GIANT TELESCOPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 December 1938, Page 7

GIANT TELESCOPE

Bid PROBLEMS AWAITING SOLUTION IS THE UNIVERSE EXPANDING? I LEMAITRE’S DYNAMIC THEORY. When California's giant 200 in telescope is completed, some time in 1946, one of its first assignments will be to determine whether our universe is really expanding like a giant soap bubble with the outermost galaxies and nebulosities travelling away from us at tremendous speeds, or whether it is after all, stationary (writes Herbert B: Nichols), in the “Christian Science Monitor”). This is a question growing out of astronomical observations that show light coming from galaxies in the far regions of space to be shifting toward the red end of the spectrum. This has been likened to the whistle of a locomotive which increases in pitch as it approaches, but "howls down” as it travels away, so does, the light of distant galaxies act when viewed through the world’s greatest telescopes. Even in the lOOin telescope at Mount Wilson, it is impossible to break down nebulae, some of which are 500.000,000 light years away, into individual stars but it is possible to estimate theii number, size, and weight by their emitted light.. « It may be, however, that a new fundamental of physics is required to account for the red shift of distant nebulae. Perhaps light becomes tired in travelling so far, and like long-distance runners, if the race is too long, it drops out. Researchers holding to this explanation argue that starlight shifts because the photons or light particles tire and eventually vanish. UNIVERSE BLOWING UP? The strange part of the whole problem is, that when the apparent speed of the distant nebulas is measured, all but our own local group seem to be receding from us, the more distant ones going, faster, some reaching a velocity of 26,000 miles a second-unbelievable but thoroughly in accord with the dynamic theory of Abbe Lemaitre whe postulated a universe that is blowing up. Astronomy today is inclined tc accept this view, the other possibilities being Einstein’s original static universe, and de Sitter’s empty cosmos. Of course, no velocity is actually measured. What is observed is that the spectral lines due to the white heat of elements which make'up the stars are shifted from their normal position—always toward the red end of the spectrum —and the more distant the nebula;, the greater the shift. The problepi was first stated mathematically by Dr V. M. Slipher, of Lowell Observatory, who published about five years ago a list of observations showing that red shifts increase with distance, that they are equal tc distances times . a mathematical constant. Since then the list of observations has more than trebled through activities of Dr Edwin Hubble and Dr Milton Humason, of Mount Wilson, using the world’s largest reflector combined with the very fast spectographic lens developed by Dr W. B. Rayjon, of Bausch and Lomb Optical Company. A NEW FUNDAMENTAL. Dr Hubble, whose preliminary reconnaissance of the problem was completed two years ago with the publication of his book, "The Realm of the Nebula;, ’’ is open-minded. At the moment he is inclined to seek out a new fundamental of physics which will explain the shift without postulating that it is due to the tail-lights” of worlds disappearing in the distance. Further support of a stationary universe was stated by Dr Marlow Shapley, of Harvard Observatory, last spring, when he announced that examination of galaxies surrounding the south galactic pole indicates . such an uneven distribution that there are 50 per cent more galaxies in one quadrant of the sky. than in the quadrant diagonally opposite. Apparently, this would not agree with the theory of an explosive universe, since expansion would necessarily involve more or less even distribution.

Dr Hubble sums it up in this way. "If the loss in energy occurs in the nebulae, then red shifts are due to velocity, and the nebulae are all receding. If the loss occurs in space, then (he nebulae are stationary and light loses energy by some unknown mechanism, in proportion to the distance it travels through the universe.” The whole question is probably the most debated subject in astronomy today, but all agree that the 200 in telescope will probably supply the correct answer to the interpretation of the shifts. Meanwhile, the very evenness with which acceleration apparently increases with distance away from our small corner of the universe causes one to view with suspicion any theory that places us at the centre of things. Copernicus and those who followed' after him blasted the ancient theory that the earth was circled daily by the sun, moon, planets, and stars.

Today, even our sun is recognised tc be but one insignificant or comparatively small, medium temperature star way over in one corner of the galaxy we call the Milky Way. Even the Milky Way, its stars forming a flat watchshaped body something like 200,006 light years in diameter, can at besi lay claim to junior membership in ; universe of several hundred million other galaxies just like itself. Perhaps, after all, the expanding universe theory will turn out to be a last remnant of the ancient Ptolemaic systemplacing the earth at the centre of the universe.