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY HERE IN CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, BEFORE BECOMING A PRIEST.
LONG BEFORE THE INVENTION OF TELESCOPES LIKE HUBBLE AND CHANDRA, MICHELL HAD TO WORK FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES-MASS, GRAVITY AND WHAT'S NOW CALLED "ESCAPE VELOCITY."
Super title:
ESCAPE VELOCITY: EARTH
7 MILES PER SECOND
TO BREAK FREE OF EARTH'S GRAVITY REQUIRES AN UPWARD SPEED-OR ESCAPE VELOCITY-OF ABOUT 7 MILES PER SECOND.
MICHELL IMAGINED PLACES MUCH MORE MASSIVE THAN EARTH, AND DID THE MATH.
Super
ESCAPE VELOCITY: SUN
380 MILES PER SECOND
IF YOU WANTED TO LAUNCH A ROCKET FROM THE SURFACE OF THE SUN, YOU'D HAVE TO REACH A SPEED OF 380 MILES PER SECOND.
Super
ESCAPE VELOCITY: "DARK STARS"
+186,000 MILES PER SECOND
MICHELL-LIKE NEWTON-THOUGHT OF LIGHT AS TINY PARTICLES. AND HE SUGGESTED NOT EVEN A BEAM OF LIGHT-TRAVELING AT 186,000 MILES PER SECOND-COULD ESCAPE FROM A PLACE WITH A SIZE AND MASS 500 TIMES THAT OF THE SUN.
BACK IN 1783 HE'D COME UP WITH THE BASIC CONCEPT OF "DARK STARS"-WHAT TODAY WE CALL A "BLACK HOLE."
Science fiction books covers and still of Albert Einstein
REGARDED AS WILD SPECULATION FOR CENTURIES, AND STILL A STAPLE OF SCIENCE FICTION, IT TOOK THE WORK OF ALBERT EINSTEIN AND A NEW VIEW OF GRAVITY AS THE CURVING OF "SPACETIME" TO TRANSFORM BLACK HOLES FROM FICTION INTO PLAUSIBLE SCIENCE.
Stephen Murray:
When we talk about black holes and the science of black holes, what we are really talking about is what's happening when gravity is the most important thing going on around us, and nothing else really matters.
BY THE 1930'S WE'D DISCOVERED ENOUGH ABOUT THE LIFE CYCLE OF OUR SUN AND OTHER STARS TO COME UP WITH THEORIES ABOUT THE PHYSICAL PROCESSES THAT MIGHT BE INVOLVED.
Mike Garcia
Black holes are made in supernova explosions. Really, a star has to go supernova to make a black hole, and in that explosion where the star goes out, there is a coreof the star that actually collapses in, and that core may either form a neutron star, or if there is enough matter falling in in this core, it'll just keep on falling beyond the neutron star. It will fall even further down and it will form a black hole.
Stephen Murray
Stars burn their fuel by fusion and create heat, and heat creates pressure, and the pressure pushes out while gravity is trying to pull in. And when the fuel runs out and there's no more pressure pushing out, gravity wins, pulls things closer and closer together, and if you have the right conditions, gravity wins so hard that you actually have everything collapsing to what we call a "singularity," a point, and that's the origin of a black hole.
LET'S TAKE A TRIP TO A BLACK HOLE, WITH MIKE GARCIA AS OUR GUIDE, AND GET TO KNOW ITS FEATURES CLOSE UP.
Super
ACCRETION DISK
Mike Garcia
So imagine if you were able... if you could travel to one of these black hole systems that we have been studying now with Chandra. They are binary star systems. They are two stars which orbit each other. One of the stars is very much like our Sun and the other star is a black hole or a neutron star and they orbit each other and they are in a very tight orbit. Imagine, you know, something as big as the Sun and it's whipping around, and it is just whipping around very, very fast around this black hole in the center. And the sun-like star would not be round: it would be distorted in shape. It would be shaped like an egg, with the point of the egg pointing towards the black hole. And that shape is caused by the gravity of a black hole pulling on that star. And that gravity is strong enough that it actually pulls matter off of the surface of the star and that matter falls down in towards the black hole. And it falls in a spiral and it forms a disk around it, an accretion disk, looks like a plate. And the matter is swirling around in this disk, just like in the tub, when you pull the plug out of the tub, it swirls around, and goes down the black hole.
BUT IF BLACK HOLES EMIT NO LIGHT, HOW DO WE KNOW THEY'RE THERE?
Stephen Murray
Black holes generate X-rays by converting the energy of gravity into the energy of heat. And the energy of heat can be so high, that is, the temperatures can be so high, that just like if you heat a piece of iron and first it glows red, and then it glows white, well if you keep on heating it higher and higher it's going to glow X-rays. And so that's the process that's happening. We're taking gravitational energy and turning it into heat energy and the heat is so high that X-rays turns out to be the place that the energy likes to come out.
IT WAS THOSE TELL-TALE X-RAYS THAT REVEALED EVIDENCE OF WHAT LOOKED LIKE A BLACK HOLE DURING THE VERY FIRST FLIGHT OF AN X-RAY SATELLITE.
Graphic shows:
STELLAR
SUPERMASSIVE
MID-MASS
ASTRONOMERS NOW THINK THERE ARE AT LEAST 3 DIFFERENT KINDS OF BLACK HOLES, THOUGH THERE ARE MANY MYSTERIES LEFT TO EXPLORE.
STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLES ANNOUNCE THEMSELVES WITH A FIERY BURST OF X-RAYS, AS MATTER FALLS DOWN ONTO THE ACCRETION DISK AND HEATS UP VIOLENTLY.
Mike Garcia
And the way we've found black holes, to date, is we find these things that are actually very, very bright. And from how bright they are we know they must be very, very massive. And because we see them change in brightness very quickly we also know they must be very small. So these two things: the fact that they are very massive, because they are so bright, and that they are very small because they vary really quickly, tell us that they must be incredibly tiny and incredibly dense.
THE SECOND TYPE OF BLACK HOLE TO BE DISCOVERED HAD SOME OF THE SAME CHARACTERISTICS AS STELLAR BLACK HOLES.
Super:
A large word, GRAVITY, zooms down into a tiny space at the center of a galaxy
AT THE CENTER OF MANY GALAXIES STARS TELESCOPES LIKE HUBBLE COULD SEE STARS AND GAS THAT WERE BEING WHIRLED AROUND A REGION WHERE THERE WAS IMMENSE GRAVITY CONDENSED INTO A TINY SPACE.
Andrea Prestwich:
It may be that in almost every galaxy, in the center of every galaxy, there's an extremely massive black hole.
IN ITS FIRST YEAR OF OBSERVATION, THE CHANDRA X-RAY TELESCOPE FOUND EVIDENCE OF A THIRD TYPE OF BLACK HOLE NEVER KNOWN BEFORE... MEASURING ABOUT 500 TIMES THE MASS OF THE SUN.
ANDREA PRESTWICH AND HER COLLEAGUES LOOKED AT A REGION OF A GALAXY KNOWN AS M-82."
Andrea Prestwich
What appears to be different about these objects in M82 is that many of them are much, much, much brighter than accretion sources in our galaxy, and therefore they are probably much, much, much more massive.
Super:
COLLIDING BLACK HOLES
NCSA simulation
THE CHANDRA ASTRONOMERS THINK THESE "MID-MASS" BLACK HOLES MAY BE ONE EXPLANATION FOR THOSE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AT THE CENTERS OF GALAXIES.
Andrea Prestwich
Perhaps some black holes coalesce and then the big black hole starts to swallow material that's in its environment. It might swallow other stars, it might swallow dust, gas. You know these regions of intense star formation are very, very dense, and there's lots going on.
Stephen Murray
And then these intermediate size black holes tend to drift down towards the center of the galaxy where they interact with each other, and they bang into each other, and you have collisions, and they start to coalesce and you get ten thousand solar masses, and a hundred thousand solar mass and before long you get a million solar masses and more. So that the supermassive black hole is actually something that forms over time.
Super
QUASAR AND JET (Chandra X-ray image)
ASTRONOMERS NOW THINK SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AT THE HEART OF WHAT ARE CALLED "ACTIVE GALAXIES" MAY EXPLAIN MANY OF THE MOST VIOLENT PHENOMENA SEEN ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE-SUCH AS "QUASARS", OR "QUASI-STELLAR" OBJECTS.
Stephen Murray
If the black hole is in a very rich material environment, lots of stars, or gas or whatever else might be around, then that's fuel that can fall onto the black hole and through the process of heating result in high emission. If the black hole has either already vacuumed up-giant vacuum cleaner-all that extra material or is in an environment where there isn't a lot of extra material then there is no fuel to be sucked into the black hole, no matter that can be sucked down and heated up, and so it does not emit so much. So in that sense the ecology of the environment affects the way the black hole works.
P2K LINK graphic
FOR MORE ON BLACK HOLES OF ALL SIZES, FROM SMALL TO SUPERMASSIVE, GO ONLINE TO THE PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE SITE.
Video and music transition
SOMETIMES, WHEN WE SEE AMAZING IMAGES OF EXPLODING STARS... OR LOOK DEEP INTO THE HEART OF A GALAXY... WE MAY FORGET THE EFFORTS OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHOSE DEDICATION AND EFFORT BRINGS US THESE NEW VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE.
AND SOMETIMES, WHEN THE MEDIA BRINGS US HEADLINES OF THE LATEST DISCOVERIES, WE OVERLOOK THE TECHNOLOGY THAT MAKES THE SCIENCE POSSIBLE.
IN THIS SEGMENT...
HOW THE TELESCOPE GOT ITS NAME AND MADE IT UP INTO ORBIT... AND HOW SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES, BROUGHT TO LIFE THROUGH INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY, MAKE TRAILBLAZING RESEARCH POSSIBLE.
FIRST ITS NAME: AFTER MANY YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT AS "AXAF", THE ADVANCED X-RAY ASTROPHYSICS FACILITY, THE TELESCOPE WAS RENAMED "CHANDRA", AFTER ONE OF AMERICA'S LEADING ASTROPHYSICISTS.
SUBRAHMANYAN CHANDRASEKHAR, KNOWN AS "CHANDRA" FOR SHORT, WAS BORN IN INDIA.
EARLY IN HIS CAREER HE USED ALBERT EINSTEIN'S EQUATIONS TO CALCULATE THAT THERE WAS AN UPPER LIMIT TO WHITE DWARF STARS.
LARGER THAN 1.4 SOLAR MASSES AND THEY'D COLLAPSE TO FORM NEUTRON STARS... LARGER STILL, BLACK HOLES!
HE STUDIED IN ENGLAND, WHERE ONE LEADING ASTRONOMER REJECTED HIS IDEAS.
CHANDRA IMMIGRATED TO THE UNITED STATES IN 1937, AND JOINED THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, BECOMING A POPULAR TEACHER.
IN 1983 HE WON A NOBEL PRIZE FOR HIS WORK ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STARS.
CHANDRA WAS ONE OF THE FIRST SCIENTISTS TO COMBINE ASTRONOMY AND PHYSICS... IN THE DISCIPLINE NOW KNOWN AS "ASTROPHYSICS"...
Segue to training shots of STS Commander, Col. Eileen Collins and crew, pre-launch suit up, and then in the White House:
THE CHANDRA OBSERVATORY MADE IT UP INTO ORBIT AS THE RESULT OF ANOTHER "FIRST."
THE TELESCOPE WAS TO RIDE INTO SPACE ABOARD THE SHUTTLE "COLUMBIA", COMMANDED-FOR THE FIRST TIME-BY A FEMALE ASTRONAUT, COLONEL EILEEN COLLINS.
SO ADD A SPECIAL WHITE HOUSE CEREMONY WITH THE THEN-PRESIDENT TO THE USUAL HECTIC ROUND OF PRE-LAUNCH VISITS TO THE SPACECRAFT BEING PREPPED FOR TAKE-OFF.
BUT GETTING TO THE LAUNCH PAD IN FACT HAD TAKEN ALMOST 50 YEARS!
1949-THE FIRST ROCKET FLIGHT OF AN X-RAY DETECTOR... ABOARD A CAPTURED V-2...
1962-THE FIRST TRUE SCIENCE MISSION, USING A SIMPLE STRIP CHART.
SUPER (over still)
RICCARDO GIACCONI (1931- )
RICCARDO GIACCONI AND OTHER PIONEERS BECOME CONVINCED OF THE VALUE OF X-RAY ASTRONOMY.
1970, THE YOUNG HARVEY TANANBAUM, FRESH FROM GRAD. SCHOOL, TRAVELS TO HELP LAUNCH THE FIRST X-RAY SATELLITE FROM A MOST UNUSUAL LOCATION...
Name super:
HARVEY TANANBAUM
Director, Chandra X-ray Center
Harvey Tanabaum
I was just a veritable kid. It was the first project that I worked on after graduate school. It was an opportunity to be in on the ground floor of the first satellite that was completely devoted to studying X-rays. We put it all together, tested it. I was sent over to a launch tower off the coast of Kenya. It was December of 1970 when we launched. The launch was December 12th. which was Kenyan Independence Day, and the satellite was named "Uhuru" which was a Swahili word for "Freedom." It was a time of great excitement. Sometimes I think when you are young you don't realize that some of the most important you might do might be what you're doing right then and there.
ONE OF "UHURU'S" FIRST DISCOVERIES WAS A POWERFUL X-RAY SOURCE, CYGNUS X-1, WHICH RESEARCHERS THOUGHT GAVE THE BEST EVIDENCE OF A BLACK HOLE.
NOW THE RACE WAS ON TO BUILD BETTER INSTRUMENTS...
YOU NEEDED SPECIAL MIRRORS... AND SPECIAL DETECTORS.
Super
1978 "EINSTEIN"
1978... THE "EINSTEIN" SATELLITE CARRYING THE FIRST LARGE X-RAY TELESCOPE...
Super
1990 ROSAT
1990... "ROSAT"...NAMED FOR WILHELM ROENTGEN, DISCOVERER OF X-RAYS...
INCREASINGLY SOPHISTICATED SATELLITES FOLLOWED FROM THE UNITED STATES, EUROPE AND JAPAN...
BUT ALREADY THERE'D BEEN 20 YEARS OF WORK ON DESIGNS THAT WERE TO BECOME "CHANDRA", THE MOST CAPABLE X-RAY TELESCOPE YET.
FOR SUCH A MISSION TO BE SUCCESSFUL YOU'D NEED SUPER-SENSITIVE DETECTORS OR CAMERAS...
SPECIAL GRATINGS TO SELECT PARTICULAR WAVELENGTHS OF LIGHT...
INCREDIBLY SMOOTH MIRRORS...
AND A DEPENDABLE SPACECRAFT TO HOUSE THEM ALL.
BOTTOM SUPER
HRC-HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERA
LET'S GET UP UNUSUALLY "CLOSE UP AND PERSONAL" TO ONE OF THE 2 CAMERAS ON BOARD CHANDRA.
ENGINEER AND ASTRONOMER, STEVE MURRAY, HELPED DEVELOP THE INNOVATIVE DESIGN OVER 2 DECADES. HE SHOWED US A FLIGHT TEST MODEL OF THE "HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERA" IN THE LAB WHICH BUILT IT.
Name super:
STEPHEN MURRAY
P.I. High Resolution Camera, Chandra
Stephen Murray
So, if we come over this way... First thing to do is be careful of all the wires and the tight spaces. And this is the latch on the chamber... I'm going to pull this back and if you just peek in... into this chamber now as we open it, you can see here the engineering model. Up on the top is the spectroscopy detector and you can see the three pieces alongside each other, and then lower down you can just see the diamond shape of the filter that's in front of the imaging detector and those are exactly the same size, exactly the same components, exactly the same wires, as we have in the model. Now I think that's just about enough time. And we want to make sure we get this thing closed up. And I am going to have to go and turn on the vacuum pumps again so that we can get this thing back down to a space environment, and safely restored. It's almost like opening up the escape hatch on a submarine and resealing it. OK...
BRINGING LIGHT DOWN TO THE "H.R.C." REQUIRES MIRRORS THAT ARE BOTH UNUSUALLY SMOOTH AND UNUSUAL IN SHAPE.
Place super
KITT PEAK NATIONAL SOLAR OBSERVATORY, AZ
MOST OPTICAL TELESCOPES-LIKE KITT PEAK'S HUGE McMATH-PIERCE SOLAR TELESCOPE-BOUNCE LIGHT OFF MIRRORS PLACED MORE OR LESS AT RIGHT ANGLES TO THE INCOMING RAYS.
BUT X-RAYS ARE OF SUCH HIGH ENERGY THAT THEY'D MOSTLY PASS RIGHT THROUGH MIRRORS ARRANGED LIKE THAT.
CHANDRA'S MIRRORS ARE ARRANGED SO X-RAYS SKIP OVER THEM, LIKE STONES ACROSS THE SURFACE OF A POND.
SMALL IMPERFECTIONS WOULD BE DISASTROUS.
LABS AND WORKSHOPS ACROSS AMERICA POLISH GLASS AND BEND METAL.
RAYTHEON GRINDS THE SMOOTHEST MIRRORS EVER BUILT.
THEN THE MIRRORS ARE COATED WITH IRIDIUM, MORE REFLECTIVE THAN GOLD.
EASTMAN KODAK PUTS THEM ALL TOGETHER.
THE RESULT? MIRRORS WITH A RESOLUTION SO GREAT YOU COULD READ A STOP SIGN 12 MILES AWAY...
PLACE SUPER
NASA MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, Huntsville, AL
THEN, MORE TESTS, AT NASA'S MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, WITH ITS X-RAY CALIBRATION FACILITY. NASA MARSHALL MANAGED THE ENTIRE PROJECT, AND WAS THE ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD WHERE THE MIRRORS COULD BE PUT THROUGH THEIR PACES.
BALL AEROSPACE PACKAGES UP THE SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS...
TRW INTEGRATES IT ALL INTO A SPACECRAFT.
GETTING STARTED THERE'D BEEN THE USUAL BUDGET CRUNCHES...
THE SPACECRAFT HAD TO BE REDESIGNED.
TO SAVE MONEY AND AVOID COSTLY SHUTTLE SERVICING FLIGHTS A NEW ORBIT WOULD TAKE IT HIGH ABOVE EARTH, ALMOST A THIRD OF THE WAY TO THE MOON... WHICH ACTUALLY WAS A "PLUS."
EARTH WOULD GET IN THE WAY OF OBSERVATIONS MUCH LESS... BUT THEN AGAIN, EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE TO WORK RIGHT. THERE'D BE NO SECOND CHANCES.
THAT MEANT EVERYONE HAD TO KEEP THE SPACECRAFT AND INSTRUMENTS LIKE THE MINIATURE TRANSMISSION GRATINGS INCREDIBLY CLEAN.
Name super:
KATHRYN FLANAGAN
Research Scientist, Center for Space Research, MIT
Kathy Flanagan
What are these diffraction gratings? As you can see they look like small wafers, or foils of gold, about 1 inch square. But in fact the important structures on these gratings are much more complicated than simple foil. This is a grating blown up 16,000 times. It is, in fact, tall bars of gold standing on a plastic membrane. The bars are so close together and so fine that a wavelength of light is larger than the distance between two of these bars. In fact, if we blow up a common household object, we'll see this. Do you have any idea what this is?
If you guessed that it was the edge... cross-section of a human hair, you guessed right. Even a hair is gigantic relative to the size of a grating on its important scale. So that we had to keep the gratings clean at all times so that contaminants such as dust and hair and other huge objects would not damage or contaminate them.
WITH HUMAN HAIR AND DUST A THREAT TO THE MISSION, INSTRUMENT BUILDERS LIKE KATHY AND STEVE HAD TO DO THEIR WORK IN CONDITIONS CLEANER THAN HOSPITAL OPERATING ROOMS!
Stephen Murray
I call this the "Box from Hell" because of the long hours that we had to spend trying to put things together. If I push this box out a little bit and give you a sort of an idea of what our posture is like when we're working. When we are working from above then our arms are in like this, and we are sort of on our toes and bent over... to get down to the bottom. And when we are working on the bottom, then our arms go in like this and we're sitting with our knees sort of half-bent so that we can be down at the right level and so it's sort of like a torture chamber. (Laughs)
FINALLY, FEBRUARY 1999--CHANDRA ARRIVES AT THE KENNEDY SPACE CENTER...
AND IS PACKED SNUGLY INTO THE SHUTTLE'S CARGO BAY.
13.8 METERS LONG, THE SIZE OF A MOVING VAN, THIS WAS THE LARGEST PAYLOAD TO DATE.
JULY 23, 1999... A PERFECT NIGHT LAUNCH LIT UP THE SKY AROUND CAPE CANAVERAL...
Mission control announcer:
...and liftoff of Columbia, reaching new heights for women and X-ray astronomy...
A PERFECT DEPLOY FROM THE SPACE SHUTTLE... AND CHANDRA WAS ON ITS WAY.
Female astronaut:
And it's so quiet... but I will tell you there is nothing so beautiful as Chandra sailing off on its way to work...
SAFELY AWAY FROM THE SHUTTLE THE SOLAR PANELS DEPLOY... CHANDRA USES ONLY 2 KILOWATTS OF POWER FOR ALL ITS SYSTEMS, ABOUT THE SAME AS A HAIR-DRYER HERE ON EARTH.
SUPER
CHANDRA OPERATIONS CONTROL CENTER (OCC)
Cambridge, MA
THEN IT WAS TIME FOR RESEARCHERS AND ENGINEERS ALIKE TO GATHER AT THE OPERATIONS CONTROL CENTER IN CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, TO WAIT IMPATIENTLY TO SEE IF ALL THOSE YEARS AND ALL THE HARD WORK HAD PAID OFF.
ASTRONOMERS CALL IT "FIRST LIGHT"-THE FIRST DATA SEEN FROM A NEW TELESCOPE.
Cheers...
SINCE THEN, CHANDRA HAS CONTINUED TO SEND BACK IMAGES THAT HAVE REVOLUTIONIZED OUR VIEW OF THE HEAVENS...
...NEW KNOWLEDGE ABOUT STARS AND GALAXIES AND BLACK HOLES THAT WOULD SURELY HAVE GRATIFIED CHANDRA HIMSELF... A RICH REWARD FOR ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN-SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS AND MANAGERS AND SUPPORT STAFF-WHO KEPT THE FAITH ACROSS THE DECADES.
P2K LINK graphic
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STARS chapter head
WE'VE SEEN THAT STELLAR MASS BLACK HOLES ARE CREATED IN THE
DEATH OF STARS... BUT WHAT ARE THE FORCES WHICH CREATE AND DESTROY STARS, AND CAN HOW CAN WE TAKE THE TEMPERATURE OF THESE GIANT BALLS OF GAS MILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS DISTANT?
SOME OF THE MOST SPECTACULAR IMAGES IN ALL OF ASTRONOMY SHOW THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF STARS.
SUPER
TRIFID NEBULA, Hubble Space Telescope
THIS IS A STELLAR NURSERY, A REGION OF THE TRIFID NEBULA WHERE STARS ARE BEING BORN.
Name super:
KATHRYN FLANAGAN
Research Scientist, Center for Space Research, MIT
Kathy Flanagan
The star's mass, which is determined essentially at its birth, or perhaps later, if it accretes matter-a star's mass determines its history. It'll determine, effectively, its color, its luminosity, how long it will live and how it will die.
ALL STARS ARE BORN FROM CLOUDS OF GAS AND DUST.
IT'S GRAVITY WHICH LEADS TO THEIR BIRTH AND-AS WE'LL SEE-DETERMINES HOW THEY'LL LIVE, AND HOW AND WHEN THEY DIE.
GRAVITY GATHERS MORE AND MORE GAS TO THE CENTER OF THE CLOUD. EVENTUALLY, THE CONCENTRATION AT THE CENTER IS SO GREAT THAT ATOMS OF HYDROGEN-THE SIMPLEST ELEMENT IN THE UNIVERSE-FUSE TOGETHER TO FORM HELIUM.
IN THE PROCESS, ENERGY IS RELEASED... AND THE STAR TURNS ON.
HOW CAN WE UNDERSTAND STARS, MILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH? HOW CAN WE TAKE THEIR TEMPERATURES... AND PREDICT THEIR FATES?
WHEN WE LOOK OUT AT THE NIGHT SKY, MOST STARS LOOK WHITE.
BUT, IN REALITY, THEY COME IN MANY DIFFERENT COLORS.
AND THOSE COLORS ARE DIRECTLY RELATED TO THEIR TEMPERATURE.
IT TOOK 20TH CENTURY PHYSICS TO WORK OUT THE LAWS, BUT THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES ARE TIMELESS.
YOU CAN SEE THEM AT WORK IN A BLACKSMITH'S SHOP THAT LOOKS UNCHANGED FROM THE TIME OF NEWTON... AND ALSO OUT THERE IN THE STARS.
WHEN YOU HEAT A STEEL BAR, IT FIRST BEGINS TO GLOW RED-HOT.
OBJECTS HERE ON EARTH, OR OUT THERE IN THE COSMOS, WHICH GLOW RED ARE ALL AT ABOUT THE SAME TEMPERATURE.
RED STARS, LIKE BETELGEUSE IN THE CONSTELLATION OF ORION, ARE BETWEEN 2 AND 3 THOUSAND DEGREES.
ADD MORE HEAT, AND THINGS BEGIN TO GLOW ORANGE.
STEEL BARS OR STARS THAT APPEAR ORANGE ARE ALL MUCH HOTTER THAN THOSE DULL, RED OBJECTS.
A STAR LIKE ALDEBARAN IN THE CONSTELLATION OF TAURUS THE BULL IS ORANGE-RED, AND AROUND 4,000 DEGREES.
TURN UP THE TERRESTIAL OR COSMIC BELLOWS AND NOW OBJECTS BEGIN TO GLOW YELLOW-WHITE.
STARS THAT APPEAR YELLOW-WHITE ARE MUCH HOTTER THAN RED OR ORANGE OBJECTS.
OUR SUN, A TYPICAL YELLOW-WHITE STAR, HAS A SURFACE TEMPERATURE OF ABOUT 5,500 DEGREES.
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET STEEL TO GLOW AS BRIGHT AS THE BRIGHTEST STARS... BUT YOU CAN MAKE THIS STEEL WHITE HOT FOR JUST A MOMENT.
BLUE WHITE OR VIOLET STARS LIKE SPICA IN THE CONSTELLATION VIRGO APPROACH 18,000 DEGREES.
DULL RED-ORANGE-YELLOW-WHITE-BLUE... THE COLORS ALWAYS APPEAR IN THE SAME ORDER, AND THEY'RE ALWAYS A CLUE TO THE TEMPERATURE OF OBJECTS THAT LOOK THIS WAY.
BRIGHT STARS BURN FAST AND DIE YOUNG. IT'S ALL A QUESTION OF HOW MASSIVE THEY ARE: MASS, FOR STARS-IS DESTINY.
LET'S LOOK AT THE LIVES AND DEATHS OF 3 STARS OF DIFFERENT MASSES AND SEE HOW GRAVITY DETERMINES THEIR LIFE, THEIR TEMPERATURE, THEIR COLOR AND THEIR ULTIMATE FATE.
HERE'S A STAR MUCH LIKE OUR SUN.
EMERGING FROM THE CLOUD THAT GAVE IT BIRTH, IT SPENDS SOME TIME IN VIOLENT, YOUTHFUL TANTRUMS.
BUT THEN, LIKE OUR SUN, THESE STARS SETTLE DOWN INTO A LONG PERIOD OF RELATIVELY STABLE LIFE.
SUCH STARS ARE YELLOW-WHITE IN COLOR, AND HAVE SURFACE TEMPERATURES OF ABOUT 5-6,000 DEGREES.
OUR SUN HAS BEEN BURNING FOR SOME 5 BILLION YEARS... AND WE CAN EXPECT IT TO LIVE ABOUT 5 BILLION MORE YEARS.
THEN IT WILL BEGIN TO CHANGE.
SUPER: RED GIANT
ITS ATMOSPHERE WILL SWELL OUT FAR OUT INTO SPACE, AS IT BECOMES A HUGE, "RED GIANT" STAR.
EARTH WILL LOSE ITS OCEANS AND BECOME A DESERT PLANET...
LOOKING OUT INTO SPACE WE SEE BEAUTIFULLY-COLORED AND INTRICATELY TEXTURED CLOUDS OF GAS-THE DEATH SHROUDS OF STARS MORE OR LESS LIKE OURS... THAT EXPIRE WITH A WHIMPER, NOT A BANG.
STARS MUCH MORE MASSIVE THAN OUR SUN WILL HAVE A DIFFERENT LIFE, AND DEATH.
THEY BURN BRIGHTER AND HOTTER THAN OUR SUN... MANY REACHING TEMPERATURES OF MORE THAN 20,000 DEGREES... AND APPEARING BLUE-WHITE IN COLOR.
THEIR HYDROGEN FUEL CHANGES TO HEAVIER ELEMENTS, BUT IN TIME THEY TOO ARE BURNED UP-AND FUSION STOPS.
THEIR CORES IMPLODE. THE OUTER ATMOSPHERE COLLAPSES CATASTROPHICALLY INWARDS... AND WE SEE WHAT ASTRONOMERS CALL A "SUPERNOVA."
SUPER
SUPERNOVA 1987A
STScI visualization
THE GASES FALL IN, BOUNCE AND THEN EXPLODE OUTWARDS, CREATING SHOCK WAVES IN THE MATERIAL SURROUNDING THE STAR, AS WE CAN SEE IN THIS DEPICTION OF THE MOST RECENT NEARBY SUPERNOVA, KNOWN AS 1987A.
Kathy Flanagan
Life on Earth actually owes a significant debt to supernovae and supernova remnants. Turns out that many elements are manufactured only during a supernova explosion. And most of our heavy elements, chemical elements such as oxygen, neon, iron and others are distributed by this supernova and through the supernova remnant. The oxygen we breathe more than likely came from supernovae and supernova remnants that existed prior to our arrival here. So in fact there is a deep link between these events and life on Earth, and our solar system as we know it.
AT THE CENTER OF SOME SUPERNOVA REMNANTS YOU SOMETIMES FIND A NEUTRON STAR, WHERE MATTER IS PACKED SO DENSELY THAT A TEASPOON OF MATTER WOULD WEIGH MORE THAN A MOUNTAIN!
SOME NEUTRON STARS SPIN SO RAPIDLY THAT MATTER FALLING ONTO THEM IS PULSED OUTWARDS, IN JETS MOVING AT CLOSE TO THE SPEED OF LIGHT.
SUPER
NEUTRON STAR Dissolve into PULSAR
WHEN THEY'RE ORIENTED TOWARD EARTH WE SEE THEM FLASHING, LIKE A LIGHTHOUSE BEAM. SUCH RAPIDLY ROTATING NEUTRON STARS ARE CALLED "PULSARS."
A STAR EVEN MORE MASSIVE HAS AN EVEN MORE SPECTACULAR END.
IN SUCH CASES, THE SUPERNOVA REACTIONS ARE SO EXTREME THAT NOT EVEN NEUTRONS CAN RESIST THE FORCE OF GRAVITY.
IMPLODING IN ON ITSELF, SUCH STARS FORM BLACK HOLES... PLACES WHERE GRAVITY IS SO INTENSE THAT NOT EVEN LIGHT CAN ESCAPE.
3 TYPES OF STARS... 3 COLORS... 3 FATES... ALL SHAPED BY THE MASTER FORCE OF GRAVITY.
WE CAN'T REPLICATE ALL ASPECTS OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STARS, BUT CHANDRA'S PAT SLANE DEMONSTRATES A WAY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A STAR'S INTERNAL FUSION ENDS, AND THERE'S NO OUTWARD PRESSURE LEFT TO HOLD UP THE WEIGHT OF ITS ATMOSPHERE.
Name super:
PAT SLANE
Chandra Science Mission Planning group
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Pat Slane uses a 55 gallon drum and a vacuum pump to show what happens when an object loses its internal pressure support. He relates the on-camera collapse of what seemed like a sturdy steel drum to what happens in a supernova core collapse, producing a neutron star or pulsar, or a blackhole.
P2K LINK graphic
YOU CAN FIND OUT MUCH MORE ABOUT THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STARS BY FOLLOWING LINKS FROM OUR PASSPORT TO THE UNIVERSE WEBSITE.
WE'VE SEEN THAT X-RAYS HELP US STUDY BLACK HOLES RESULTING FROM THE DEATH OF STARS, BUT WHAT EXACTLY ARE X-RAYS, AND HOW DOES AN X-RAY TELESCOPE HELP US EXPLORE THE UNIVERSE???
Chapter head:
X-RAYS AND X-TREME PHYSICS
LAUNCHED IN 1999, THE CHANDRA X-RAY TELESCOPE IS THE 3RD OF WHAT NASA CALLS ITS "GREAT OBSERVATORIES"... AND THE FIRST DEDICATED TO STUDYING THE X-RAY UNIVERSE.
Name super:
MARTIN ELVIS
Senior Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Martin Elvis says that X-rays reveal places where extreme phenomena, such as quasars and black holes can be found.
Name super:
HARVEY TANANBAUM
Director, Chandra X-ray Center
Harvey Tananbaum notes that X-rays are found where temperatures are very high, or gravity is extreme, such as in the hot gas between galaxies in clusters, or around black holes.
Super
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE
FIRST OF THE GREAT OBSERVATORIES TO LAUNCH WAS THE "HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE"... IMAGING STARS AND GALAXIES IN VISIBLE LIGHT AS WELL AS ULTRAVIOLET AND INFRARED.
Super
COMPTON GAMMA RAY OBSERVATORY
SECOND TO REACH ORBIT WAS THE COMPTON GAMMA RAY OBSERVATORY... RETURNING AMAZING DATA ABOUT SOME OF THE MOST ENERGETIC PHENOMENA IN THE UNIVERSE.
3 SPACE TELESCOPES EACH SPECIALISING IN DIFFERENT REGIONS OF THE THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM...
WHAT IS THIS "SPECTRUM"? AND WHY DO WE NEED TELESCOPES WITH DIFFERENT CAPABILITIES?
"THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM" IS THE NAME SCIENTISTS GIVE TO THE FAMILY OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION, INCLUDING THE FAMILIAR VISIBLE LIGHT WE SEE ALL AROUND US WHEN THE SUN SHINES.
Name super:
ANDREA PRESTWICH
Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Andrea Prestwich
Our eyes says our eyes are sensitive to visible light, but that if that's the only wavelength in which we observe the night sky we miss most of the action.
AT THE SHORE, WE ALL KNOW IT'S WISE TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS AGAINST ULTRAVIOLET RAYS...
INFRARED LIGHT, OR HEAT ENERGY, CAN BE SEEN WITH SPECIAL DETECTORS.
BUT THE SPECTRUM ALSO INCLUDES RADIATION WE MAY NOT, AT FIRST, THINK OF AS LIGHT.
Andrea Prestwich
Radio also is light.
(We see someone tuning a boombox.)
ON THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM FROM RADIO ARE X-RAYS...
Andrea Prestwich
Describes X-rays.
GAMMA RAYS COMPLETE THE FAMILY-CREATED ON EARTH IN PARTICLE ACCELERATORS, AND IN THE UNIVERSE BY TITANIC EVENTS WE DON'T YET FULLY UNDERSTAND.
ALL THESE DIFFERENT KINDS OF RADIATION BEGIN DOWN IN THE SUB-ATOMIC WORLD WHEN AN ELECTRON, DEPICTED HERE IN YELLOW, HITS A PROTON, BLUE, OR SUDDENLY CHANGES DIRECTION... AND RELEASES A BUNDLE OF ENERGY KNOWN AS A "PHOTON"-THOSE GLOWING BURSTS OF ENERGY.
PHOTONS, IN FACT, ARE LIGHT-AND ALL THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF RADIATION WE MENTIONED ARE IN REALITY JUST PHOTONS WITH DIFFERENT ENERGIES.
DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES AND ENVIRONMENTS TYPICALLY PRODUCE PHOTONS WITH DIFFERENT ENERGIES.
X-RAYS, FOR EXAMPLE, GET MADE WHEN TEMPERATURES ARE VERY HIGH, MILLIONS OF DEGREES, AND GRAVITY IS VERY STRONG...
AND THE DIFFERENT ENERGIES NEED DIFFFERENT DETECTORS TO SEE THEM.
SCIENTISTS THINK OF LIGHT AS A STREAM OF PARTICLES WITH SPECIFIC ENERGIES, BUT PHOTONS IN FACT BEHAVE BOTH AS PARTICLES AND AS WAVES.
SO THEY CAN ALSO CAN BE DESCRIBED IN TERMS OF THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE CRESTS OF EACH WAVE... AND THAT'S CALLED "WAVELENGTH."
LET'S STEP THROUGH THE SPECTRUM AND SEE HOW ENERGIES CHANGE, RESULTING IN THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF RADIATION.
LONGEST WAVELENGTH AND LOWEST ENERGY IS RADIO LIGHT...
NEXT COMES MICROWAVE... YEP, THE ENERGY YOU USE TO ZAP POPCORN...
THEN INFRARED-USED TO CONTROL YOUR VCR...
THEN THE MOST FAMILIAR FAMILY OF PHOTONS-VISIBLE LIGHT.
WE'VE ALL SEEN RAINBOWS... WHERE RAINDROPS SERVE AS MINIATURE PRISMS TO BREAK THE SUN'S WHITE LIGHT UP INTO DIFFERENT COLORS.
IN FACT, WHAT WE CALL "COLOR" IS JUST LIGHT OF A DIFFERENT WAVELENGTH, MADE BY PHOTONS OF DIFFERENT ENERGIES.
BEYOND VISIBLE LIGHT IS ULTRAVIOLET... REMEMBER THE SUN BLOCK?
THEN, AT SHORTER WAVELENGTHS AND-SEE THE PATTERN?-HIGHER ENERGIES, X-RAYS... PRODUCED AT TEMPERATURES OF 10 MILLION DEGREES OR SO.
AND THEN AT EVEN HIGHER ENERGIES, AND EVEN SHORTER WAVELENGTH-GAMMA RAYS... CREATED AT TEMPERATURES OF BILLIONS OF DEGREES!
SO NOW YOU GET THE PICTURE... LONGER WAVELENGTHS, LOWER ENERGIES, COOLER TEMPERATURES...
SHORTER WAVELENGTHS, HIGHER ENERGIES, HIGHER TEMPERATURES...
Harvey Tananbaum
Relates X-ray astronomy to tell-tale clues of extremely high temperatures.
BUT WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO TO SPACE TO DO X-RAY ASTRONOMY?
BECAUSE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE BLOCKS THE SHORTEST WAVELENGTH LIGHT-X-RAYS AND GAMMA RAYS-ALMOST COMPLETELY.
AND WATER-WHETHER VISIBLE IN CLOUDS OR JUST PRESENT AS VAPOR-INTERFERES WITH OBSERVATIONS AT EVERY OTHER WAVELENGTH APART FROM RADIO...
BUT UP IN SPACE-EVEN IF IT'S MORE CHALLENGING AND EXPENSIVE-WE'RE ABLE TO LOOK OUT AT THE UNIVERSE WITH UNIMPEDED VISION.
THAT'S WHY NASA AND ITS INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS INVEST IN SPACE TELESCOPES LIKE HUBBLE, COMPTON AND CHANDRA... AND THE IMAGES THEY'VE RETURNED HAVE BEEN PHENOMENAL.
BUT THESE TELESCOPES DO MUCH MORE THAN SEND BACK PRETTY PICTURES.
ON CHANDRA, FOR EXAMPLE, THERE ARE 2 SETS OF GRATINGS, WHICH SIT IN RINGS BEHIND THE MAIN MIRRORS.
USING THEM, LIGHT CAN BE PRECISELY BROKEN DOWN BY WAVELENGTH AND ENERGY, AND THAT, AS WE'VE SEEN, PROVIDES CLUES TO THE TEMPERATURE AND COMPOSITION OF THE OBJECT WHICH CREATED THE X-RAY LIGHT.
KATHY FLANAGAN, WHO HELPED BUILD THE GRATINGS, DEMONSTRATES.
Name super:
KATHRYN FLANAGAN
Research Scientist, Center for Space Research, MIT
Kathy Flanagan
Describes, using an actual transmission grating from Chandra, how white light is broken down into the colors of the visible spectrum by shining a flashlight through the grating. She then uses a red and green laser (both limited to a different, narrow and precise wavelength of light) and we see that the pattern of where the light falls after passing through the grating clearly reveals the different wavelength through where it falls.
Super ACIS-ADVANCED CCD IMAGING SPECTROMETER
DOWN AT THE "ACIS" DETECTOR-ONE OF THE 2 CAMERAS ON BOARD CHANDRA-THE DIFFERENT ENERGIES OF LIGHT FALL ON DIFFERENT CCD'S, ALLOWING THE RESEARCHERS TO ANALYZE THE X-RAY SOURCE IN DETAIL.
IT'S AMAZING HOW MUCH THEY CAN LEARN ABOUT OBJECTS MILLIONS OF LIGHT YEARS DISTANT...
Kathy Flanagan
Says that from where the light is dispersed you can tell the energy, the elements, the temperature and the age of the remote source.
Super
CENTAURUS A
YOU CAN SEE WHAT X-RAY ASTRONOMY ADDS TO THE OTHER WAVELENGTHS IF WE TAKE A CLOSE-UP LOOK AT A GALAXY KNOWN AS "CENTAURUS A."
Super
OPTICAL (NOAO)
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST OPTICAL IMAGES...
Super
RADIO (Very Large Array)
IN RADIO LIGHT THESE JETS SHOOT OUT FROM THE GALAXY A DISTANCE ABOUT 6 DIAMETERS OF OUR MILKY WAY GALAXY!!!
Super
VISIBLE (Hubble Space Telescope)
THIS IS WHAT HUBBLE'S POWERFUL EYE SEES... A DARK DISK LEFT OVER FROM WHAT MAY HAVE BEEN A COLLISION BETWEEN AN ELLIPTICAL GALAXY AND A SMALLER SPIRAL GALAXY...
Super
NEAR INFRARED (Hubble Space Telescope)
ZOOMING FURTHER IN, EVEN HUBBLE'S EYE GETS BLOCKED BY ALL THE GAS AND DUST.
BUT USING INFRARED LIGHT, HUBBLE CAN SEE THROUGH THE DUST TO THE HOT GAS RESEARCHERS THINK IS SWIRLING AROUND A BLACK HOLE MANY MILLIONS OF TIMES MORE MASSIVE THAN OUR SUN!
Super
"EINSTEIN" X-RAY OBSERVATORY (1979)
EARLIER, THE "EINSTEIN" X-RAY OBSERVATORY HAD BEEN ABLE TO SEE DEEP DOWN, TO WHERE THE ENERGETIC JETS BEGIN...
Super
CHANDRA (1999)
NOW CHANDRA CAN RESOLVE STILL FINER DETAILS OF THIS ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS...
PUT ALL THESE WAVELENGTHS TOGETHER... OPTICAL AND X-RAY...
...OPTICAL AND RADIO...
AND THEN YOU CAN BEGIN TO FIGURE OUT WHAT MAKES CENTAURUS TICK.
ANY ONE WAVELENGTH WOULD BE INSUFFICIENT TO REVEAL THE UNIVERSE'S SECRETS...
PLACES WHERE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES POWER VAST JETS OF ENERGY AND, IN EARLIER TIMES, THE GEYSERS OF RADIATION KNOWN AS "QUASARS"...
Super
Comet LINEAR, 2000(Chandra X-ray image)
Martin Elvis
We now know that stars are much brighter in X-rays than we ever knew before, and even comets glow in X-ray light! Without X-rays we're missing out on the big picture.
Chapter head: THE PRIZE AND THE PULSAR
MOST OF THE TIME, KNOWLEDGE IS ITS OWN REWARD... BUT SOMETIMES THERE ARE MATERIAL BENEFITS.
DECEMBER 2000... AFTER A NATIONAL COMPETITION THE WINNERS OF THE SIEMENS-WESTINGHOUSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMPETITION GATHER IN WASHINGTON.
THE INDIVIDUAL WINNER WAS MARIANGELA LISANTI FROM CONNECTICUT. SHE TOOK HOME 100 THOUSAND DOLLARS IN SCHOLARSHIP MONEY FOR HER WORK ON ELECTRICITY AND NANO-TECHNOLOGY.
BUT THE TEAM WINNERS WERE FROM NORTH CAROLINA. AND THEY HAD USED CHANDRA X-RAY TELESCOPE DATA TO STUDY A DYING STAR.
AS THEY EXPLAINED TO THE JUDGES, THEIR ANALYSIS OF THE DATA REVEALED WHAT LOOKED LIKE A NEUTRON STAR AND POSSIBLY A PULSAR.
THE WORK WHICH LED TO THEIR AWARD STARTED HERE, AT THE NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND MATH, IN DURHAM NORTH CAROLINA.
IT'S A YEAR-ROUND, RESIDENTIAL PROGRAM, BUT IT'S A FREE, PUBLIC SCHOOL, OPEN TO ALL CITIZENS OF THE STATE.
THE THREE WINNERS WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE A PHYSICS TEACHER, DR. JONATHAN KEOHANE WHO'D BEEN WORKING AT NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER.
THERE HE'D APPLIED FOR TIME ON CHANDRA, BUT HE WAS BACK TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL BY TIME THE DATA CAME DOWN AND WAS READY FOR ANALYSIS.
JONATHAN WANTED TO INVOLVE HIS STUDENTS IN RESEARCH... AND SO THEIR ADVENTURE IN "REAL WORLD SCIENCE" BEGAN...
ALL THREE WERE SENIORS... CHUCK OLBERT, 18... CHRIS CLEARFIELD, ALSO 18... AND NIK WILLIAMS, 16, BUT ALREADY A SENIOR.
Chris Clearfield
JONATHAN'S PH.D WAS ON SUPERNOVA REMNANTS. LOOKING OUT INTO SPACE USING VISIBLE LIGHT YOU CAN SEE BEAUTIFUL CLOUDS, LIKE THIS ONE, THE CRAB NEBULA, WHICH EXPLODED IN 1054.
THE MOST RECENT NEARBY SUPERNOVA WAS 1987A...
CLOSE UP YOU CAN SEE SHELLS OF EXPANDING GAS...
IN X-RAYS, IN SOME SUPERNOVA REMNANTS, YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THE NEUTRON STAR, THE LEFTOVERS OF THE STAR WHICH EXPLODED...
BEFORE CHANDRA, ALL YOU COULD SEE IN "IC443", THE SUPERNOVA JONATHAN STUDIED, WAS A FAIRLY BLURRY IMAGE...
WITH THE NEW DATA, THE STUDENTS WERE ABLE TO MAKE OUT THINGS NO-ONE HAD EVER SEEN BEFORE...
Chuck Olbert
Chris Clearfield
THEIR TEACHER'S THESIS ARGUED THAT THE X-RAYS WERE THE RESULT OF THE SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION SLAMMING INTO A SURROUNDING CLOUD OF MOLECULES.
BUT AS THE STUDENTS WORKED ON THE NEW DATA, THEY BEGAN TO HAVE THEIR DOUBTS...
Chuck Olbert
TO MAKE THEIR DISCOVERY THEY NEEDED NOT JUST CHANDRA'S SHARPER PICTURES, BUT ALSO ITS UNIQUE ABILITY TO ANALYZE THE ENERGY OF THE X-RAY LIGHT-TO USE CLUES HIDDEN IN THE SPECTRUM OF THE SUPERNOVA REMNANT.
Nik Williams
Chuck Olbert
Harvey Tananbaum
Comments on the students' work.
DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR, NCSSM IS A PLACE OF SPORTS...
AND DRAMA...
AND MUSIC...
AND HANGING OUT WITH FRIENDS... AS WELL AS HANDS-ON SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS IN LABS...
AND EVEN IN CORRIDORS!
BUT OUR STUDENTS' RESEARCH REALLY HEATED UP WHEN THEY SPENT THE SUMMER MONTHS OFF-CAMPUS, IN AN APARTMENT, WITH DAYS DEDICATED TO READING, THINKING AND ANALYZING THE DATA...
Chris Clearfield
Nik Wlliams
Chris Clearfield
Nik Wlliams
Chuck Olbert
Chris Clearfield
THE STUDENTS ARE NOW WORKING WITH DR KEOHANE TO REVISE A PAPER SUBMITTED TO ASTROPHYSCIAL LETTERS, THE JOURNAL OF PROFESIONAL ASTRONOMERS.
IT'S NOT EASY WRITING A SCIENTIFIC PAPER... BUT THEN AGAIN, IT'S NOT USUALLY HIGH SCHOO SENIORS WHO ARE THE AUTHORS.
SO DOES THAT LEAVE THEM TIME FOR NOTHING BUT SCIENCE AND X-RAY DATA? NOT EXACTLY!
Chuck
Nik
Chris
OF COURSE THESE STUDENTS ARE SPECIAL... THEY WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE A GREAT TEACHER, AND ATTEND A SCHOOL THAT ENCOURAGED THEIR INTEREST.
BUT THEY THINK, WITH SOME EFFORTS, LOTS MORE STUDENTS COULD DO PROJECTS JUST LIKE THEIRS...
Chris Clearfield
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE SIEMENS COMPETITION, OR HOW THE NORTH CAROLINA STUDENTS DISCOVERED THEIR PULSAR, CHECK OUT THE LINKS YOU'LL FIND AT THE P2K WEBSITE.
Chapter head: TO WEIGH A BLACK HOLE
WE'VE SAID THAT BLACK HOLES REMAIN SOME OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS OBJECTS IN THE UNIVERSE.
BUT-AMAZINGLY ENOUGH-ASTRONOMERS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO USE LAWS DATING BACK TO NEWTON AND KEPLER TO CALCULATE THEIR MASS, EVEN THOUGH WE CAN'T SEE THE BLACK HOLES DIRECTLY!
JEFF McCLINTOCK
Senior Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Jeff McClintock
JEFF AND HIS COLLEAGUES TRAVEL TO OPTICAL TELESCOPES LIKE THOSE AT KITT PEAK TO CAPTURE THAT KIND OF DATA ABOUT THE BLACK HOLES' VISIBLE COMPANION STAR.
AS THE VISIBLE STAR ORBITS ITS UNSEEN COMPANION, THEY SEE HOW ITS LIGHT CHANGES AS IT COMES TOWARDS OR MOVES AWAY FROM EARTH, USING THE DOPPLER EFFECT, THE SAME TECHNIQUE THE POLICE TO DETERMINE HOW FAST A SPEEDER MAY BE TRAVELING.
Jeff McClintock
SO LET'S "DO THE NUMBERS" BY SUBSTITUTING THE ACTUAL QUANTITIES WHICH JEFF AND HIS COLLEAGUES OBSERVED.
THE BLACK HOLE WE WANT TO WEIGH IS CALLED "A0620", AND THE MASS WE'RE GOING TO COMPARE IT WITH IS THAT OF OUR SUN.
M (A0620) = P x V3
M (Sun) = P x V3
SO, PUT "M", FOR MASS, "A0620" OVER "M SUN": THAT WILL GIVE AN ANSWER COMPARING THE BLACK HOLE WE WANT TO WEIGH BACK TO THE MASS OF THE SUN.
LET'S START BY FILLING IN THE MORE FAMILIAR NUMBERS.
"P" OR PERIOD FOR THE SUN, IS 365 DAYS... ONE YEAR, THE TIME IT TAKES EARTH TO ORBIT THE SUN.
OUR PLANET'S VELOCITY, V, IS 30 KILOMETERS PER SECOND.
NOW LET'S ADD P AND V FOR A0-620.
THE PERIOD IS 7.8 HOURS, WHICH IS ZERO .32 DAYS... AND ITS VELOCITY IS 450 KILOMETERS PER SECOND.
SO CUBE THE VELOCITIES...
"30" to "900" and then "27,000"
AND MULTIPLY BY THE PERIODS...
"91,1250,000" becomes "29,200,000"
AND DIVIDE THE ONE BY OTHER...
"2.96" which dissolves to "+/- 3"
AND YOU END UP WITH 3!
Jeff McClintock
IT WAS IN FACT CHANDRA, AFTER WHOM THE X-RAY TELESCOPE IS NAMED, WHO FIRST CALCULATED THAT ANY STAR MORE MASSIVE THAN 1.4 TIMES THAT OF THE SUN WOULD NOT BE STABLE AS A WHITE DWARF, BUT WOULD COLLAPSE TO A NEUTRON STAR OR A BLACK HOLE.
NOW, THANKS TO HIS MATH AND THE APPLICATION OF LAWS DATING BACK SEVERAL CENTURIES WE'RE ABLE TO STUDY WHAT'S ALMOST CERTAINLY A BLACK HOLE.
Jeff McClintock
It's exciting to know that what you're studying really has to be a black hole... that's what's exciting!
