|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
Then There Was Light
This shot of the Swan Nebula, which astronomers believe
is illuminated by hidden young stars,
was among the first four images released by NASA from the
Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). When astronomers peer out from Earth into the vast recesses of the universe, they do much more than look across space. Light from galaxies and other distant objects must travel for millions or billions of years before it reaches Earth, so when astronomers observe those objects now, they're actually seeing the way they looked long ago.
The astronomers' trek across space and time towards the
edge of the universe and its creation has been powerfully
aided for a decade by the orbiting
Hubble Space Telescope. |
|
|
Before (at left) and
after images reveal the eruption of a distant exploding
star (highlighted with an arrow on the right). The right
image was taken using ACS, which astronomers think will
enable them to find many of these stars, known as
supernovae. Photo courtesy NASA and Blakeslee |
 In March 2002, astronomers' ability to peer across the universe entered a new phase when astronauts from the space shuttle Columbia installed the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the orbiting Hubble telescope. Holland Ford, professor of physics and astronomy in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, led a team of scientists and engineers that spent five years designing and building the ACS, packing its frame — about the size of an old-fashioned phone booth — with the most powerful and technologically advanced observational equipment available.
Ford predicted in early 2002 that the ACS would increase
Hubble's potential for discovery tenfold. Astronomers would
be able to image more distant objects in shorter observing
runs, at higher resolutions, and over wider swaths of sky
than ever before. |
|
Also among the first four ACS images released by NASA
was this photo of the Cone Nebula, a structure of cold gas
and dust. Astronomers are still unsure of this nebula's
origins. Photo courtesy NASA, H. Ford, G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA |
Just over a month after the ACS installation, at an April
20, 2002, press conference, Ford and NASA offered the
public four colorful and gorgeously detailed images of
distant space produced by ACS.Scientists don't generally admit to being tickled, but Ford is clearly delighted when he speaks of the results astronomers have obtained from ACS.
"It is very rare that Dr. Murphy — of Murphy's Law
— takes a holiday, but in the case of our wide field
camera, Dr. Murphy did indeed take a holiday," says Ford.
"That camera's sensitivity was about 10 percent better than
we thought it would be based on the calibrations we did on
the ground. It nearly always goes the other direction. What
a nice surprise!" |
|
A Hopkins astronomer, Holland Ford, led the effort to
design and build ACS, but teams from many places are now
using ACS to produce remarkable new images. Right,
scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA)
used ACS to take their deepest look ever into faint stars
in the halo surrounding the nearby Andromeda
Galaxy. Photo courtesy NASA, ESA and T.M. Brown (STScI) |
ACS highlights include the discovery of the largest-ever
instance of a phenomenon known as a gravity lens.
Narciso
Benítez, an ACS team member and an associate research
scientist at Johns Hopkins, led the team that produced the
image of the gravity lens, which occurs when the gravity of
an enormous mass (in this case, a cluster of galaxies)
warps and magnifies the light coming from behind it (see
image by Narciso Benítez towards end of feature.).
"People who were working in [galaxy] clusters and
gravitational lenses were astonished," says Benítez. "We
had quite a few people say that it is one of the most
beautiful pictures they had ever seen." |
|
Astronomers from NASA, the National Optical Astronomy
Observatory (NOAO), and the ESA produced this image of the
Helix Nebula by combining nine images taken with the ACS
and a wider image from a ground-based
telescope. Photo courtesy NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO) |
More than just beautiful, the new image delivered insights
into important astronomical phenomena like early galaxies
and dark matter, adds Benítez.Ford and John Blakeslee, an associate ACS research scientist at Johns Hopkins, made news in April when they announced the detection of two new and very distant supernovae. Through ACS, they were able to identify the supernovae as members of a class of exploding stars astronomers use to gauge distances across the universe (see opening image at the beginning of this feature).
"The sharper images, wider viewing area, and keener
sensitivity of ACS should allow astronomers to discover
roughly 10 times as many of these cosmic beacons as was
possible with Hubble's previous main imaging camera,"
commented Blakeslee at the time. The new supernovae will
help astronomers develop a picture of the universe's
expansion, a process that is much more complicated than
they originally expected. |
|
Hopkins astronomer Narciso Benítez and others produced
this ACS image by peering through a massive cluster of
galaxies. The gravity of tremendous masses can bend light
just like a lens, and in this case the cluster of galaxies
has bent and magnified the images of galaxies behind the
galactic cluster, giving astronomers a look at some of the
most distant galaxies they've ever seen. Photo courtesy NASA, N. Benitez, T. Broadhurst (Racah Institute of Physics/The Hebrew University), H. Ford, M. Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), G. Illingworth (UCO/LO), the ACS Science Team, and ESA |
The astronomers who use ACS have only just started work on
an ambitious agenda of groundbreaking new studies. Included
in their objectives are probing the structure and evolution
of the distant, early universe; looking for early signs of
planetary formation; investigations of the geometry of the
universe; and, if they're very lucky, maybe even the first
direct images of planets in other solar systems. Ford,
clearly tantalized by the last possibility, admits that
it's a long shot.
"I think that there is a chance," he says. "It's going to
be difficult, for sure, but we're going to try it." |
|
The other two ACS images initially released by NASA
included these shots of the Mice (top), two spiral galaxies
colliding in a violent merger, and the Tadpole Galaxy
(bottom), another galaxy involved in a violent collision.
Photo courtesy NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M. Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA |
 Whether that effort is successful or not, Ford is confident that a range of new discoveries and insights from ACS observations are on the way. "In a lot of areas, observers who use the ACS simply will write the chapters in textbooks, and those chapters aren't going to be superseded for a decade or more until there is a telescope with an order of magnitude larger size than Hubble," says Ford.
(For a complete list of scientists and engineers from across the country who contributed to ACS, go to acs.pha.jhu.edu/general/personnel/sci-team/.) |
|
|
|
The Johns Hopkins Magazine | The Johns Hopkins University |
3003 North Charles Street | Suite 100 | Baltimore, Maryland 21218 | Phone 410.516.7645 | Fax 410.516.5251 |
|
NASA planners hope to launch the next space telescope in
2011. Hubble's schedule calls for it to be retired in 2010,
but Ford and other astronomers have been urging NASA to
consider an extension that will keep Hubble aloft longer,
and an expert panel recently agreed with them. Regardless
of whether that extension is won, ACS will stay in Hubble
until its retirement. 