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The Universe at Midnight: Observations Illuminating the Cosmos

by Ken Croswell

" ... The Universe at Midnight aims to tell this story of cosmological inquiry and discovery. During the day, scientists and philosophers can construct elegant theories of how they think the universe should operate; but at night, at midnight, when powerful telescopes swing toward distant galaxies, the universe delivers its verdict. Sometimes it validates existing observations and theories. Often, though, it repudiates them, forcing scientists to devise new conceptions of the cosmos. Drawing upon extensive interviews with the scientists who made the key discoveries, The Universe at Midnight tells the twisted, tangled, riveting story as it happened. It is part mystery novel, part detective story, part human drama. It is also, I hope, an up-to-date portrait of the state of cosmology today and how observers and theorists have arrived there. The book therefore proceeds chronologically, as one surprising discovery led to another. It starts with cosmology's oldest observation -- of the darkness that falls every evening -- and ends with the recent discovery that the universe's expansion may be speeding up.

Nearly half of The Universe at Midnight examines work from the past decade, illustrating how rapidly cosmology has progressed. But the book also sounds a note of caution, for this progress has often come at the expense of overturning previous truths. A hundred years ago, for example, astronomers thought that the universe was static, when today we know that it is expanding; forty years ago, they thought that the glittering stars within galaxies constituted the bulk of the universe, when today we think they are mere gems floating on a black velvet sea of dark matter; and ten years ago, they thought that the universe's expansion must be slowing, as the gravitational attraction of the galaxies braked its speed. Furthermore, some features of modern cosmology, such as the mysterious dark matter which sheathes the galaxies, and the repulsive force which seems to drive them apart, are so peculiar that they suggest crucial elements in cosmology remain missing. Although revolutionary discoveries add drama to the story, they also make one wonder which truths presented herein may themselves be overturned, the next time astronomers atop tall mountains point their telescopes at the heavens, at midnight ..."

-- from the Introduction

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With The Universe at Midnight Prof. Ken Croswell takes a look at the history of modern cosmology and the astronomical breakthroughs in the last 10 years that have revolutionized how we look at our universe.

Mammoth new telescopes on Earth, such as the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and Japan's Subaru Telescope, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope overhead, are probing the frontiers of the universe with stunning results. In 1996 astronomers pinpointed the center of the elusive 'Great Attractor,' a mass of galaxies 250 million light-years away that is trying to tug our Galaxy and thousands of others across the universe.

SPACE.com took the time to ask Croswell what it all means.

SPACE

 

SPACE.com: How important do you think black holes are the development of the universe?

 

Ken Croswell: Many giant galaxies, including our own Milky Way, have large black holes at their centers.  In the Milky Way, for example, the central black hole has nearly 3 million times the mass of the Sun.  This black hole may have started out small.  Then, by swallowing stars and gas, it grew larger.  This is quite plausible because within just one light-year of the Galactic center reside millions of stars.  On the other hand, the black hole may have started out nearly as large as it is now.

 

Are supermassive black holes the seeds of galaxies, or just a side effect of galactic formation?

 

Observations of distant galaxies should help answer this question.  When we look at a galaxy 10 billion light-years away, we're seeing it as it was 10 billion years ago.  If large galaxies 10 billion light-years away have only tiny black holes at their centers, then central black holes must have started small and grown larger.  But if distant galaxies have massive central black holes, then the black holes must have been born large.  In that case, they may have helped the galaxy form, perhaps serving as a seed around which the rest of the galaxy gathered.

 

What revelation or discovery in the past 10 years surprised you the most?

 

Without question the 1997 discovery that the universe's expansion is accelerating.  Ever since 1929, when Edwin Hubble discovered that farther galaxies have greater redshifts, we've known that the universe is expanding.  But we assumed that the expansion was slowing.  That's because matter in the universe exerts an attractive gravitational force that tries to bring the universe back together.  Yet recent observations of supernovae in far-off galaxies indicate that the universe's expansion is speeding up.  In the simplest analysis, this speed-up is caused by the cosmological constant, or lambda, the parameter that Albert Einstein invented and then threw out, calling it the biggest blunder of his career.

 

Do you think the people of our society have a generally good grasp of the scope and scale of the universe? How do you think this knowledge impacts people's daily lives?

 

I think knowledge of our place in the universe can enrich our lives, just as music, art, and literature do.  For example, to know that most of the elements in our bodies--the oxygen we breathe, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood--were forged by ancient suns is hauntingly beautiful.  But most people live their lives largely unaware of such concepts, precisely because such matters do NOT affect their lives in any practical way.

 

Do you prefer science fiction or nonfiction reading?

 

I enjoy reading both nonfiction and literature.  Although I earned my doctorate in astronomy, I minored in English literature.  Strangely, the best thing you can say about a novel is that it's so real it seems like nonfiction, and the best thing you can say about a nonfiction book is that it reads like a novel!  I keep this in mind as I write my own books. Although they are rigorously researched and fact-checked, I try to make them read like suspense novels, because science is a great adventure into the unknown.

 

Who are your heroes and how have they influenced you and your work?

 

When writing about astronomy, I am influenced and inspired by outstanding authors.  I aim to write books that are sufficiently substantial and informative that even scientists in the field will learn from them; simultaneously, I want the writing to be so clear and gripping that laypeople are caught up in the excitement, too. Some books that achieve these seemingly contradictory goals include David Grinspoon's "Venus Revealed"; Kip Thorne's "Black Holes & Time Warps"; Timothy Ferris's "The Red Limit"; and Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon."

 

Where in the universe would you most like to travel?

 

Thanks for the offer, but I'm actually quite happy to be right here on Earth.  Our study of other planets ought to teach us that the Earth is a very precious place; all other planets that we have seen or discovered are hostile.  Sometimes writers incorrectly denigrate the Earth, the Sun, and even our Galaxy, calling them insignificant and unimportant.  That's wrong.  The Earth is the only planet that we know supports intelligent life; the Sun outshines 95 percent of all other stars in the Galaxy; and the Milky Way is far larger and brighter than most other galaxies in the universe.

 

What is the most beautiful aspect to space?

 

To me the most inspiring aspect of the universe is its enormous diversity.  Stars, for example, come in a wide variety of sizes, colors, and ages.  I tried to capture this feeling in the first paragraph of my first book, The Alchemy of the Heavens: "The Milky Way's brightest stars emit more light in a single day than the Sun will generate for the next two thousand years, while the faintest stars glow so feebly that if one of them replaced the Sun, noon would be darker than a moonlit night.  The Galaxy's hottest stars pour out large quantities of ultraviolet radiation and appear blue, while the coolest stars shine a ruddy red.  The largest stars, if at the solar system's center, would touch Saturn, whereas the smallest are smaller than the main islands of Hawaii.  The Milky Way's oldest stars date back to the Galaxy's formation, 10 to 15 billion years ago; its youngest are younger than you or I."  I take this as inspiration that we people can all be different from one another, too.

 

Why should we spend money on space exploration over research into deadly diseases?

 

The chief reason our lives today are better than they were in medieval times is because of advances in science, technology, and medicine.  And to quote Karl Schwarzschild, "Mathematics, physics, chemistry, and astronomy march in one front.  Whichever lags behind is drawn after.  Whichever hastens ahead helps on the others."  The point is that we should fund all the sciences, broadly rather than narrowly, since we don't know which will deliver the breakthroughs.

 

What is the most vexing question in modern science?

 

Questions that we might hope to answer include:  What is causing the universe's expansion to accelerate?  Why does empty space exert a repulsive force?  Is there other intelligent life out there? Questions that we might never answer but that are fascinating to ask:  Why did the big bang occur?  Was the universe created by a supreme being?  Are there other universes?

 

Do you think humanity has a responsibility to the wider universe? If so, what do you think it is?

 

For the moment our chief responsibility is to our planet-that we maintain it well--and to ourselves, that we survive. Whether we have a responsibility to the wider universe will depend on our status in the universe, whether we are one of the most advanced life forms in the Galaxy or just one among many.

 

To learn more about Ken Croswell's work go to http:kencroswell.com


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