COBE maps the interstellar medium.TI0036 An unprecedented, panoramic survey of the Milky Way at microwave and far-infrared wavelengths has yielded new insights into the heating and cooling processes that drive starbirth in our galaxy Astronomers created the galactic map using a detector aboard the Cosmic Background Explorer Cosmic Background Explorer: see infrared astronomy. Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) U.S. satellite that from 1989 to 1993 mapped the cosmic background radiation field. In 1964, microwave radiation was discovered that permeated the cosmos uniformly. (COBE) spacecraft (SN: 11/10/90, p.301). The detector, called the Far-infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer, recorded the location and intensity of interstellar ionized i·on·ize tr. & intr.v. i·on·ized, i·on·iz·ing, i·on·iz·es To convert or be converted totally or partially into ions. i nitrogen at a wavelength of 205 microns, providing the first measurements ever of this spectral line. Researchers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. , described the survey results at this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes pronounced "double-A-S") is a US society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. in Philadelphia. The intensity of the radiation indicates that ionized nitrogen may be three times as abundant as expected, suggesting that the energy-absorbing ions play a key role in cooling interstellar gas, reports Charles L. Bennett Dr. Charles L. Bennett (born November 1956) is an American observational astrophysicist and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University.[1] He is the Principal Investigator of NASA's highly successful Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). of Goddard. He adds that measurements of another nitrogen emission line indicate a relatively low ionic density, equivalent to five ions in a cubic-inch box. The strength and pervasiveness of the 205-micron emission supports the notion that "warm" regions of gas and dust lie between the cold, collapsing cores of starbirth clouds and the clouds' outer layers of hot gas, Bennett says. In addition, says David J. Hollenbach of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., it suggests that our galaxy forms stars more rapidly than predicted. The COBE detector also measured the total luminosity of galactic dust and recorded the far-infrared emissions from neutral carbon atoms and carbon monoxide in the interstellar gas. In comparing these measurements with those for 20 other spiral galaxies, COBE investigators conclude that the Milky Way behaves like a typical spiral galaxy. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion