THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
(207) 780-4249 usm.maine.edu/planet
43.6667° N 70.2667° W Altitude: 10 feet below sea level Founded
January 1970
2021-2022: I
"We'll leave the night on for you."
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Beyond the Dots
The Daily Astronomer has returned. If you're new to us, welcome. If not,
welcome back. Ordinarily, the first article of the new school year focuses
on the September night sky calendar. Of course, as we have all learned
within the last eighteen months, we've depleted our stock of ordinary
years. This school year begins in a lovely and appropriate place: our star
dome theatre.
Above us we observe a beautiful array of dots arranged to replicate the
night sky's stellar configuration. There, high in the east, we see the
Summer Triangle
[image:
summer-triangle-sq-e1559769506547.jpg]
Sagittarius the archer and his fearsome companion Scorpius the scorpion
creep along the southern sky:
[image:
sagittarius-and-scorpius_2200-081315.png]
Naturally, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Big and Little Dippers,
respectively, pursue each other along a wide circumpolar path through the
northern sky.
[image:
0f107360a00e92476faa6c2c12088e25.jpg]
Naturally, none of these are real: just faint imitations projected onto the
half-shell that we've bewitched to resemble the night sky. However, we
begin our DA school year here in this quaint, subterranean dome because
the night sky serves as our shore: the dots beyond which exists a wondrous
and complex cosmos that humans have only begun to fathom. Moreover, it's
possible that aspects of our Universe shall forever remain unknown despite
our most ardent efforts to demystify it. After all, no cosmologist truly
yet knows what transpired at the very first moment of creation 13.8 billion
years ago.
However, humans have learned much about physical reality, particularly
within the last century. A mere hundred years ago, the notion of galaxies
beyond the Milky Way was a matter of fierce debate. Now, the existence of
billions of galaxies is an established fact. Thirty years ago, we
still weren't sure if planets revolved around other stars. Some
astronomers even proposed that planet formation was exceedingly rare,
formed out of gases that stars drew out of each other during infrequent
close encounters. Now, after having discovered more than 4800
exo-planets, or planets in orbit around other stars, astronomers know that
planet formation is generally a natural consequence of star formation.
Planets coalesce out of a star's peripheral gaseous disc. Our Milky Way
Galaxy, home to more than 400 billion stars, could also harbor as many as
one trillion planets. (To put that number into perspective, one trillion
seconds equals 32,000 years!) Multiply the number of galaxies by the
number of planets likely within those galaxies and the resultant array of
worlds staggers our imaginations.
Moreover, as we also now know, star formation hasn't stopped. In fact, the
cosmic star formation machines are whirring on all eight cylinders: 3,000
- 20,000 stars are born every second through the Universe. Even at the low
end of this range, the fecundity is stunning. By "born," we mean the
moment when the ferocious thermonuclear core ignites inside the star to
begin transmuting hydrogen into helium and energy: the energy that powers
the star.
Energy!
By the rather uninspiring physics definition, energy is the ability to do
work. In reality, energy animates the Universe. A ceaseless exchange of
energy that never disappears from the cosmos, but merely changes form.
The minute energy you need to blink, breathe, and tap your fingers on the
desk originated in the primordial Big Bang event. In fact, the particles
comprising your body are themselves merely crystallized forms of energy.
You are fashioned of the radiant energy that once pervaded the infant
cosmos.
Beyond the dots of our night sky, humans discovered a rapidly expanding and
prodigiously creative Universe containing more stars and galaxies than one
could count in a thousand lifetimes. We also realized that apart from
being mere observers of the stars, we are descended from the stars.
*You are part of the Universe that enables the Universe to reflect on
itself.*
The Daily Astronomer task is to meander through space-time from the night
sky to the outer depths and even beyond: into the realm where, perhaps,
Universes are spawned in great profusion out of a hyper-dimensional
space-time foam: a concept once believed to have been the sole reserve of
science-fiction authors. During the DA's school year, we'll explore
constantly anywhere our mood takes us: even into parallel Universes,
themselves.
We'll return to the dome in mid-July when the DA school year ends.
According to some quantum theorists, we are already there at that point in
space-time. However, our conscious minds haven't yet reached that point.
By this notion, everything in the past, present and future exists
simultaneously. That is yet another bizarre concept that the Universe
might have learned about itself through the act of deep human
contemplation. Of course, out beyond the dots innumerable other species
might be developing their own natural philosophies whilst living on their
own star-orbiting spheres. We just don't know....yet.
Welcome to another DA school year.
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