Telescope In Chile's Mountains Looks For Signals To Explain How The Universe Began

[Judi Lynn]

July 17, 20194:32 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

There's a telescope high up in the mountains of Chile that's looking for signals from the earliest moments of the universe. Finding these signals would be key to explaining how the universe began.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

There's a telescope high up in the mountains of Chile that's looking for signals from the earliest moments of the universe. Finding these signals would be key to explaining how the universe began. NPR's Joe Palca has just returned from a visit to the telescope, and he has this report on a remarkable facility in a remarkable location.

JOE PALCA, BYLINE: The telescope is called CLASS. It's located on top of Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. And at 17,000 feet, it's one of the highest telescopes in the world.

Ready?

JULIANA COUTO: I'm ready.

PALCA: OK. Shall we start outside?

COUTO: Yeah, let's go outside.

PALCA: Juliana Couto is the site manager for the telescope. We've emerged from a warm control room into the chilly, thin air outside. It's winter in the Southern Hemisphere, but today is a balmy 40 degrees.

But you don't come up here every day.

COUTO: We come here usually from Monday through Saturday.

PALCA: The Atacama Desert is covered with red soil and rocks stretching far into the distance.

COUTO: We could be on Mars. It's definitely an unique place on Earth (laughter).

More:
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742819020/telescope-in-chiles-mountains-looks-for-signals-to-explain-how-the-universe-bega?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science






Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor
CLASS Telescope
Mountain - Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert

Science:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/122865074

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. My son is in an astronomy PhD program.

I often refer to him as My Son the Astronomer. His current area of research is exoplanets, but earlier today we were talking about black holes and aspects of the evolution of the Universe.

For those of you who don't have an astronomer in the family, here's a couple of factoids. The very earliest stars in the Universe contained only Hydrogen and Helium, were quite massive, and didn't live very long. They're known as population 3 stars. As they died off, mostly by exploding as novae, and started creating metals (and to physicists all elements after helium are metals) and the next generation of stars, known as population 2 stars, came into existence. Most have them have lived out their natural life span, although not all. But they died and created even more metals, and so population 1 stars, of which our own sun is one, came into existence.

Here's what's so astonishing, and even though my son has been explaining this to me for several years now, I still find it totally mind-boggling, is that every single element in the periodic table and on this planet had its origin inside a star somewhere.

We were also discussing black holes, but I'll spare you that conversation.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Didn't know any of the material you just covered. Wow.

Will read your post over a couple of times, and will be much more able to remember the terms, and the "gist" for later.

I surely appreciate your taking the time to spell it out for those of us who have never been exposed to this information.

Thanks for not adding black holes, that subject has been looming far, far above my head for longer than I can describe.

So much is happening so fast, currently.

Look as if your son is right in forefront of the main stream of the future of mankind. Must be an exciting realization of his interests, his training, stage for his talents, and you are getting some incredible secondary effects!

So much to learn from him, every day.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Aside from the fact he's my son and of course I think he's the most wonderful person

in the world, he is an incredible fount of knowledge.

I often joke that I could give you his cell phone number, and you could text him asking, "Is Ask the Astronomer available?" (which is what I often text to him when I have one of my many astronomy questions). Were he to respond, you'd then say you're a friend of his mother's and ask your question. Hint: even after he's answered your question, simply ask, "What else?" and he'll often go on with much more information.

I don't actually give out his phone number, but he is the most amazing resource ever. Earlier today when we were talking I told him, as I often do, how much I enjoy talking to him and how much I learn. He said it was also a lot of fun on his end. Wow.

I know I'm different from a lot of moms with kids in a PhD program. Luckily for me he went in to one of the fields I'm totally fascinated by. I also remember enough content from high school and later community college classes to make sense of what he tells me. I am so incredibly lucky to have him in my life.

Here's one of the small things I've learned from him:
You know we live in the Milky Way galaxy, which has about 300 billion stars. The next nearest galaxy to speak of (there are other much smaller ones that don't really count here) is Andromeda, which has a trillion stars. More than three times as many as we have. Amazing. Anyway, you might actually already know that these two galaxies are on a collision course and will crash together in about 4.5 billion years. Brace yourself.

A while back I asked My Son the Astronomer just how many stars will actually crash into each other when that occurs. He said, "Well, we're not really certain, but probably no more than ten." Think about it. A galaxy with 300 billion stars collides with one with a trillion stars and no more than ten stars altogether smash together? That tells you more than anything else just how vast interstellar distances are.

Do keep in mind that lots more stars will gravitationally interact. But still.

Every single time I speak with him I learn new things. This most recent conversation was mostly about black holes. Apparently there's reason to believe that black holes came into existence very early on in our Universe, although those early ones are perhaps only constructs, and they don't necessarily still exist.

I'll stop now, but this gives you a flavor of my conversations with him.

I am a very fortunate mom.