Slashdot Mirror

More details can be found in the Press Release of the European Southern Observatory. They have been using a new instrument called HARPS on the "old" ESO 3.6m telescope, which has ben around since 1976.

http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/lasilla/instruments/harps/overview.html

The speed is the radial velocity, aka how fast it comes closer and goes further. And it's of the order of 1 m/s, which got converted to car speed. Analogy anyone?

Well, the "new Chilenean telescope" the summary is referring to is actually the 3.6m telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, which started operation in 1976...

and here is the link to the ESO Press Release

try here:
http://eso.org/gallery/v/ESOPIA/Galaxies/phot-32a-09-fullres.tif.html

No wait, this isn't an ESA site, but ESO. :-S

And they claim that they're CC Attribution 3.0 compatible on the copyright page. Yay!

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/copyright.html

This appears to be a more useful link:

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2009/pr-27-09.html

In this particular case, it was this.

Method is explained a little in the eso.org link, but here's a wikipedia article, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photometric_redshift.

Also, awesome Tolkien reference apparently acknowledged by Jochen Greiner.

... seriously. This would be such a great accessory for the scientifically-minded. It's a nice, distinctive-looking piece of science. Wear it as an atheist as a statement about religion; wear it next to your christian cross as a non-atheist as a statement about rational spirituality. Whatever - I just think someone could make a nice piece of thoughtful jewelery out of this.

The official release by the ESO is here

You're not going to be happy with the new generation of telescopes then. First of all there's the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). What could be bigger than that? Wait for it ... the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) of course!

Here is the press release from ESO

and if you want to see the pixels in the full glory http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/images/phot-39-08-fullres.tif
not all at once, 78.6MB file could cause the slashdot effect :D

I'm guessing you missed the link that was included in both the slashdot summary and the article!

More interesting, I think, is this infrared movie of stars whizzing around the central black hole

The Milky Way may resemble M83: a barred-spiral with 2 main arms and other less distinct sub-arms:

http://www.eso.org/projects/vlti/instru/prima/images/image13.jpg

there is no workable cosmology being presented

Indeed, there is no alternative, scientific cosmology being presented.

When you get a chance, would you mind providing links to material on any such alternative that addresses (quantitatively, of course) the following:
* why the night sky is dark
* the Hubble relationship (i.e. the relationship between observed redshift and distance, for galaxies, quasars, GRBs, etc)
* the primordial abundance of light nuclides (H, D, 3He, 4He, and 6Li)
* the SED (spectral energy distribution) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - i.e. its 2.73K blackbody spectrum
* the CMB dipole
* the CMB angular power spectrum
* the observed large-scale structure of the universe (here's an example: http://www.sdss.org/news/releases/20031028.powerspectrum.html).

You act as if there is only one possible cosmology that can possibly be created

No need to read the APODNereid tea leaves ... I'll say it directly, loudly, and clearly: I think the number of possible cosmologies (to use pln2bz's term) is certainly greater than one. Further, only a few decades ago at least two possible cosmologies seemed consistent with the relevant astronomical observations and experimental results (today there's only one, that I know of).

many very intelligent people have backed the plasma-based cosmology approach

I thought you'd've given up using this kind of argument; you've certainly been beaten up for it many times, here in SD.

Once upon a time, many very intelligent people backed the "Earth is flat" idea too, and the élan vital approach. The universe cares not one jot what people, intelligent or not, back.

I can tell that you have not read the materials because you consistently assume that the arguments are less powerful than they actually are.

Right, like the one about magnetic reconnection has never been observed in a laboratory (URL:http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=426528&no_d2=1&cid=22144874>), or the solar wind continues to accelerate even as it passes the planets! (http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=426528&no_d2=1&cid=22148864), or Arguing that space must be charge neutral on some scale is tantamount to declaring that we've reached a conclusion on a metaphysical question (http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=358211&cid=21392029).

your objections to it would give way to more nuanced feeling towards it

If you care to read my previous SD comment, in this thread, you'll see what I'm planning to do. In a nutshell, I will examine - using standard methods found in science - "the plasma-based cosmology approach"; specifically, the extent to which it is internally consistent, independently verifiable (or can be independently validated, if you prefer), and key characteristics of the methods used to classify things as "facts" (and "evidence"). I intend to use an empirical approach.

the telescopes are getting better

Indeed they are!

Let's do a little "what if" experiment, shall we?

Imagine you were granted 1 million seconds of time on the Hubble Space Telescope, using any instruments (or combination), and spread out over as much as a year. What would you use your time to observe?

Imagine the same, on any (or combo) of the VLTs (http://www.eso.org/public/astronomy/teles-instr/whitebook/).

On Spitzer (http://ssc.spitzer.caltech.edu/), XMM-Newton (http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/), any of the ATNF (

In future, when I respond to your comments, I shall state explicitly that the intended audience does not include you.

With that preamble over ...

Down here, at the bottom of the ocean of air, distant "point sources" in the optical (or visible) and near-infrared wavebands are smeared out by what astronomers call "seeing". You notice this as the twinkling of stars in the night sky. Assuming radial symmetry*, the 1D distribution of intensity of such a seeing smeared point source looks like a Gaussian, but isn't (it's a Kolmogorov distribution, as the primary source of distortion is turbulence). Adaptive optics is a term used to describe a range of techniques to deconvolve the seeing, to recover the "beyond the atmosphere" 2D distribution of source intensity; the most ambitious of these aim to deliver diffraction limited images, using phase conjugation and laser guide beacons to "measure and compensate for turbulence-induced phase aberrations in three dimensions".

The image cited by pln2bz was taken by NaCO (NAOS-CONICA, Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph), attached to one of the VLTs (http://www.eso.org/instruments/naco/index.html). Note the following comment: "Publications based on data obtained with the NACO instrument should quote the following reference papers: Lenzen, R. et al. 2003, SPIE 4841, 944 and Rousset, G. et al. 2003, SPIE 4839, 140." Clearly, pln2bz did not bother (perhaps he felt his SD comments did not constitute a "publication"); he's in good company, as his source was undoubtedly TPOD (or similar), which also did not bother.

Why does this matter?

Fundamentally, it goes to the issue of "evidence", which EU proponents (not only pln2bz, not only on Slashdot) get so worked up about.

As I said above, the two objects in the VLT/NACO image are statistically the same as two point sources.

One could, as pln2bz has done, claim to see something other than two point sources.

However, one could also claim that there's a face in the image (example1: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070421.html; example2: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990315.html), or a planet with rings (example: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071023.html), or even invisible pink fairies ... there is no objective method (that I know of) to choose between these claims.

Amusing aside: some of you have seen this "neutrino image" of the Sun (or similar) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980605.html, http://elvis.phys.lsu.edu/svoboda/superk/sun.gif. At least one prolific EU proponent interpreted this to show that neutrinos are emitted from the surface of the Sun, not its core! {insert ROFL smilies here}^

Concerning BAUT

There is a very long thread there, on the Electric Universe (nearly 2400 posts! http://www.bautforum.com/against-mainstream/28596-electric-universe-model.html), as well as instructions to all those who wish to post on the topic, and links to all other EU-related threads (http://www.bautforum.com/against-mainstream/45529-read-first-re-posting-electric-universe-ideas-here.html).

In addition, this thread may be of interest to readers of this comment: http://www.bautforum.com/about-baut/55206-reflections-year-half-s-experience-baut-s-atm-section.html.

* whic

Each piece of evidence demands that it be considered on its own terms

How do you go about determining what "its own terms" are, for "[e]ach piece of evidence"?

To what extent must the provenance (for want of a better word) of the 'evidence' also be considered in such determinations?

For example, The microwave background temperature at the redshift of 2.33771 (http://babbage.sissa.it/abs/astro-ph/0012222); abstract:

The Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is a fundamental prediction of Hot Big Bang cosmology. The temperature of its black-body spectrum has been measured at the present time, $T_{\rm CMBR,0}$ = 2.726$\pm$ 0.010 K, and is predicted to have been higher in the past. At earlier time, the temperature can be measured, in principle, using the excitation of atomic fine structure levels by the radiation field. All previous measurements however give only upper limits as they assume that no other significant source of excitation is present. Here we report the detection of absorption from the first {\sl and} second fine-structure levels of neutral carbon atoms in an isolated remote cloud at a redshift of 2.33771. In addition, the unusual detection of molecular hydrogen in several rotational levels and the presence of ionized carbon in its excited fine structure level make the absorption system unique to constrain, directly from observation, the different excitation processes at play. It is shown for the first time that the cosmic radiation was warmer in the past. We find 6.0 {is less than} T_{\rm CMBR} {is less than} 14 K at z = 2.33771 when 9.1 K is expected in the Hot Big Bang cosmology.

(the related ESO PR is here: http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2000/pr-27-00.html).

This reports the results of some very difficult astronomical observations, with the detailed quantitative support for 'Hot Big Bang Cosmology' explained using both the wonderful capabilities of the UVES spectrograph on the KUEYEN VLT and details from quantum theory of the atom ('atomic fine structure levels').

Or, saying this another way, the relevance of the data collected from UVES depends critically upon the accuracy of the (physics) *theories* used to design, build, and operate UVES (and the VLT), and (physics) *theories* on atomic transitions (which may not be testable in the lab, because no lab can create a plasma which mimics the relevant one in the interstellar medium (ISM)).

You and others like you do not consider something worthy of investigating unless there exists mathematical models that can demonstrate it is so.

Please do not try to side-track my questions.

Besides, how do you know what I do (or do not) consider worthy of investigating?

Perhaps you 'know' in the same way you 'know' that I "actively silenc[e] alternative views" (I note that you didn't reply to this)? May one conclude that making unsubstantiated, pejorative statements about other SD writers is an acceptable to you? For example, I could state - without any substantiation whatsoever - that pln2bz is a well-known convicted felon?

For avoidance of doubt: I am not, repeat NOT, asserting that pln2bz is a well-known convicted felon!

There are forms of evidence which can elevate an idea to a level of consideration as plausible, and for which mathematics really doesn't have a lot to say about.

If you say so ... with respect to astronomy and space studies, what are these 'forms of evidence'?

For these, what are the methods which an independent, objective third party could use to test, judge, evaluate, etc the 'plausibility' of any such ideas?

{omitting a large part of your comment, as it concerns your assumptions of what I might, or might not, do with respect to evaluation etc.}

To repeat: dear pln2bz, would you please

...and while the astronomers fiddle with gear you and I can only dream of having access to, take your camera and a tripod outside, and with no more than a portrait lens, you can take shots like these.

Disclaimer: I have a masters in Astronomy but I've never worked in the field. I did the degree "for fun", because I never got the opportunity to study in highschool, and because I wanted to know how we know what we know about the universe. I'm very much an amateur in every respect.

Defintely worth fiddling with camera gear, but at some point if you're taking your own shots you're going to want to use a telescope. Starting with binoculars is definitely the best way. Moving to a dobsonian for viewing (but terrible for photography) is a good next step. (Don't buy anything with a small aperture unless all you're interested in is moon and planets). Next good step would be a Newtonian on EQ mount or SCT. It gets very expensive very quickly. I pretty much gave up on astrophotography. (I live in a large city and when I do get away far enough, I'm usually exhausted from the drive, and there are other priorities (family). Also a 10" scope takes up a hell of a lot of room even in a station wagon).

An alternative to the above is to get hold of sky survey data that's already available and captured by the pro images. There's a lot out there that gets released usually after a year (to give the professional scientists time to work with it). Hubble data, Chandra X-Ray data, SOHO images. It's not all pretty composite colour pictures - you often have to learn to manipulate the images with image software or with more complex data there's specialized software that's not always for the faint of heart (often free, often Linux based). "Amateurs" have done amazing things with some of the images and data. In astronomy there is an "image" (FITS) file format that is actually more than just a simple JPEG etc. You have a background in photography so while it's not strictly RAW data in the sense that it's not coming straight off a sensor, you can think of this format as containing more information the way RAW contains more than JPEG (stuff like calibration information). More information here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FITS
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/fits.html

Please understand I'm not trying to discourage you from backyard astronomy. I just thought you might be interested in this too. These days the guys that take the images/capture data and the guys that analyse them are not always the same. ie. you often have technicians that specialise in running the machines.

Here are some links for you:

FITS data from lots of missions/instruments
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/archive.html

Digitized Sky Survey
http://archive.eso.org/dss/dss
http://archive.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form

Hubble
http://hubblesite.org/

SOHO
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

Chandra
http://chandra.harvard.edu/
http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/

If you want more detail and are prepared to try to work out science speak, you can get access to draft papers on:
http://arxiv.org/
Look under astrophysics

I don't have time to go into any more. Hope you're interested.

Nothing more annoying than a bunch of clueless journalists trying to drum up an anecdotal case as the beginning of a new grandiose trend that will possibly change our lives.

And I call Usian-centric bullshit back in your direction. While the OWL 100m diameter concept proved too difficult, ESO and other European institutions are now working very hard (to the tune of 57 million Euros [$77M] investment in the Phase A/B at present) on the design of a ~40m diameter optical/infrared telescope, now going under the moniker of the E-ELT, or European Extremely Large Telescope. Speaking as someone on the Science Working Group for the E-ELT, it's very much game on ...

See http://www.eso.org/projects/e-elt/ for more information.

We do not need a robotic probe we could build a series of telescopes powered by plutonium in the far reaches of our solar system and use interferometry. The binocular version being planned soon will allow the detection of most larger gas planets nearby and when it is expanded it will allow the detection of nearby terrestrial worlds.

I see what you're saying, but here's the part I doubt:

Once you're at the point where you can influence the position of a star it's very unlikely that you're going to have a problem noticing other civilizations through pure observation

I wonder if the laws of physics allow seeing any kind of civilization in another galaxy. How big of a telescope do you need to hear normal radio communications in another galaxy (we're NOT talking about an intentional "hello world" signal. we're talking about TV and radar etc.) how would you see that?

Take a look at this image:

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2000/phot -07a-00-normal.jpg

Sometimes it's hard to wrap my brain around this, but that fuzzy glow is stars. We can't even see individual stars, just the fuzzy glow. How are we supposed to see radio on a planet around a star when we can't even resolve the individual star?

This is a MUCH bigger problem than searching for life in your own galaxy (that's a huge problem). In order to spot life in another glaxy, they would have to give off enormous amounts of energy.

We need bigger telescopes

Like this. Not only would we be able to see earthlike planets - we'd be able to use spectrography to determine the composition of their atmospheres.

The researchers discovered the companion candidate in an optical image taken with ESO's 3.5-m New Technology Telescope at La Silla, Chile. They decided to take optical spectra and infrared images of the pair with ESO's 8.2-m Very Large Telescope to make sure that it is a true companion, instead of a foreground or background star that happens to be in the same line of sight. These follow up observations indeed confirmed that both objects are young, at the same distance, and much too cool to be stars. This suggests the two are physically associated.

More various astromovies:

Lunar Transit by the International Space Station Alpha: http://members.aol.com/mrtsp91/iss.htm

Meteor explodes in Earth's atmosphere:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981123.html

A Martian dust devil passes rover Spirit:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050426.html

Fast moving stars orbiting black hole SgrA* in the Milky Way's center:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001220.html
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2002/vide o/vid-02-02.mpg

Dynamic rings, wisps and jets of matter and antimatter around the pulsar in the Crab Nebula:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/0052/movies. html

Cat's Eye nebula expanding:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990916.html

Variable stars "twinkling" in globular cluster M3 over a single night:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041012.html

Shock wave of supernova SN1987A creates hot spots in surrounding material:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/ releases/2004/09/video/a

To find more videos try searching NASA's astronomy picture of the day archive: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_sear ch

I *heart* astronomy :]
Me too.

Since I am related to the guy interviewed for the ESO Press Release I feel obliged to link to it.

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2006/pr-0 3-06.html

I have not read the BBC article. But this is the official PR document. It's nice having relatives in the field. I had this news days ago. :)

...of the star in question.

Though larger than any existing optical telescope it is not as large as OWL (the large European Telescope currently in planning).

OWL has a 100m mirror - the TMT has a 30 meter one.

For more info I suggest http://www.eso.org/projects/owl/FAQs.html

But but... the proposed OWL by ESA is even bigger! It should be 100m in diameter if everything goes well ESA OWL site

The Kecks, though they are capable of nulling interferometry, are not capable of imaging interferometry. Or at least they will not be capable of it until they complete the construction of the 4(?) small "outrigger" telescopes around the two Kecks currently on the top of the mountain. The completion of these small outriggers has been delayed for several years however because of the (idiotic) cries of "oh noes it will disturb the sacred mountain spirits so you can't build anything there ever anymore!!" from native Hawaiian tribe organizations. The binocular telescope in Arizona, when finished, will be ready right away to perform full imaging aperture synthesis with a ~22 meter baseline and simultaneous adaptive optics correction (with future capability for advanced multi-conjugate adaptive optics correction). This should (theoretically) allow near .005 arcsecond resolution in the visible spectrum to be achieved. Very exciting.

Take a look at the original press release, dated 16 October 2002.

The article was published in Nature at the same time, and the video isn't new either.

Remind me why this is going up on Slashdot today?

So they actually want to build an array in space

Actually, the cost of building a space telescope is enormous. I think the budget for Hubble was somethink around $US 1 billion , the same as ALMA(http://www.eso.org/projects/alma/) or the VLT(http://www.eso.org/paranal/) even though Hubble is a very small telescope. And since the main problem with surface telescopes( athmosphere's refraction) has been overcome using active optics, i don't think it's necessary to put another space telescope.

So they actually want to build an array in space

Actually, the cost of building a space telescope is enormous. I think the budget for Hubble was somethink around $US 1 billion , the same as ALMA(http://www.eso.org/projects/alma/) or the VLT(http://www.eso.org/paranal/) even though Hubble is a very small telescope. And since the main problem with surface telescopes( athmosphere's refraction) has been overcome using active optics, i don't think it's necessary to put another space telescope.

You should have paid more attention.
Such telescopes exist.

If you want big as in "mind boggingly big" or maybe even Overwhelmingly Large, you may want to check ESO's next step: a 100-m optical telescope called OWL, Overwhelmigly Large Telescope -- and yes, this one of those "my telescope is bigger than yours" posts! :p

If you want big as in "mind boggingly big" or maybe even Overwhelmingly Large, you may want to check ESO's next step: a 100-m optical telescope called OWL, Overwhelmigly Large Telescope -- and yes, this one of those "my telescope is bigger than yours" posts! :p

And of course the GMT is being built as a single scope with one focus, while things like the VLT, Keck and LBT use interferometry to get sharper images.

(And adaptive optics! I want telescopes with frickin' laser beams strapped to their heads!)

Largest optical, perhaps...until OWL!

"With a diameter of 100 meter, OWL [Overwhelmingly Large Telescope] will combine unrivalled light gathering power with the ability to resolve details down to a milli-arc second."

Link: OWL

According to the image credits, the picture comes from the VLT http://www.eso.org/paranal//. I'm not sure Hubble can compete with its resolution.

It is not really accurate to say that "Jupiter itself is a net producer of energy". Is Jupiter a net EMITTER of energy? Yes, but this energy is the leftover heat of formation from the protoplanet nebula. D+D fusion does not happen in Jupter. Incidentally I predict "planet" imaging simillar to this will become commonplace in about 2 years when VLTI interferometric imaging comes online.

I actually work at the ESO, at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen in Garching, Germany. This is a major event for them up there- (I'm surprised it made /., they usually discourage it as they discouraged me from posting about the Venus Transit last year) . Generally, they have to fight hard to get funding from the government (although Europe is nicer about astronomy (as opposed to stuff like the ISS) than the US), so something like this is great. It incites public interest in astronomy, which is always needed for scientific institutions such as this.

Early observatories were built near (or within!) cities. With each subsequent generation they were moved further away and to higher altitudes to get away from pollution (light and chemical) and above as much of the atmosphere as possible.

Early observatories were built near (or within!) cities. With each subsequent generation they were moved further away and to higher altitudes to get away from pollution (light and chemical) and above as much of the atmosphere as possible.

...there *are* certain galaxies that look like oranges. http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2003/imag es/Phot32/phot-32a-03-normal.jpg

Actually, I assume he did in fact mean the VLTI, or VLT Interferometer. Given the broken English, my first thought was that he was a European working on the project, but I'm too lazy to confirm that. The idea is basically to have a VLBI-like-array, only in the optical and IR, using the four VLT telescopes and a series of outrigger telescopes that can be moved around the main four. As to how it stacks up to Hubble in the visible, I'm not really an expert on that. But with baselines of order a hundred meters, the theory certainly looks good.

I have used the VLT in the infrared, and can tell you it (well, UT-4 with NACO) quite certainly does better than Hubble in resolution. And while my extragalactic friends (er, friends studying things outside the Milky Way, not actual alien friends) may not be happy to hear it, being able to image faint sources isn't the ultimate factor in ranking telescopes. I look for planets, so I care a lot about contrasts, and the VLT can very nicely out-perform Hubble there.

We've recently discovered n close, faint companion to the star AB Dor with the VLT-NACO system, and got some very good science out of it. This is an object Hubble looked for prior to us, and failed to detect. Mind you, we had some special optics that Hubble didn't, so we did have an advantage there.

But ultimately, I agree with your main point, that there are many factors in determining which telescope is best for your science. The VLT excels in areas where Hubble falters, and vice versa. Astronomy will be at its best with every resource it can get; there's a lot less redundancy than people assume. So yeah, boo NASA, and I need to figure out how to fit a "Save Hubble!" bumper sticker on my bike.

Worst mispelling I've seen on /. yet... You have woken my latent spelling nazi.

It's called Spitzer.

And, while I'm posting, I might as well point out that it's the VLT (Very Large Telescope), not VLTI. Maybe you were thinking of VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry - a technique for high resolution radio images)?

One more thing - ground based telescopes like VLT are better than Hubble at many things, are catching up in resolution, but are inferior when it comes to background. They see things through the atmosphere, which glows faintly and makes it harder to see things like dim distant galaxies. Hubble can see things which are dimmer, which is important for cosmology since dim things are often far away.