Our Universe is full of mysteries.
Astronomers have always tried to decipher the night sky and gain a better understanding of the Cosmos,
but what are the hottest topics right now in astronomy?
Every night, telescopes like ESO's
are used to investigate a host of astronomical mysteries.
We asked astronomers to identify some of the most exciting questions in cutting-edge astronomy.
These scientists are part of the team who review thousands of observing proposals every year.
They make sure that only the most interesting science is done with ESO's telescopes.
One of the major science questions at the moment in cosmology is trying to understand the dark side of our Universe.
We know that there are two entities on the dark side, something called dark matter,
which is the strong gravitational force in our universe, and something called dark energy,
which is mysteriously causing the expansion of our Universe to get faster and faster each and every day.
Now if we want to understand these dark components of the Universe,
then what we have to do is take really large
surveys of the sky to really map out where the dark matter is and really constrain how dark energy is
changing how those structures of dark matter evolve with time.
On the galaxy side, one of the big
new science areas that's been coming out is a really exciting science case that looks at very distant quasars.
Now it looks at the light from these distant quasars, and as that light travels towards us on earth, it gets
absorbed by some of the clumps of gas and stuff that's in between us and them, and so they can use these
observations to map out where all of the gas is in our Universe between us and those quasars.
It's a really newly emerging field, where you can use this information to look at how that gas is moving,
how it's funneling in and feeding galaxies and creating new stars.
These distant quasars can also be used to understand an era in the very early universe,
an era known as reionisation.
The Universe nowadays is ionised, since almost the beginning of the Universe with the Big Bang.
After the Big Bang there was a period of neutral Universe,
we call it the dark times and after that the reionisation started,
and we don't know very well what produced that reionisation.
Can be quasars, can be galaxies. So many teams are
devoted to that kind of science.
Another hot topic is what is the life cycle of a galaxy? A galaxy is formed by gas, which accretes
gravitationally into a potential world, but then you may ask the question:
how do the metals, the heavy elements that we see in the circumgalactic medium and
perhaps also in the intergalactic medium get there? How are these metals
transported back from the galaxy to the
surroundings of the galaxies.
Galaxies aren't the only structures we don't yet fully understand.
Astronomers are also
investigating globular clusters,
spherical groups of stars, which orbit the cores of galaxies.
Globular clusters were thought to be all very
monotonic all the same types of stars born at the same time with the same metallicity living the same life,
but it turns out in fact there are multiple populations of stars, which means they were either
born at different times or they lived a slightly different life, or maybe they came in from the outside.
And so trying to understand this process that's a lot of proposals on this particular subject at the moment.
There's also a lot of interesting proposals on what are called transient objects,
which are objects that go off and then that's it.
And you want to catch them when they go off. There are proposals that are trying to look for candidates
to see where they are and then when they go off, you know what they were before, and
some of these transients they go off, but then they have an afterglow,
and you want to be able to catch these with different sorts of instrumentation
to find out what's happening to them afterwards because then you can figure out what they are.
A particularly interesting type of transient event is
supernovae.
These dazzling explosions can fade from view after only a matter of weeks,
but which stars do they originate from?
Supernova type 1a progenitor, that's a kind of
supernova, which are
important because astronomers
believe that the energy produced during such an event is more or less the same for all of them so they are used in
cosmology as
standard candles.
We know how big is the universe, how it evolves. We know all this by using this object as this
distance calibrator. These objects provide this information, but yet we don't know their progenitors.
We never saw a star which erupted as such a supernova before the eruption and that's something which people
are very interested in and we hunt for them.
Supernovae aren't the only mysterious objects in our Universe. In fact more and more are being discovered.
There are a number of very interesting topics that people are trying to pursue at the moment.
Some deal with the supermassive black holes that reside in the centre of galaxies, and
how they connect with the rest of the galaxy.
Others are
about very small and very faint galaxies that we actually discovered only a few years ago that they exist and
just trying to get their
properties is a very difficult and challenging task. And there are also
proposals that deal with things that we've known for many years
but the explanation of the physical processes that are happening is eluding us.
Many astronomers are also excited about what we will discover much closer to home.
I think the hot science is really in the field of extrasolar planets, in particular observations.
There are two things happening with them. The first is
observations
through either direct or indirect means of smaller and smaller planets around dimmer and dimmer stars,
so you're looking really we're on the hunt now for Earth-like planets around
Solar type stars as well as red dwarfs, right.
And then also at the same time we have the capability now on ESO to really actually study their atmospheres
directly, right, which is which is absolutely mind-boggling.
These topics are being investigated by astronomers around the globe using world-class facilities like ESO's.
Their findings will deepen our understanding of the Universe.
Transcribed by ESO; Translated by –
For more infomation >> Dirt Rally 2.0 - Primeras Impresiones - Duration: 20:17. 
For more infomation >> ZING SPEED MOBILE ★ Review Acc Bé Chanh - Xe Khủng, Đồ Bao La Trị Giá 21 Triệu - Gặp Fan Hài Hước - Duration: 16:03. 
For more infomation >> Moneda $20 Pesos Cultura Maya Moneda Mexicana / Mexican coin / Proof / Mexicaanse valuta - Duration: 6:47. 
For more infomation >> "Ștefan Bănică jr. și Mihaela Rădulescu au fost împreună la cinema, la "Titanic"!" Prietena Răduleas - Duration: 3:08. 
For more infomation >> Ce se întâmplă cu partajul dintre Roxana Ciuhulescu și fostul ei soț? Vedeta s-ar putea reîntâlni în - Duration: 4:38. 
For more infomation >> 为什么人们，对王菲和张柏芝的评价差别这么大？赵薇八字说出根本！ - Duration: 3:33. 
For more infomation >> LE PREMIER PAS de CLAUDE MICHEL SCHÖNBERG - Duration: 3:36. 
For more infomation >> Zũ Lầy TV | Troll Vợ Ngày Valentine 14/2 - Tuấn Vũ Hà Xuyên - Duration: 9:52. 
For more infomation >> Creación de planos con VFX en Nuke | Un curso online de Ramón Cervera - Duration: 3:03. 
For more infomation >> CHINGU TALK #2: OUR KPOP JOURNEY + GIVEAWAY [TURN ON CC] || 93 Line Chingu - Duration: 7:57. 
For more infomation >> '미우새' 김신영 34kg 감량 생생 경험담, 홍선영 다이어트 도움 될까 - Duration: 4:38. 
No comments:
Post a Comment