Hidden Universe

The reality is that there is much of the universe we can't see and don't understand. Now, astronomers are beginning to see things that have not been seen and these new discoveries have ushered in a new age of discovery.

How are they doing this?

I've already discussed the new telescope on a desert mountain in Chili. The reason this combination of four telescopes linked together is so amazing is because it's high enough to require oxygen for breathing, and since it's so dry it allows good viewing, especially in the infrared part of the spectrum. The VLT (Very Large Telescope) is so advanced it can detect black holes. The only way this can be done is by using infrared. Atmospheric moisture filters out infrared, so that's why this telescopic array was built there. The four telescopic mirrors can detect light 5 billion times smaller than visible with the human eye. Basically, this telescope can find the accretion disc around a black hole. For example, the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy is only 24 million miles in size, but it can be seen with this telescope.

But, even as good as this telescope is, it's not good enough to detect the full amount of infrared light coming from space. Another way to detect more of this light is to fly up high (into the stratosphere) in a jet plane with an infrared telescope. NASA is using this method to search for newly forming stars in nebulae. Essentially, a former jetliner (called SOFIA) converted to carry an infrared sensitive telescope is being used for this purpose. At 8 miles above the Earth, the plane is above 93% of the atmosphere. Up that high, astronomers can see dying stars and newly forming stars. To do this, the plane must rotate around the telescope, which is always pointing at the same spot in the sky.

Newly forming stars are born out of dust and gas left over from a supernova, which is how a nebula is created. Studying this gas and dust tells astronomers how stars are formed.

Other kinds of light must be used to observe even more interesting things in the universe. This is what must be done in order to observe what happened right after the Big Bang. Sub millimeter light is what must be detected because that's all that could escape from the very cold gas that existed then. To see this light a very large telescope (Actually, an array (66) of telescope antennae (ALMA) linked together) must be used and it must be located in a very high and dry location (Atacama desert in Chili), at 16,500 feet high near the triple-point border of Chili, Argentina and Bolivia. This is where oxygen is needed. This is an ideal location for detecting sub-millimeter light.

X-Ray light is used to see pulsar jets, the high-energy streams from a supermassive black hole of a newly formed galaxy. That requires very unusual telescopes attached to high altitude balloons or sounding rockets. There's also an X-ray astronomy satellite for this purpose.

This is only a fraction of the efforts being executed to see what's hidden out there in the universe. In the future even more will be discovered.

Thanks for reading.