Is Astronomy always this
exciting!
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
University of Oxford
&
Mansfield College
U.K.
Greetings!
• Thank you for the opportunity to be part
of the 8th Appleton Space Conference
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1912
One hundred years ago….
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100 years ago
• We were just appreciating that Galaxies were
large distant groups of stars, like the Milky
Way. We had no clue about clusters of galaxies
• We did not know about gas (or dust) in the
galaxy
• We did not know that many galaxies have
black holes at their centres
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100 years ago – did not know of..
• The origin of the Universe 14 billion years ago
– the Big Bang and expanding universe
• Age or scale of universe
• Cosmic Microwave Background – radiation left
over from the Big Bang
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Hess and Cosmic Rays
• Victor Hess (Austrian) – series
of 10 balloon flights – 1911 – 13
• To altitudes of 17,500 ft, without
oxygen!
• Shows that radiation increases
with altitude
• ‘Cosmic’ rays identified
• Nobel prize not awarded until
1936
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Found in last 100 years – contd
• Cosmic rays just being identified; studying
stars through their emitted particles
• Astronomy in the EM spectrum beyond the
visible
• Pluto and trans-Neptunian objects
• Space flight and exploration of solar system
• Exoplanets – planets around other stars
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Found in last 100 years – contd
• Constitution, energy source, evolution of stars
• High energy astrophysics, gamma ray bursters
• Neutron stars
• We have come a long way!
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How has this come about?
• Funding from our Governments, foundations
and private individuals; support from industry
• There have been smart people –
astrophysicists, space scientists, engineers,
computer specialists
• Brilliant technical innovations
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SOME EXAMPLES OF REMARKABLE
DEVELOPMENTS
Mainly in last 50 years
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The new astronomies - radio
• Jodrell Bank, Cheshire; one of the first large radio
telescopes
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The new astronomies – X-ray etc
Satellites, launched with rockets, detect the X-rays from
stars etc that are cut out by our atmosphere.
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Cosmic Microwave Background
• The COBE satellite
measured with great
accuracy this cosmic
microwave background
– found the
temperature to be 2.74
K. This spectrum is one
of the significant
events in our progress.
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Black hole at the centre of the Milky
Way galaxy
• Stars drawn by
gravity to orbit
massive invisible
object at the centre
of our Galaxy
• Orbiting a black
hole of mass about
4 million solar
masses.
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Planets round other stars
(exoplanets)
800
Number of
exoplanets
0
Year
• Number found growing very fast - now
almost 1000 known – Kepler satellite
• As many planets as there are stars in the sky
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Landing of Curiosity
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What we now know about the
content of the Universe
(Are we are going backwards?)
Something is making the
Universe expand faster
All we have learnt lies
in this sector!
Something else is holding galaxies
and clusters of galaxies together
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ASTRONOMY IN OUR CULTURE
Two stream instability?
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The Milky Way
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The Milky Way in some other
languages
•
•
•
•
•
•
Australian Aboriginal – The Rainbow Serpent
Celtic – The Silver Street (Arianrod)
China – The Celestial River
Cree Indian – The Path of the Spirits
Ancient Hebrew – River of Fire
Kalahari – The Backbone of the Night
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Other names for the Milky Way,
contd
• Korean – Silver River Water
• Maori – The Long Fish
• Setswana – The Place where the Lightening
rests
• Siberia – Silicon River
• Sweden – The Winter Road
• Thai – The Way of the White Elephant
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Citizen Science – inviting people to
help professional astronomers
Identifying small
craters on the Moon
Solar storm watch
And many other similar projects –
See www.zooniverse.org
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IN THE FUTURE…WE WILL HAVE
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Optical telescopes such as….
LSST
E-ELT
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Radio telescopes like
Square Kilometre Array
FAST
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Space missions like:
James Webb Space Telescope
BeppiColombo
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Transient Monitoring
• Many telescopes
now watching for
transient or moving
things
Uppsala
Schmidt
Palomar
Pan Starrs
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We will be able to protect
ourselves from incoming
hazardous objects
Don
Quijote
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The next hundred years? My
guesses!
• We will have found evidence of life on an
exoplanet (maybe not intelligent life)
• Dark matter – cause major revolution in our
understanding of physics
• Dark energy – total change in how we
understand the Universe – paradigm shift
• Many other, unimaginable, revolutions in
astrophysics!
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The End
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