Date: July 2, 2009
Title: Herschel and Planck Set Sail into the Cold Universe
Podcaster: Edward and Haley Gomez
Organization: Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope and Cardiff University
http://www.lcogt.net
http://www.astro.cf.ac.uk
Description: Herschel and Planck set sail into the cold Universe. The successful launch of the Herschel Space Observatory and Planck satellite on 18 May this year was an exhilarating and nerve-racking experience for those involved with these missions. We interviewed some of the astronomers and engineers involved at the launch event in Cardiff University to find out their feelings, opinions and predictions of discoveries to come.
Bio: Dr. Edward Gomez works for Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
(http://lcogt.net) as the education and outreach manager. He is involved in many other science engagement projects, including the ‘Science or Fiction’ podcast series, ‘Teapots from Space’ vodcasts and is a lay-editor for Portal to the Universe. Edward likes coffee and a paper on a Sunday morning, while listening to some baroque music.
Dr. Haley Gomez is a lecturer in Astrophysics at Cardiff University. She is part of the scientific groups who will use Herschel to discover more about the cool Universe and is particularly interested in finding out where cosmic dust comes from.
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by AAVSO.
Transcript:
E.G: Dr. Edward Gomez of Las Cumbres Observatory, Inc.
H.G: Dr. Haley Gomez of Cardiff University
L.D: Dr. Loretta Dunne of Nottingham University
P.C: Prof. Peter Coles of Cardiff University
M.E: Prof Mike Edmunds of Cardiff University
J.D: Dr. Jon Davies of Cardiff University
S.E: Prof. Steve Eales of Cardiff University
P.H: Dr. Pete Hargrave of Cardiff University
Voice over from ESA Mission Control:
Dix…Neuf…Huit…Sept…Six…Cinque…Quatre…Trois…Deux…Un…TAKE-OFF
[Applause]
E.G: Iʼm Edward Gomez from Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
H.G: and Iʼm Haley Gomez from Cardiff University
E.G: The countdown was for the successful launch of the Ariane 5 which carried the Herschel Space Observatory and Planck Satellite. We were lucky enough to be invited to the launch party at Cardiff University. At the launch event were scientists and engineers whoʼd spent the last ten to fifteen years working on both satellites. Lots of astronomers we talked to mentioned the things they want to do with Herschel and Planck over the next three or four years, including some of the big questions they want to answer. Questions about the origins of the Universe, the birth place of stars and where the building blocks of life are formed. During the launch party we interviewed people to see how they felt now that Planck and Herschel are safely in space.
M.E: Man is a curious creature. Always where there have been significant technical advances weʼve learnt vastly more about the Universe. Itʼs four hundred years since Galileo Galilei turned his telescope to the heavens and began to realize the moon had mountains and all sorts of things.
J.D: This probing into space with a very large telescope at a new wavelength region will produce very exciting results. In the rough history of astronomy, man has observed the Universe through this very tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum and weʼre now expanding it to the X-ray and gamma-ray, into the far infrared and radio. Herschel and Planck will look at the particular part of the spectrum which is detecting things that are cold in the Universe. This is the last frontier.
E.G: Herschel and Planck are able to see light thatʼs never been seen before. This is because Herschel is an infra-red telescope, itʼs the largest mirror ever launched into space and it will search for some of the coldest things in the Universe.
H.G: We asked the astronomers why it is they care about the cold things in the Universe and what it is Herschel will go and see.
L.D: Herschel will study rare things like active galactic nuclei and quasars and galaxies that have have black holes in the centre. Theyʼre quite rare. However we should pick up tens of thousands of them with our survey.
J.D: Itʼs extremely important to understand the whole process of stellar evolution and galaxy evolution.
L.D: We can also see stars forming in our own galaxy but maybe they are also forming in places other people haven’t looked so far. So when people try to look at star formation in our own Milky Way galaxy they tend to look at a region right near the middle of the galaxy where everything is very dense. It could be that stars form in a different way in these places and weʼll find out.
P.C: We have a standard model of cosmology now which is a working hypotheses and we think that it fits, but that doesn’t mean that it is absolutely right. Planck will either tell us that weʼre on the right track or it will reveal evidence of things which canʼt be explained within a standard framework and in many ways the second of those is the most exciting one. Itʼs always more exciting when you have a revolution and it turns out that what youʼve been thinking about so far is wrong.
E.G: Peter then went on to say that the scientific purpose of these missions are very different even though theyʼre both looking at cold things in the Universe and were both both launched on the same rocket.
P.C: The point about Planck is itʼs very different from Herschel in the sense that Herschel is like a traditional astronomical observatory except itʼs in space. It will be doing a large range of space observations. It will be looking at stars and galaxies and so on and it will be to some extend negotiable about what it does, in response to different demands. Planck is not an observatory, itʼs an experiment. Itʼs really there to do one particular thing and itʼs quite interesting to compare the cultural differences between them. Planck is very much more like a physics experiment.
H.G: I have to say I agree totally with Peter. Which mission will hopefully end up winning a Nobel prize is something we don’t know and canʼt answer just yet. One of the really interesting things will be what they find new, things that we didn’t ever imagine that they will find in the first place.
E.G: Which is always the most exciting thing about science. So thatʼs why we asked the scientists what unexpected results they hoped these two satellites would answer.
M.E: On a personal basis, understanding what dust is in the Universe and how much there really is there and where it comes from. Whether al lot of it is made in supernova rather than stars: Iʼm looking forward to that one.
P.C: I think that the most important questions that Planck will answer is whether our understanding of the early Universe is actually right. So currently, we has this idea that the very early stages of the Universe there was a thing called inflation which caused the Universe to expand by an enormous factor. That idea is built in the standard version of the Big Bang and we think itʼs right on the basis of the measurements obtained so far. However Planck will tell us really whether thatʼs the right way of thinking about the Universe or not.
J.D: I think the most important thing is the quantity of cold dust there is in the universe, which will tell us about the history of star formation.
S.E: The origin of the galaxies or the origin of elliptical galaxies because we already know that there is a population of dust enshrouded objects in the early Universe. People suspect that they might be the progenitors of galaxies today. Herschel should allow us to make the connection between this population in the very early Universe that weʼre seeing billions of years in the past and the ellipticals today.
E.G: Steve Eales mentioned dust enshrouded objects, which is something you are interested in Haley.
H.G: Well I’m really interested in finding out where cosmic dust comes from. Itʼs
something thatʼs really important to astronomers because it plays such an important part in a number of different processes in the Universe and the Earth is a giant dust grain. So finding out where dust comes from is really important to us.
L.D: Dust is important because that really affects how we see the Universe. If we just look in the optical, thatʼs the visible light we see around us every day, then if there’s any dust around it, it blocks that out. So itʼs like standing in a smoky room. So to be able to see everything thatʼs happening in the universe since it started, we need to be able to look at more of the light thatʼs been stolen from the optical and then re-radiated back in the infrared.
H.G: Really the most wonderful things about these missions will be the things we canʼt predict.
E.G: The wonderful thing about the astronomy and in any scientific research is the discoveries that are made that you werenʼt expecting. A sentiment that everybody present at this event agreed with.
P.C: The funding agencies have a thing about [pause] you have to say what youʼre going to discover with a given experiment and of course astronomy hasn’t worked like that. We haven’t seen anything in the ultra violet or infra-red so we need to look. We don’t really know what weʼre going to find, but itʼll be interesting. Itʼs not just actually figuring out answers to problems that we know, its the fact youʼre trying to explore something thatʼs never been explored before. You hope there will be new types of objects we detect with Herschel. It is the final, last electromagnetic frontier. So there is a chance we may find something completely new.
E.G: Fortunately the rocket that carried Herschel and Planck launched perfectly and both Herschel and Planck are on their way to the place where they will spend they rest of their lives, well their working lives anyway.
P.H: It [Herschel and Planck] will spend three months before it reaches its orbital point: 1.5 million kilometers away, checking out the instruments; seeing how itʼs performing and making sure it can achieve itʼs scientific goals. I think at that point everyone will breath a huge sigh of relief. Weʼre already starting to relax more now. I was very nervous this morning, my finger nails got a bit of a hammering. I spent fifteen years of my life and most of my hair on this project, I feel a lot better now. Certainly more relieved.
E.G: That was Pete Hargrave who was one of the mission scientists on the Spire
instrument which is on board Herschel.
H.G: What these two satellites will do is completely revolutionize, particularly in the case of Planck, revolutionize the way we even teach astronomy. Iʼm sure undergraduate students in three of four years will be told different things than we were.
E.G: And I think that it is going to answer a lot of questions but throw up as many as it answers. I was Edward Gomez
H.G: and I was Haley Gomez E.G: Weʼd like to thank all the scientists involved from Cardiff University and Nottingham University H.G: and all the instrument builders that made it work so well. So keep an eye on the news and watch this space for Herschel and Planck discoveries.
S.E: We feel passionate about dust. A lot of people here are really, totally, fixated, obsessed about interstellar dust.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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