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Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University
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Page 1: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

Things My Mother Never Told Me

About the Universe

Professor Lynn Cominsky

Sonoma State University

Page 2: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky2

Outline

My Mom and the Constellations Mass, Weight and Acceleration Einstein, Mass and Energy What’s the Matter? Matter and Energy in the Universe Going Beyond Einstein Some Last Words

Page 3: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky3

My Mom and the Constellations

I first learned about the stars from my Mom

She taught me the constellations on camping trips with our girl scout troop

And so I started looking up at the night sky in wonder…

Page 4: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Fly Me to the Moon

In 1969, humans first went to the Moon

I thought a trip to the moon would be an easy way to lose weight!

Page 5: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky5

Mass and weight on the Moon

But the astronauts didn’t look any skinnier!

Page 6: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky6

Mass and weight

On the moon, it is the weight that changes, not the mass.

Mass is the quantity of stuff that makes up an object. It is measured in grams (or slugs).

Weight is the force of gravity on mass. It is measured in Newtons (or pounds).

Here on earth, we often use the terms interchangeably (and incorrectly). We say “1 kg = 2.2 pounds” but 1 kg weighs 2.2 pounds

Page 7: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky7

“Weightless” in space?

So, then how do astronauts in the Space Shuttle float around, seemingly weightless?

Astronauts are in orbit about 250 km above the Earth

Page 8: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky8

“Weightless” in space?

On the Earth, F = mg where g = 9.8 m/s2 is the gravitational

acceleration at the surface of the Earth In general, F = GmM/r2 where G is the

Universal gravitational constant Therefore g = GMe/Re

2 where Re = 6378 km is the Earth’s radius, and

Me = 5.972 x 1024 kg is the Earth’s mass .

Page 9: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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“Weightless” in space?

Astronauts orbit at Re + 250 km

= 6628 km Solving for gorbit

9 m/s2

This is not zero gravity!! (Not to scale)

Page 10: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky10

“Weightless” in space?

Astronauts seem “weightless” because they are in freefall – they are constantly falling inside their falling spaceships

Jump in the air, or from a diving board and you too can be in freefall or “weightless”

Page 11: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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“Weightless” in space?

Of course, the astronauts are in freefall for much longer, because they are in orbit, traveling around the Earth while falling continuously

So they don’t feel the Earth’s gravity until they reenter the atmosphere, which pushes on them so hard, that they temporarily weigh more than on Earth

Page 12: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky12

Mass and Acceleration

Galileo showed that since the acceleration due to gravity is a constant, two bodies of different mass will fall at the same rate

In other words: F = ma = mg So a=g

(mass cancels)

Page 13: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky13

Mass conservation

In most everyday situations, mass is conserved.

M1 + M2 = M1+2

Page 14: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Mass conservation

BUT: Mass is not conserved in extreme environments, such as inside the Sun or at particle accelerators

Sun’s image in X-rays from Yohkoh SLAC

Page 15: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Mass and energy

My mom told me about Einstein But I had to go to college to learn the meaning of his famous equation:

E = mc2

Einstein realized that mass and energy were equivalent and interchangeable

SO: It is the total of mass & energy that is really conserved.

Page 16: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Creating Energy from Mass

When two oppositely charged particles meet in flight, they can annihilate to create two gamma-ray photons traveling in opposite directions

The rest mass of an electron or its anti-particle, the positron, is 511 keV/c2

Annihilating an electron creates E= 511 keV

Page 17: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky17

Explosions in Space

Energy is also created from mass when stars explode

Supernovae herald the deaths of stars

Gamma-ray Bursts signal the deaths of even more massive stars

They are the birth cries of black holes

Page 18: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky18

Swift Gamma-ray Burst Mission

Will study Gamma-Ray Bursts with a “swift” response

To be launched in 2004 Nominal 2-year lifetime Will see ~150 GRBs per

year

http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/gallery/sc/swift.jpg
Page 19: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Creating Mass from Energy

Pairs of oppositely charged particles can be produced from a single energetic gamma-ray photon, interacting with converter material

Page 20: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Pair production in space

NASA is launching a telescope in 2006 that uses pair production to track gamma-rays from space to their sources – often huge black holes!

http://lhea.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/gamcos/3c279.jpg
Page 21: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky21

GLAST sees the Universe

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope will locate thousands of super-massive black holes that are beaming jets of gamma-rays towards the Earth

We want to figure out what types of matter are in the jets and how they are made

Page 22: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky22

What’s the matter?

Growing up in Buffalo, we didn’t see too many different types of matter

Instead of ice, liquid water and steam, we had snow, snow and more snow!

Page 23: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky23

Three states of matter

My mom told me there

are three states of matter: Solids Liquids Gases

Page 24: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky24

How many states of matter?

The state of California science standards agree with my Mom: Students know matter has three

forms: solid, liquid and gas (3) Students know the states of matter

(solid, liquid, gas) depend on molecular motion (8)

BUT: Are there really 3 states of matter?

http://www.ca.gov/
Page 25: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky25

A fourth state of matter

But even the ancients knew that there are four types of matter: Earth, Air, Water and

FIRE

So, what is the matter in fire? Or the Sun? Or inside fluorescent light

bulbs?

Page 26: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky26

Plasma – the fourth state

Plasma makes up more than 99% of everything in the Universe that is luminous

Plasma is ionized atomic matter

The electrons are dissociated from their nuclei and are free to move around, interacting with any remaining neutral atoms

Page 27: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky27

Creating matter in the Universe

Atoms formed

Nuclei formed

Page 28: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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A new type of matter?

Scientists at Brookhaven are now trying to break down nuclear matter to create a plasma from quarks and gluons

Page 29: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky29

Quark-Gluon Plasma

QGP formed: after the Big Bang before the formation of protons, neutrons and atoms with the first light

Page 30: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky30

Seeing the Light in the Universe

We see light across the entire energy spectrum: Radio waves (cold gas) Infrared (warm dust) Visible and ultraviolet

(hot stars and galaxies) X-rays and gamma-rays

(stellar explosions)HST/Eskimo

nebula

Page 31: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky31

Page 32: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky32

What’s the Matter in the Universe?

Most normal matter is in the form of atoms of hydrogen and helium

Normal matter (even including plasma) only makes up 5% of the mass-energy of the Universe

Is there matter that does not emit light? Can we feel it, even if we can’t see it?

Page 33: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky33

Dark Matter

Dark matter emits no light, but it interacts with luminous matter through gravity

The blue arcs are images of a blue galaxy that is being lensed gravitationally by dark matter in the yellow-orange galaxy cluster

HST/CL0024+1654

Page 34: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky34

Dark Matter

Dark matter holds in rapidly orbiting stars in the outer parts of galaxies

It also flattens a galaxy’s rotation curve

NGC 3198

Page 35: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky35

Dark Matter

Dark matter holds x-ray heated gas inside of clusters of galaxies

Overlay of visible light image of galaxy cluster with x-ray heated gas (purple)

Page 36: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky36

Dark Energy

In 1998, two teams of researchers announced that they had found evidence for the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe

Some type of new “anti-gravity” seems to be at work, driving this acceleration

It is known as the mysterious dark energy

Page 37: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky37

Dark Energy

A form of DE was predicted by Einstein to solve a problem with his Theory of General Relativity

GR predicted that the Universe would either expand or collapse

However, Einstein believed it should be stable

When the Universe was found to expand, Einstein called this his “biggest blunder”

Page 38: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky38

Page 39: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky39

Going Beyond Einstein

NASA is beginning a new program to test predictions of Einstein’s theories: What happens at the edge of a black hole? What powered the Big Bang? What is the mysterious Dark Energy that is

pulling the Universe apart? Do Einstein’s theories completely describe

our Universe?

Page 40: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky40

BE Great Observatories

Constellation X LISA

Four X-ray telescopes flying in formation

Three satellites, each with 2 lasers and 2 test masses

Page 41: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky41

Beyond Einstein Probes

Census of hidden

Black Holes

Dark Energy InflationBlack Hole Finder

Measure expansion

history

Polarization of CMB

http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/program/inflation.html
http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/program/bh-finder.html
http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/program/darkenergy.html
Page 42: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky42

Beyond Einstein Vision Missions

Big Bang Observer Black Hole Imager

Direct detection of gravitational waves from Big Bang

Resolved image of the Event Horizon

http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/program/bbo.html
http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/program/bhi.html
Page 43: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky43

Some last words from Einstein

“The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible”

Page 44: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky44

And some last words about my Mom…

When my mother taught me a few stars, she opened my eyes to the entire Universe

Gamma-ray sky that will be seen by

GLAST

Page 45: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky45

Resources

http://glast.sonoma.edu http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov http://regentsprep.org/Regents/physics/phys01/accgravi/nogravsm.htm http://scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/wv/0001-02-statesofmatter.html http://www.plasmacoalition.org/ http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov Uwe R. Zimmer - transit-port.net/Galleries/Germany/ pages/Full

%20moon.htm http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/primer.htm http://www.nobel.se/

Page 46: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

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Backup Slides follow

Page 47: Things My Mother Never Told Me About the Universe Professor Lynn Cominsky Sonoma State University.

10/10/03 Prof. Lynn Cominsky47

“Super” states of matter & energy

Superfluids, superconductors, Bose-Einstein condensates and lasers

Many Nobel prizes have been won for explaining these phenomena

All involve unusual physical manifestations in which the particles/photons have the same properties on a quantum level


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