|

News Release
Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843
Phone: (410) 516-7160 / Fax (410) 516-5251
|
April 7, 1999
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT:
Gary Dorsey,
gdd@jhu.edu
|
|
Chasing the Cosmic Fossil:
FUSE Satellite Will Test Big Bang Theory
A space telescope designed to sort through the chemical muck and
star-making stew of the cosmos will begin scouring for the
fossil record
of the origins of the universe when it is launched from Cape
Canaveral in a
few weeks.
The bold examination -- of objects from nearby planets to the
extreme
outskirts of the cosmos -- is expected to reveal the earliest
relics of the
Big Bang and provide a detailed picture of the immense galactic
structure
of the Milky Way. In the end, scientists say the satellite should
help them
make a huge leap towards understanding how the primordial
chemical
elements, out of which all life evolved, were created and
distributed since
the beginning of time. Among the questions:
What were
conditions like moments after the Big Bang?
How do galaxies
evolve?
Does the Milky
Way have a vast galactic fountain that births stars,
spews hot gas, circulates chemicals and churns cosmic material
over and over again?
Will a fossil
remnant of earliest times subvert the most fundamental
suppositions of the Big Bang theory?
On May 20, a team led by The Johns Hopkins University is
scheduled to
launch a satellite named
FUSE (Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer) and
begin a long-awaited quest to cull answers to some of these
vexing
questions about the origins of the universe.
"The big questions are these: Do we understand the origins of the
universe,
and do we understand how galaxies evolve?" said Ken Sembach, a
Johns
Hopkins scientist working on the project. "Because FUSE can
observe
wavelengths of light that aren't accessible to other telescopes,
we will be
able to test models of chemical evolution in unique ways and
extrapolate
back in time to determine the primordial abundance of an isotope
called
deuterium, which very well may test the limits of the Big Bang
theory."
As one of the first missions in
NASA's Origins
Program, FUSE extends
astronomy's reach much further into the ultraviolet wavelength
region,
allowing astronomers to test fundamental models of cosmic
construction. The
search begins like an archaeological dig around the first minutes
of
creation. In this case, however, the fossil remnant is not the
outline of a
leaf or a bone, but evidence of a hydrogen isotope created solely
in the
Big Bang called deuterium.
FUSE's instrument will conduct a kind of spectroscopic surgery
into the
past and present, sampling measures of deuterium and other
elements in a
variety of places, from the inner
recesses of our solar system to the nether-reaches of the Milky
Way.
Relying on the telescope's finely tuned instrument, astronomers
will be
able to set an accurate benchmark for the amount of deuterium in
the Milky
Way. With that information, they can then "look back" into time
and
determine what conditions were like in the infant universe
moments after
the Big Bang.
Because star creation itself is thought to depend on the regular
destruction of deuterium -- as it is essentially chewed up when
hydrogen
converts to helium -- a map of deuterium abundances in many
regions of the
Milky Way galaxy will give scientists a better understanding of
how
chemicals are mixed and distributed and destroyed.
By concentrating on the structure and galactic fountain of the
Milky Way,
astronomers may end up with a more trusted model of galactic
processes in
general.
"We will learn a lot about circulation and mixing of chemicals in
galaxies
and in the star-forming process," said
William Blair, (pictured at right) a research
scientist
at Johns Hopkins working on the project. "Are there great
galactic
fountains constantly cycling material through supernovae
explosions and
stellar winds, bursting out of the plane of their galaxies,
squirting up
into haloes, cooling and falling back into the mix? At some
level, it must
be happening. But we hope to quantify it in a way that has never
been done
before."
That such an ambitious program arises from one academic
department on a
small campus in Baltimore might once have seemed preposterous.
But besides
its commitment to bold astronomy, the FUSE team has made an
equally bold
commitment to a unique way of doing business, reflecting the
desire of one
federal agency's goal to do things differently.
In 1995, in an effort to save money, the National Aeronautics and
Space
Administration chose Johns Hopkins to be the first college campus
ever to
manage an aerospace project of such magnitude. Heading toward
launch, the
cost of the mission is about one-third what NASA estimated before
inviting
Johns Hopkins to take over the project. As another indication of
the
project's distinctiveness, after launch and for the next three
years, FUSE
will be controlled and operated by a team of scientists,
engineers and
students on the first floor of the
Bloomberg Center for Physics
and Astronomy on the Johns Hopkins campus.
Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the
World Wide Web at
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/
Information on automatic e-mail delivery
of science and medical news releases is available at the
same address.
|
Go to
Headlines@HopkinsHome Page
|