HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE REVEALS
IT'S A YOUNG UNIVERSE AFTER
ALL!
(condensed from a paper written by Keith Davies)
A BIG SURPRISE to the theorists - only a tiny fraction of the expected
number of Red Dwarf Stars found by the HST - the Hubble Space
Telescope!
In a press conference in November 1994 at the National
Association of Space Adminstration in Washington DC, Dr. Paresce 1 and his
colleagues showed a Hubble Space Telescope photograph of a portion of the
globular cluster NGC 6397. He also showed a computer representation of the very
same area but indicating the large number of Red Dwarfs that they had expected
to see according to their stellar evolutionary calculations. Obviously, the
expected large number of Red Dwarfs were simply not present on the Hubble
photograph. (The optical resolution of the Hubble telescope was sufficient to
find these stars if they had been present.)
But not only did the team find far fewer Red Dwarfs than expected, they also
observed in the globular cluster more than the expected number of Blue
Straggler stars. Since these Blue Stragglers are supposed to have
much shorter life spans than the age of the globular cluster of stars, it is
hard to imagine how there could be any of these much younger giant stars still
remaining - but there they were!
The same computer models that are used to make predictions for an old
universe scenario can also be used to make predictions for a young universe
scenario. For example, from a young universe standpoint, there would be just the
few Red Dwarfs that are observed, and they would still be in their early
pre-main sequence stage. Thus for the Red Dwarfs, the observed luminosity, which
is 10 times higher than the expected fainter luminosity for old Red Dwarfs, is
consistent with their youthfulness too.
- Too many young Blue Giant Straggler stars remaining!
- And so few, and young - 10 times too luminous, Red
Dwarfs!
IT'S a YOUNG UNIVERSE AFTER ALL!
1. F Paresce et al
Astrophysical Journal 440:224 (1995)
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ALL THE MISSING SUPENOVA
REMNANTS - A CLUE TO THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE
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