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News and Articles on
Colors From Space
- Cool Cosmos Educational Games, Classroom activities
about Infrared http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/. Click here to
see visible Light/Infrared Side-By-Side Movies
of Yellowstone, Hawaii, & a rocket.
References
2 Micron All-Sky Survey http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/
On color blindness...
Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/
- Spacecraft with instruments for observing beyond the visible
light spectrum
- The Color of the Universe -- http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~kgb/cosspec/
Excerpts from an article by AP Science Writer, PAUL RECER,
Scientists Say Green Dominates Stars: Astronomers at
Johns Hopkins University said that averaging all the colors
from the light of 200,000 galaxies shows that the current
color of the universe is a sprightly green. They predict the
color will shift toward red, however, in a few billion years.
...The current color "is quite close to the standard shade
of pale turquoise, although it's a few percent greener," said
Karl Glazebrook, who worked out the color scheme with another
Hopkins researcher, Ivan Baldry. ...To find this average color,
the astronomers gathered light from galaxies out to several
billion light years. ... They then averaged the color values
for all the light and converted it to the primary color scale
seen by the human eye. ...The astronomers were analyzing the
colors from the 200,000 galaxies to determine the relative
ages of the stars within those galaxies. Young stars are hot
and blue; middle aged stars are more green, and stars nearing
their end tend to be redder. ...Earlier in the 14 or 15 billion-year
life of the universe, said Baldry, the average color of the
universe was more blue because it had a higher proportion
of young stars. The formation of new stars has decreased for
billions of years and the ratio of young-to-old stars has
changed, giving the universe the current average hue of green.
...Eventually, billions of years in the future, said Baldry,
the average color will trend toward red as the star population
ages further and even fewer young stars are formed.
Online spectra: http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/quantumzone/
Online Articles and News about Colors
in Astronomy
- 3 Mar 2005 News Release: 2005-031 Spitzer Space Telescope
Provides Visual Feast Online. The magic of NASA's Spitzer
Space Telescope comes alive in an online interactive presentation,
available now at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/stars_galaxies/
or http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/starsgalaxies/index.html.
The show-and-tell feature highlights colorful images of galaxies,
nebulas and other celestial wonders, all captured during the
mission's first year-and-a-half in space. The images, coupled
with artists' concepts, text and interviews with scientists,
illustrate how Spitzer's powerful infrared eyes are dramatically
enhancing our knowledge of the universe. Infrared is particularly
effective for penetrating thick, murky regions of space and
revealing what lies beyond. Recent Spitzer discoveries include
details about the chaotic planet-forming process around stars;
a faint, star-like object in an area previously believed to
be star-free; and a star system that may harbor the youngest
planet ever found.
- January 2004. Why can't we see
green stars? From Astronomy Magazine, "Ask Astro"
p. 73.
- December 18, 2003 NASA RELEASE : 03-411 NASA
Releases Dazzling Images From New Space Telescope. A new
window to the universe was opened with today's release of
the first dazzling images from NASA's newly named Spitzer
Space Telescope, formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope
Facility. The first observations, of a glowing stellar nursery;
a swirling, dusty galaxy; a disc of planet-forming debris;
and organic material in the distant universe, demonstrate
the power of the telescope's infrared detectors to capture
cosmic features never before seen. The Spitzer Space Telescope
was also officially named today after the late Dr. Lyman Spitzer,
Jr. He was one of the 20th century's most influential scientists,
and in the mid-1940s, he first proposed placing telescopes
in space. ...While the other Great Observatories have probed
the universe with visible light (Hubble Space Telescope),
gamma rays (Compton Gamma Ray Observatory) and X-rays (Chandra
X-ray Observatory), the Spitzer Space Telescope observes the
cosmos in the infrared. Spitzer's unprecedented sensitivity
allows it to sense infrared radiation, or heat, from the most
distant, cold and dust-obscured celestial objects. Today's
initial images revealed the versatility of the telescope,
and its three science instruments. Spitzer Space Telescope
(formerly SIRTF--Space Infrared Telescope Facility) http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu
- The
Meaning of Color in Hubble Images
- June 5, 2002 . Hubble's Infrared Camera is Back in
Business -- New Images Released -- http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/13/
-- After more than three years of inactivity, the Near Infrared
Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) has reopened
its ñnear-infrared eyesî on the universe, snapping several
breathtaking views, from the craggy interior of a star-forming
cloud to a revealing look at the heart of an edge-on galaxy.
- March 20, 2002 -NASA CELEBRATES SUN-EARTH DAY WITH SOLAR
X-RAY FIREWORKS -- http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020320hessixray.html
-- Just in time for Sun-Earth Day, a new NASA spacecraft,
complete with a new name, made its debut by observing a huge
explosion in the atmosphere of the Sun. The blast, called
a solar flare, was equal to one million megatons of TNT and
gave off powerful bursts of X-rays. X-ray movie from RHESSI.(Reuven
Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager) spacecraft
- March 13, 2002 -- Ultraviolet movies of Jupiter http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Jupiter
- Dec. 19, 2001 -- HOT GALACTIC ARMS POINT TO VICIOUS CYCLE
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2001/01-252.txt
-- NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed the aftermath
of a titanic explosion that wracked the elliptical galaxy
known as NGC 4636. This eruption could be the latest episode
in a cycle of violence triggered by gas falling into a central
massive black hole. Chandra's images of NGC 4636 show spectacular
symmetric arms, or arcs, of hot gas extending 25,000 light-years
into a huge cloud of multimillion-degree Celsius gas that
envelopes the galaxy. At a temperature of 10 million degrees,
the arms are 30 percent hotter than the surrounding gas cloud.
"The temperature jump, together with the symmetry and scale
of the arms, suggests that we are observing the effects of
a tremendous outburst that occurred in the center of the galaxy,"
said Christine Jones of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., lead author of a paper
on these observations scheduled for publication in Astrophysical
Journal Letters. "The energy of this explosion would be the
equivalent of several hundred thousand supernovas." RELEASE:
01-252
- Nov. 29, 2001 -- Chandra captures Venus in a whole
new light -- Scientists have captured the first X-ray
view of Venus using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The
observations provide new information about the atmosphere
of Venus and open a new window for examining Earth's sister
planet. Release:
01-362.
- Nov. 7, 2001 -- NASA'S HETE SPOTS RARE GAMMA-RAY BURST
AFTERGLOW -- ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2001/01-218.txt
A rare optical afterglow of a gamma-ray burst, the most powerful
type of explosion in the universe, was recently discovered
by NASA's High Energy Transient Explorer (HETE), the first
satellite dedicated to spotting these frequent yet random
explosions that last only for a few seconds. RELEASE: 01-218
- November 1, 2001 Hubble Reveals Ultraviolet Galactic Ring
-- http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2001/37/index.html
-- Galaxy NGC 6782, when seen in visible light, exhibits tightly
wound spiral arms that give it a pinwheel shape similar to
that of many other spirals. However, when the galaxy is viewed
in ultraviolet light with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, its
shape is startlingly different. STScI-PRC01-37.
- Sept 14, 2001 CHANDRA SPIES RARE ISOTOPES
(Sky & Telescope magazine online)
By peering deep into the Orion Nebula, scientists using the
Chandra X-ray Observatory may have solved one of the lingering
questions about the early days of our own solar system.
The team lead by Eric Feigelson (Pennsylvania State University),
detected high abundances of three atomic isotopes -- aluminum-26,
calcium-41, and beryllium-10 -- around young stars in the
nebula. The isotopes were created by X-ray solar flares from
the infant stars.
The same elements are found in our solar system, locked tightly
in ancient meteorites. Yet astronomers had struggled to understand
how those isotopes got there. The isotopes have a relatively
short life, meaning they must have formed sometime after the
solar system's birth. Nevertheless, it remained unclear how
our Sun could produce them. Only high-mass stars were believed
capable of forming such isotopes. Thus the most likely suspect
was a nearby supernova explosion.
From the X-ray observations, astronomers now see that young
Sun-like stars not only can produce these isotopes, they can
do it in the abundances necessary to match the solar system's
observed quantities. Feigelson explains, "This is an excellent
example of how apparently distant scientific fields like X-ray
astronomy and the origins of solar systems can in fact be
linked."
- Sept. 6, 2001 CHANDRA PROBES NATURE OF DARK MATTER -- RELEASE:
01-180
- Sept. 5, 2001 CHANDRA CATCHES MILKY WAY MONSTER SNACKING.
RELEASE:
01-179
- Aug. 9, 2001 Astronomers go behind the Milky Way
to solve X-ray mystery Release:
01-272
- August 9, 2001 New View of Primordial Helium Traces
the Structure of Early Universe http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/27/
NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE)
- August 9, 2001 Through layers of gas and dust that stretch
for more than 30,000 light-years, astronomers using NASA's
Chandra X- ray Observatory have taken a long, hard look at
the plane of the Milky Way galaxy and found that its X-ray
glow comes from hot and diffuse gas. ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2001/01-161.txt
- August 9, 2001 NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer
(FUSE) satellite has given astronomers their best glimpse
yet at the ghostly cobweb of helium gas left over from the
Big Bang, which underlies the universe's structure. ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2001/01-160.txt
- Kaler, James B., "Beyond the Rainbow", Astronomy Magazine,
September, 2000, pp. 38-43. ... "Astronomers have opened new
windows on the universe by studying the kinds of 'light' we
can't see with our eyes."
- 06/16/00 Astronomers Win Protection for Key Part of
Spectrum http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/getpub?pr0046
-- NSF Custom News Service http://www.nsf.gov/home/cns/start.htm
- 06/16/00 SUGAR IN SPACE As but one example of the
power of radio astronomy, researchers have announced the discovery
of a simple sugar molecule, glycolaldehyde, in interstellar
space. The location is a dense cloud of gas and dust some
26,000 light-years away, in the direction of the galactic
center. According to astronomer Jan Hollis, the discovery
of glycolaldehyde makes it increasingly likely that the chemical
precursors of life are synthesized in these dense clouds long
before the gas and dust collapses to form stars and planets.
Notably, the eight-atom molecule was identified with a 12-meter-wide
radio telescope atop Kitt Peak in Arizona, and the National
Science Foundation will shut down this telescope in July,
in preparation for a new telescope array being built in northern
Chile. (Sky & Telescope magazine)
- 04/14/00 Radio Telescope Reaches
Construction Milestone (Sky & Telescope magazine)
- 03/00 James Trefil, Reaching for the Sun -- How
we learned to read the chemistry of stars and planets;
(Astronomy Magazine, pages 70-74); historical references
to Joseph von Frauenhofer, Gustav Kirchhoff, Robert Bunsen,
Norman Lockyer.
Hard Copy Articles About Color in
Astronomy
- Bova, Ben, Fingerprints from Rainbows, Mercury magazine,
Sept/Oct 2004, p. 22-29. "Besides light's ability to
illuminate the wolrd around us, it also has an equally profound
ability to inform us of the nature of objects in that world."
- Comins, Neal F., Beyond the Pale, Astronomy
Magazine, May, 2002, pp.40-45.
- Skrutskie, Michael, 2MASS: Unveiling the Inrared
Universe, Sky & Telescope magazine, July 2001,
p. 34.
- Wanjek, Christopher, Chandra Delivers, Mercury
Magazine, March-April, 2001 Chandra's 1st 18 months in orbit
have yielded a bonanza of scientific discoveries.
- T. Joseph W. Lazio, Razor-Sharp Radio Astronomy,
May-June, 2001, Mercury Magazine. pp. 34-40. By constructing
virtual telescopes the size of continents (and larger) radio
astronomers are obtaining spectacular high resolution results.
- Zimmerman, Robert, Seeing with X-ray Eyes,
Astronomy Magazine, May 2001, page 36. The Chandra
X-ray Observatory is giving astronomers their sharpest view
ever of the high-temperature universe.
Hard Copy Books About Color in Astronomy
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