Astronomer

We have had an astronomer on board as a guest lecture the past few days. He is currently a Vice Chancellor and Professor at University of California at Santa Rosa. He had also worked on the Hubble telescope as one of the group that decided which proposals to accept for use of Hubble’s time.

He has given 3 lectures. I’ve enjoyed them and have had some items clarified about the universe.

I had not been aware of how successful the Hubble telescope has been. Since many of the frequencies of light are blocked by the earth’s atmosphere, Hubble has been able to capture “photographs” over a broader spectrum of light than has been possible with any earth-based telescope. So some questions about the materials that are given off by aging stars have been answered by Hubble. Hubble also has photographed “stellar nurseries” (volume of space in which new stars and planets are forming from the debris of dead first-generation stars.

He also gave a lecture on where the various atoms come from. The answer is: 1) hydrogen, helium, and lithium were made in the cooling period right after the big bang, 2) elements up through iron are made in stars much more massive than our sun (the greater mass is required to ignite nuclear reactions about the hydrogen burning done in our sun), and 3) everything heavier than iron can only be made in a start that goes super nova (a specific very heavy mass range) that crushes suddenly enabling all of these higher reactions, then exploded to “recycle” the materials into a second-generation star and planets.

I’ve know that every atom in our body had once been inside of a first generation star that exploded, but I had not recognized the “poofing off” mechanism that can also disperse the atoms from the old stars.

I caught him at dinner one night and did a quick example of my “jokes for quantum physicist.” Kathleen just rolled her eyes and looked forward to when she would have me all to herself again!

I became a bit distressed hearing comments of passengers leaving the lecture. A lot of people do not have even a basic understanding of how science works…how one uses theory plus observation to establish when something become “fact” rather than “opinion.”