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American Morning
Interview with Jack Horkheimer, Astronomer
Aired May 02, 2002 - 07:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: To say that the multimillion dollar recent upgrade to the Hubble Telescope out in space is paying dividends might amount to an intergalactic understatement. The new advanced camera recently installed by Shuttle astronauts makes Hubble's vision 10 times more powerful.
It allows it now to capture extraordinary images, like this one. These are the Mice galaxies, 300 million light years from Earth. Hubble is transmitting the most detailed pictures ever of deep space, transforming that orbiting space telescope into a time machine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLLAND FORD, JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: The advanced camera gives Hubble and humanity a new window on the universe. This new window is the widest and clearest that Hubble has ever had. Looking through this window, we will search for the first generation of galaxies emerging from a twilight zone 13 billion years ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAFFERTY: To guide us now on a back-to-the-future trip through the cosmos, we are joined from Miami by Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS series, "Star Gazer," and director of the Miami Planetarium -- Jack, nice to have you with us.
JACK HORKHEIMER, DIRECTOR, MIAMI PLANETARIUM: Good morning, Jack.
CAFFERTY: These pictures are stunning. Do they alter conventional wisdom about space and time and the origin of the universe in any way?
HORKHEIMER: They confirm what we believed, and they are not altering it so much as expanding it and clarifying it, because these pictures -- with these pictures, we are seeing many more galaxies than we did with the Hubble Deep Space Telescope and the camera.
This camera is so sharp and so clear that in one of these recent pictures, we actually saw twice as many galaxies in the same area. One galaxy, which was so red and so new, it had to have formed only one billion years after the big bang.
So we are looking back, back in time towards the beginning of the universe as we know it today. And like in this picture here of the Cone Nebula, we are actually seeing stars being born. Here again, we are seeing in this Swan Nebula, we are seeing a wonderful, wonderful example of star and planet formation going on condensing out of vast clouds of hydrogen and other gases.
CAFFERTY: There's got to be somebody out there someplace besides us, right?
(CROSSTALK)
HORKHEIMER: Well, perhaps looking back at us taking similar pictures, but not close ups, I am sure.
CAFFERTY: All right. Let me take you through these one at a time quickly, and just give me a couple of headlines on each one. Beginning with this Tadpole Galaxy, describe what we are seeing. Someone said it looks a little bit like shortly after the big bang, when the Earth and galaxy were formed. How far away is this?
HORKHEIMER: OK. This galaxy is 420 million light years away, which means we are seeing this galaxy the way it actually existed 420 million years ago. That's before the dinosaurs even existed on planet Earth.
If you look in the upper left-hand corner, you will see a faint bluish patch. That is a small galaxy colliding with the major galaxy.
CAFFERTY: Wow!
HORKHEIMER: And it created that long trail of dust and gas. And see these blue globs? These are balls of millions of star, star clusters.
CAFFERTY: Wow!
HORKHEIMER: There are millions of stars in these blue patches.
CAFFERTY: Just in these, little blue areas (ph).
HORKHEIMER: Stars that are a million times brighter than our own sun, and clusters sometimes of a million. And all of those little dots you see in the background, those are galaxies, many of them larger than our own, of course. When we see those dots way in the back, those galaxies...
CAFFERTY: Now, we've got -- I want to move you on to this one called the Mice Galaxy, since you are on the subject of galaxies.
HORKHEIMER: The Mice Galaxy. There are two galaxies -- there are galaxies that are merging, and as a matter of fact, these are about 300 million light years away. And our galaxy, the Milky Way and our closest, large galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, many astronomers believe that this is what will happen to our galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy several billion years from now. But don't worry about it.
CAFFERTY: No. HORKHEIMER: Our Earth won't even be here then.
CAFFERTY: The most spectacular picture to me, and just because it looks so untraditional from all of the pictures I remember in school of pictures taken through telescopes, is this Cone Nebula. And to me, it looks like something totally different than anything I remember as a student. Tell me about this.
HORKHEIMER: It is so...
(CROSSTALK)
CAFFERTY: This is unbelievable.
HORKHEIMER: Inside this Cone Nebula, this is about two-and-a- half light years tall right here, we are seeing here incubation centers for nurseries of stars. Inside these globules, these little formations you see...
CAFFERTY: Right.
HORKHEIMER: ... entire solar systems are being formed right now. And eventually, all this gas will disappear, and there will be new stars and perhaps new planets...
CAFFERTY: Wow!
HORKHEIMER: ... circling these stars billions of years -- millions and billions of years in the future.
CAFFERTY: Now, seeing these pictures, if I had it to do over again, I'd be doing what you do for a living. They are fascinating. This stuff is -- I mean, it plays tricks with your mind when you start thinking about this stuff, doesn't it?
HORKHEIMER: Well, you know, to see them quickly on TV is one thing. But if you download these from the Hubble Center on your computer at home, you could spend an hour on each picture searching tiny details.
CAFFERTY: Sure.
HORKHEIMER: They are magnificent.
CAFFERTY: Listen, I'll do this on the air, and we'll put the producers under the gun. I want you to come back, and we'll talk about these some more. Because it is fascinating, and there is stuff we can all learn from this. But I've got to run, Jack -- thank you very much.
HORKHEIMER: Keep looking up.
CAFFERTY: All right, partner -- Jack Horkheimer. He is director of the Miami Planetarium and host of "Star Gazer."
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