The universe.  Is it expanding?  Is it shrinking?  Is it a finite space?  If so, what lies beyond the edge of the universe?  If I were to reach my hand past this point, what would I reach into?  These are some of the questions that have always intrigued me, and pushed me to dig deeper into the characteristics of our universe.

Interpretation of the Big Bang

From the very beginning, there have been disputes as to whether the universe is finite or infinite.  For example, Einstein originally argued that the universe was an infinite, yet static universe.  This meant that the universe would continue on forever, but everything – such as our galaxy – would be suspended in space like raisins suspended in an infinite pool of Jell-O.  This was later proved to be false by Edwin Hubble.

Discussed earlier in my post about the Hubble Space Telescope, Edwin Hubble is a famous American astronomer who discovered galaxies other than our own.  While this in itself was a revolutionary discovery, proving there was more to the universe than just our Milky Way, Hubble also detected longer wavelengths of light emitting from these discovered galaxies.  This phenomenon, known as “redshift”, is when light waves appear longer when they are originating from a source that is travelling away from the observer.  By this token, this brought forth the idea that all of the galaxies are flying away from our own galaxy at incredible speeds.

Three different theories of universe expansion

From this idea came three possibilities of expansion: Open Expansion, Flat Expansion, and Closed Expansion.

• Open Expansion – theorizes that the universe will continue to expand infinitely
• Flat Expansion – theorizes that the universe will continue to expand, but will do so at a decreasing rate
• Closed Expansion – theorizes that the universe will eventually stop expanding, and will begin collapsing into itself as time goes on.

The idea of a closed expansion model of the universe is worrying to me, since the concept of the universe collapsing onto itself seems scary.  However, I do not believe there exists an open expansion model because it does not make sense that the universe would be continuously expanding at a faster rate over time.  In my opinion, there simply is not enough evidence to suggest that the universe should keep expanding forever.  Eventually, matter will begin to pull everything back together.

Expanding space, not preexisting space

An important addition to this discovery is that due to the galaxies relative positions to each other, it is clear that they are not expanding into preexisting space.  Instead, space itself seems to be the thing expanding.  So if space is currently expanding, if we rewind time, space should appear to be shrinking.  What would happen if we rewound time until all current matter in the universe was condensed into a small area?  This question began the theory of the Big Bang.

Like most theories about space, there is no certain answer for how the universe is behaving, or what the future holds for the universe.  I am always fascinated by the concept of there being an edge to the universe, and am curious to see where new discoveries take our understanding of the universe and our surroundings.

Life on other planets has been a question humanity has been unable to answer.  We have been scanning the night sky for interesting phenomena and the possibility of finding life on other planets for many years.  Within the past month, there has been a surge of mysterious radio waves that scientists have observed flying toward the earth.  Could these waves be produced by an intelligent form of life billions of light years away, or is it simply a new natural phenomenon of space that we have yet to observe in detail until now?

Australia Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP)

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are high frequency radio waves that travel extremely fast and contain immense amounts of energy.  A single FRB can contain more energy than our Sun produces in eight decades.  Unfortunately, these bursts are observable only for a few brief milliseconds, making it very difficult to collect larges amounts of data from a single burst.  As is, the first FRB was recorded in 2007, but it wasn’t until a few years later that scientists confirmed that the FRB was not just a glitch in their instruments.

Since the first FRB’s discovery in 2007, more than 30 FRBs have been recorded.  However, within the past month scientists have discovered another 19 FRBs.  This is thanks to the Australia Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope.  This powerful network of satellite dishes has been able to quickly identify many incoming radio waves, including these 19 new FRBs.  What makes this phenomenon very mysterious is that these 19 FRBs all arrived at Earth at generally the same time.

While scientists are not entirely sure where these FRBs are coming from, they are confident that their origin is numerous billions of light years away.  Even so, the ability to detect more of these FRBs provides insight as to what matter is present throughout different parts of the universe.  As a radio wave passes through different environments of space, different wavelengths of a radio wave can be slowed more than others.  When these wavelengths arrive at Earth at different times, scientists can estimate the types of environments the radio wave passed through such that it arrived at Earth in it’s current condition.  As a result, we can gather an idea of both where and what kind of environments exist in space.

Another image of a few satellites of the Australia Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP)

Some believe these FRBs are produced by an intelligent form of life as a communication beacon, whereas others believe it may simply be the result of supernovas or black holes.  Personally, I would be thrilled to discover they are from intelligent life forms.  Since the FRBs originate from billions of light years away, I imagine these life forms would be very different than when they first sent the FRB.  While I would still find it fascinating if the FRBs originated from something such as a supernova or a black hole, I think it would be less exciting than learning there is other life out in the universe.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been an inspiring achievement in many of our childhoods.  Launched in 1990, it has been collecting mind-blowing images of the cosmos for nearly three decades.  Unfortunately, on October 5th, 2018, the inevitable happened to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Hubble Space Telescope is named after Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer known for discoveries such as the Andromeda galaxy and the fact that the universe is expanding at a rate now known as “The Hubble Constant”.  Even though the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, it had initial issues preventing it from taking effective observations.  After a service mission in 1993, the Hubble began taking wondrous pictures of the cosmos and beyond.

The Hubble has a total of six gyroscopes, all of which assist in turning and stabilizing the telescope when it is observing distant objects.  These six gyroscopes were installed in a service mission in May of 2009.  Three of these gyroscopes were standard operating gyroscopes, but the other three were structurally enhanced to provide longer operating times without failure.  While these six gyroscopes were only supposed to last until 2015, the Hubble still had all three enhanced gyroscopes operational as of this fall.

However, last Friday, one of the three remaining gyroscopes failed inside of the Hubble Space Telescope.  While the Hubble is still operational, it brings to the table serious concerns about the long-term uses of the telescope.  

Death of a Star – The Rotting Egg

When this gyroscope shut down, the Hubble entered a safe mode where the telescope flies freely through space without rotating.  The current plan is to work with the failed gyroscope to determine whether it can be reactivated.  Fortunately, even if this gyroscope does not come back online, there is still hope for the Hubble in the near future.

If the malfunctioning gyroscope cannot be salvaged, the current plan of operation for the Hubble is to use just a single gyroscope at a time.  While it operates ideally with at least three gyroscopes, the Hubble is technically able to operate with just a single gyroscope without losing a significant amount of scientific data.  NASA wishes to take this approach to squeeze as much life out of the remaining gyroscopes as possible.

While the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to be the Hubble’s replacement, I personally believe it is valuable to keep the Hubble operational.  To start, the James Webb Space Telescope already had issues which delayed its launch until 2021.  It is impossible to know what obstacles could inhibit the correct deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Hubble is already positioned correctly in orbit.  The Hubble – specifically the gyroscopes – have already been repaired before, and the telescope has provided countless amazing discoveries.  Like the saying “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, I think is more effective to repair something we have already repaired before instead of scrapping it entirely and moving to something different.