T. Jarrett, JPL/Caltech
Presented at the Pomona College Physics Colloquia, Oct 7, 1997.
The following images comprise the visual presentation given at the Pomona College Physics Colloquim, "Mapping the Heavens...". It is left to the reader as an exercise to compose the "oral" presentation that binds the images. Use your imagination!
Presentation Sketch & some Key Reminders
A Look Back in Time ... back to the beginning
A Typical Map of the Sky, during the time of the Romans
The Near Past (1950s) and the Ever Present
The first generation of all sky surveys begins
Our sister galaxy, Andromeda (M31)
Modern astrophysics is a diverse field of sub-disciplines
To understand the cosmos, you must build bigger and better telescopes
and send robotic spacecraft to the planets and beyond. Surveys can
be designed to study the "small" -- in depth coverage, or it can study
the "large" -- great swaths of the universe. The Hubble space telescope (HST)
can view both the smallest details of the planets of our solar system
as well as view the edge of the universe itelf -- this is depth! The infrared
astronomical telescope (IRAS) mapped the entire sky in the far-infrared -- this
is breadth.
Spacecraft Galileo photographed this asteroid (Gaspra).
Asteroids and comets are a constant reminder of the delicate dance of
gravitation between the Sun, planets, minor planets and comets.
There are many surveys underway to find these objects, determine their
orbits and provide a first alert to potential (lethal) collisions between
earth and space stuff.
The HST deep field. A look at infinity!
A cartoon depicting "breadth" vs "depth"
The "antenna" galaxy as seen in the mid-infrared by ISO (Infrared Space Observatory). The object is actually two galaxies colliding in slow motion (it will taken billions of years for the dust to settle!).
Our current "world" view -- 1700 years after Ptolemy
This mosaic shows the Galactic plane (looking down the barrel of
our galaxy, the Milky Way), as seen in several different wavelengths.
Depending on which energy band you are looking at, the physical processes
giving rise to the radiation are different -- this is astrophyics.
The Next Generation of Surveys
The 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS)
The next generation of all sky surveys (now underway!).
Want more surveys? There is no shortage of effort here!
The Future of Celestial Surveys
What is Ahead on the Horizon?
Cassini to visit Saturn!
Faster Better Cheaper Missions to Mars and Beyond
Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF)
Origins -- NASA's Mission to Find Planets around
other Stars. The goal to view image "beach front"
property on possible life-bearing planets.
Space Interferometry Mission (SIMM)
Stellar Cartography Through the Ages
The plot shows the numbers of stars (logarithmic)
as a function of time (in years). The first data
points comes around 2000 BC, when we know from
poems and Ptolemy that certain clever men first mapped
the heavens. Later Hipparchus and Ptolemy added to
the list. Not much is done (the damn "dark ages" and
all) until Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Kepler and
Galileo make the scene. Finally, we have the 20th
century where the Palomar sky survey catalogs millions
of stars, and 2MASS will map nearly a billion objects.
That is a lot of names!
