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----------------------------- 1909 - My lifetime in astronomy in review.
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- My 75 years of astronomy and today I have a bookcase that is 12 foot long with astronomy reviews. The goal is to get to 2,000 reviews. This one is #1909. It is a summary of events to look back on.
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- When I started in 1941 the world was focused on “ Was Mars inhabited?” Telescopes could see the canals. Radio telescopes were brand new and there was certainty the signals had been detected that came from aliens in another world. They turned out to be “Quasars”.
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- In 1937 the radio telescope was a 31 foot parabolic dish working at 160 megahertz. The rest of astronomy was “ visible light” only until this radio signal came along. Then infrared and ultraviolet exploration soon followed.
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- The biggest development in 1948 was the 200 inch Hale telescope on Palomar Mountain. The Mount Wilson telescope from 1919 was 100 inch.
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- World War II and the German V2 rockets launched the space age. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, the 23 inch Sputnik I on the nose of a rocket.
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- In 1958 the U.S. launched Explorer I and detected the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth. The U.S. also launched NASA that year.
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- In 1963 we first realized that Quasar spectra were emission lines of hydrogen absorption extremely redshifted due to their light travel over great distance.
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- July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation left over from the Big Bang. The Drake Equation was published for calculating the probability of finding extraterrestrial life and the SETI experiment started to attempt to make contact with them.
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- X-ray astronomy was born. Neutrinos were detected coming from the core of the Sun. Quasars were discovered with redshifts of fantastic distances. Pulsars were discovered. But, nothing could compare with the CMB that was redshifted by a factor of 1,100 into the microwave wavelengths. This tipped the consensus that the Big Bang explained the origin of the Universe.
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- In 1970’s Mariner did a flyby of Mars, Mariner 10 reached Mercury, Voyager 1 and 2 reached Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Vikings 1 and 2 were Mars landers in 1976.
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- 1971 found rapid X-ray variability in Cygnus X-1 which was the first sign of a Blackhole. It was not just the mathematics in Einstein’s equations. Quasars were deemed the result of galactic Blackholes.
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- Cosmic Gamma-ray bursts were detected while we were watching for nuclear weapons tests.
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- A binary pulsar losing orbital energy proved the existence of gravity waves.
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- 1981 the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched. Supernova 1987A exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, our neighboring dwarf galaxy. 1986 Halley’s comet did a fly-by.
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- 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. 3 years later a corrective lens was added by spacewalking astronauts. 1994 Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 dove into Jupiter. 1995 an exoplanet was discovered in 51 Pegasi. This launched a new field of astronomy and today 3,493 exoplanets have been identified. Our conclusion: “ Most stars have planets.” 1996 Comet Hyakutake whizzed by. 1997 Comet Hale-Bopp was in the western sky.
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- 2000’s saw Mars orbiters and rovers, Comet Tempel 1 visit, Messenger visits Mercury, Cassini visits Saturn. Huygens descends on to Titan. Pictures come back of water-powered geysers erupting off the surface of Enceladus.
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- Kuiper Belt objects were discovered to be larger than the planet Pluto. 2006 Pluto and Ceres became “ Dwarf Planets”. ( See Review #1910 for the story on Ceres). 2009 Kepler Space Telescope began the count for thousands of exoplanets based on the transits across the face of stars. Discoveries started with detection using the radial-velocity wobbles of stars.
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- WMAP plotted the afterglow of the Big Bang setting the age of the Universe at 13.8 billion years. Then the ingredients of the Universe were calculated to be 4.9 % Normal Matter, 23% Dark Matter, and 69% Dark Energy. The last two ingredients are still mysteries to be explained in this expanding Universe that is also expanding our knowledge of being here.
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- The new decade of 2010 has a satellite Messenger orbiting Mercury, Dawn orbiting Vesta and Ceres, Curiosity rover crawling the slopes of Mars, Juno nearing Jupiter and Voyager 1 leaving the Solar System behind traveling past twice the distance of Pluto.
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- 2014, BECEP-2 provided precise patterns for the Cosmic Microwave Background. New Horizon flew by Pluto.
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- 2016, LIGO detected gravitational waves from the merger of two Blackholes.
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- 2017, looking forward to what new discoveries astronomy has to offer. “ May you live in interesting times” has certainly not disappointed. But, these are but pebbles on the beach with a whole sea of knowledge stretching out before us.
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- I have individual Reviews on many of these events if you want to learn more about a particular one. Available upon request.
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---- Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ----
--- Some reviews are at: -------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
-- email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
- to: ------- jamesdetrick@comcast.net ------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
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----- 707-536-3272 ---------------- Tuesday, December 20, 2016 -----
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