a few curious facts about the universe
TRANSCRIPT
A few curious facts about the universe
Peter HouseholdCork City Library
12 Jan 2016
The sky 9 pm tonight
The sky 7:15 am tomorrow
Orion the hunter
Stars projected on the dome of heaven
The Seven Sisters
410 light years distant
Hugh O’Neill Earl ofTyrone
Flight of Earls 1607
Quasar appears as it did 12.7 billion years ago Universe was 7 % of present age
>
James Jeans
The solar system to scale ?
Dimensions of solar system
If the balloon is the Sun, how big is the Earth ?
Dimensions of Milky Way
Balloon Sun, peppercorn Earth
Earth-Sun distance 40 metres Distance to nearest star? 11,000 km
Proxima Centauri
4.22 light years
Dimensions of Milky Way
Balloon Sun, peppercorn Earth
Earth-Sun distance 40 metres
Distance to nearest star? 11,000 km
trying to grasp the size of space
trying to grasp the size of space
trying to grasp the size of space
trying to grasp the size of space
trying to grasp the size of space
Gravity Isaac Newton 1687
Albert Einstein 1915
The earth bending the fabric of space
It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see, my physics students don’t understand it either. That’s because I don’t understand it. Nobody does.
Richard Feynman c. 1963
Early humans evolving their brains150,000 years ago
Comet 67P – Mission Rosetta, 2014
History of astronomy
Phoenix digging on Mars 2008
Victoria Crater Mars 2007
Ethics of space exploration
terraformingChris McKay (NASA):
The moon was never alive. Mars is dead. The question in my mind is - should we bring it back to life?
Europa – warm ocean? Picture: Galileo 1994-2000
Titan
Dry bed of methane river?
Water and hydrocarbon ice.
Circus Maximus – laboratory for life?
Picture : Huygens Jan 2005
Tongue fish – they cook but they don’t cook
Extremophiles
Extra solar planetsExoplanetsfirst, 1995270 (July 2008 )nearly 2000 (20 May 2015)
20th March 2015 about 9:30 amat Blackrock Castle, Cork
Only about 4% of the total energy density in the universe can be seen directly
About 22% is thought to be composed of dark matter
The remaining 74% is thought to consist of dark energy
The last 100 years
1920’s There are other galaxies1929 … and they are receding (Hubble)1940’s Big bang theory1980’s Dark matter - 10 times ordinary stuff 1994 Amino acid in interstellar cloud1995 Extra-solar planet1994-2000 “Galileo” mission to EuropaJuly 2015 New Horizons at Pluto
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce and endows it with some of the grace of tragedy.
Steven Weinberg
Cork Astronomy Clublectures, observing, study,
library, outings
own telescope not required
meetings held at UCC
Library collection for members here