Posted on 04/24/2002 6:30:34 PM PDT by longshadow
Amazing...13 billion? I could swear, it doesn't look any older than 8 billion. Really.
He added: "We think we have seen the faintest ones. If we haven't, then we'll have to rethink" the conclusions.
What if some of the white dwarfs have already "gone out"? How would you know?
the Hubble Space Telescope collected light from M4 for eight days over a 67-day period. Only then did the very faintest of the white dwarfs become visible.
If they collected light for an additional 8 days, or 80 days, would additional, "dimmer" white dwarfs become visible?
Is that the farthest cluster in which we can distinguish such stars? On the one hand, it's not all that far (cosmologically speaking); but on the other hand, resolving individual stars in such a cluster seems quite a trick.
When? Today? I didn't get it a thing. Why didn't someone tell me?
These people actually get paid to make educated guesses like this? Where can I get a job like that?
When? Today? I didn't get it a thing. Why didn't someone tell me?
Hustle down to Hallmark.
They have some of those "belated" thingys you can send.
This was addressed in the press conference today. They took exposures that were adequate to detect fainter white dwarfs if they existed, but they found none; hence they conclude that these ARE the faintest.
White dwarf stars take a gigantically long time to "go out" (which in this case means to cool until they cannot be seen).
Excellent question, grasshopper.....
It is actually the CLOSEST cluster where astronomers hoped to detect such faint beasts, because of the limitations in their equipment precluded from being able to detect objects this faint at greater distances....
..... however, the new equipment JUST installed last month on the Hubble Space Telescope will be many times more sensitive that what they used for this research, and thus will be invaluable in observing more distant clusters to see if the data collected from them supports (or contradicts) this finding.
By looking at the evidence. The universe obeys physical laws, you know.
These people actually get paid to make educated guesses like this?
No, they get paid to make measurements like this.
Where can I get a job like that?
You start by spending twelve years in college (as I did).
Well, first you start out with an IQ of say 140+, then you matriculate at a first tier university, and major in Physics, or Mathematics, or Astronomy, and after four years of hard work you get your Bachelor's degree; then you apply to grad school and get into an Astronomy/Astrophysics program, and after a couple more years of hard work, you'll have your Master's degree, and then you put in more time doing original research on your doctoral Thesis, which, with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work, might be accepted, and so you eventually get your Ph.D.
Then you go to work, continuing to do original research like these guys did, and by that time you would have come to understand how it is that scientists are able to devise observations that measure the age of the Universe using multiple independent methods, which indicate very similar results.
Actually, the error in their measurement is half a billion years, which is roughly 4%. Not bad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.