How does the Hubble telescope capture images of the universe at an early age?
psnorb asked:
I would like a simplified answer for todays headlines.
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I would like a simplified answer for todays headlines.
– The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the earliest image yet of the universe — just 600 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was just a toddler
March 21st, 2010 at 12:14 pm
In simple terms, the light that the hubble has focused on is 600 million years old. I.E. it took 600 million years to get from where it is to the earth. Steve
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:10 am
Since there is a maximum speed at which light can travel, the further away you look at things (on a cosmological level) the further back in time you are looking.
Light from distant galaxies has been travelling through space for billions of years. annorax64
March 24th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Remember that the “Big Bang” is just a theory, and the Hubble telescope is just a mere artifact supporting the theory. If you do believe in such theory, then here is your answer:
Once the mirror captures the light, Hubble’s science instruments work together or individually to provide the observation. Each instrument is designed to examine the universe in a different way.
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) sees three different kinds of light: near-ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared, though not simultaneously. Its resolution and field of view are much greater than that of Hubble’s other instruments. WFC3 is one of Hubble’s two newest instruments, and will be used to study dark energy and dark matter, the formation of individual stars and the discovery of extremely remote galaxies previously beyond Hubble’s vision.
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), Hubble’s other new instrument, is a spectrograph that sees exclusively in ultraviolet light. Spectrographs acts something like prisms, separating light from the cosmos into its component colors. This provides a wavelength “fingerprint” of the object being observed, which tells us about its temperature, chemical composition, density, and motion. COS will improve Hubble’s ultraviolet sensitivity at least 10 times, and up to 70 times when observing extremely faint objects.
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) sees visible light, and is designed to study some of the earliest activity in the universe. ACS helps map the distribution of dark matter, detects the most distant objects in the universe, searches for massive planets, and studies the evolution of clusters of galaxies. ACS partially stopped working in 2007 due to an electrical short, but was repaired during Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009.
The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) is a spectrograph that sees ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared light, and is known for its ability to hunt black holes. While COS works best with small sources of light, such as stars or quasars, STIS can map out larger objects like galaxies. STIS stopped working due to a technical failure on August 3, 2004, but was also repaired during Servicing Mission 4.
The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) is Hubble’s heat sensor. Its sensitivity to infrared light — perceived by humans as heat — lets it observe objects hidden by interstellar dust, like stellar birth sites, and gaze into deepest space.
Finally, the Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS) are devices that lock onto “guide stars” and keep Hubble pointed in the right direction. They can be used to precisely measure the distance between stars, and their relative motions. ViiTaL iiMaG3
March 26th, 2010 at 7:42 am
In cosmology, there really isn’t any difference between time and distance. If you date the age of the universe to 13.7 billion years (a common estimate) and see something that measures out to 13.1 billion light years away, that puts its date at the one you have, since the light that the telescope sees from that object took that long to get here. That, at least, is the simplest if perhaps not the most accurate description. John de Witt
March 27th, 2010 at 7:30 am
Hubble is able to look billions of light-years away. Since light has only been traveling for so long, light from things far, far away and from the present isn’t near us at all. Yet, light from a while back is reaching us, so we’re seeing the object in the past, when the universe was younger. Math
March 28th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
A light year is the time it takes for light to travel in 1 year.
If you stood on a planet 100,000 light years from Earth and turned on a powerful flashlight, Earthlings wouldn’t see the light for 100,000 years. And only then, they would see the light as it existed 100,000 years ago. It’s because the light took that long to travel before I could see it.
Same thing for the stars. If a star is 10 Billion light years away from Earth, and the Hubble took a photo of it, we are seeing the star as it was 10 Billion years ago.
Some future space telescopes will see the Universe just a few 100 thousand years after the birth of the Universe. Perhaps even earlier. But they will never actually see the Big Bang itself.
Light can only travel at the speed of light, which given the vast distances of the Universe, we are seeing light from something that happened many, many years ago. hammster