I woke up early Monday morning shortly after the late evening storm had passed through. We are at the cabin and had watched the white and red pines twirl in the strong breezes. I went outside and looked at the stars. The sky was clear of any clouds and the stars shone brilliantly in the darkness of the night. It was easy to pick out the big dipper, the north star and the little dipper. I didn’t look for long but went back to bed with the brilliant diamonds shining down on Rainy Lake. And now I know that there are stars with diamond cores discovered by the Hubble telescope. Often there is too much light even in Fort Frances to see the wonder of the stars, but at the cabin the wonder grows.
Monday morning The Globe and Mail ran a story complete with amazing photographs from the newest telescope in operation. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory located in the Andes of Chili is the world’s largest camera and will create a movie of the galaxy over time that is 65 million light years away. Because it will be producing frames of regions several times a week it will be able to detect even the smallest changes in stars and planets revolving around them. This new observatory is already producing images that were too small to detect in a single exposure and have seen the collection of gases that are the beginning steps for the creation of new stars.
If we look back in history, the stars were the instruments of navigation for the earliest sailors and explorers. It wasn’t until the 20th century that we began looking beyond our own galaxy that we discovered how big the universe might be. Observatories and research began opening our eyes to the wonders beyond on reach.
The first indication that the universe was much grander than we had imagined came with the launch of the Hubble Space telescope in 1990. It is in a low orbit around the earth beyond the interference of the earth’s atmosphere and has led to many discoveries of the universe. It was the first to observe planets revolving around another sun. It is serviced by astronauts and continues to provide major scientific information about the expansion of the universe.
The James Webb space telescope is 2.7 times bigger that the Hubble telescope and uses infrared astronomy and is equipped with high resolution and high sensitivity instruments allowing it to view objects too old or distant or faint for the Hubble space telescope.
Launched just of three years ago the James Webb telescope has added to our understanding and knowledge of the universe just as the Vera C. Rubin observatory looking through the earth’s atmosphere in the Andes mountains will add to our knowledge.
Every year new discoveries are made, and our knowledge continues to grow. The stars are full of surprises.
