Download Untitled - Kapteyn Astronomical Institute

Welcome to the Herschel Truck.
In 2009 ESA will launch the Herschel telescope into space. At that point, Herschel
will be the largest space telescope of its kind. Herschel's 3.5-metre diameter mirror
will collect long-wavelength infrared radiation from some of the coolest and most
distant objects in the Universe. It will be the only space observatory to cover the
spectral range from far-infrared to sub-millimetre wavelengths.
ESA in collaboration with the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of
Groningen, The Netherlands, proudly presents the Herschel Truck. In the Truck you
will find extensive information about the Herschel mission and infrared astronomy.
And you can discover the infrared universe yourself via hands-on experiments. This
booklet guides you through these experiments.
Enjoy... the Infrared Universe is yours to discover!
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to
space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s
space capability and ensure that investment in space
continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the
world. ESA is an international organisation with 18 Member States: Austria, Belgium,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and
the United Kingdom. ESA’s job is to draw up the European space programme and
carry it through. ESA's programmes are designed to find out more about Earth, its
immediate space environment, our Solar System and the Universe. Through the
European Space Education Resource Offices (ESERO), ESA's Education Office
aims to support, the specific educational needs of the Member States and their
Education Community; and to get easy access to national education networks. The
ESERO project addresses the motivation of young people to enhance their literacy in
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), including associated
applications, using space related themes and the genuine fascination for spaceflight,
resources and appropriate actions; and to pursue a career in these fields and in the
space domain in particular.
The Kapteyn Astronomical Institute is the astronomy
department of the University of Groningen. The institute is one of
the largest astronomy institutes in the Netherlands. The institute
plays a prominent role in astronomy world-wide. Research
interests of the staff cover a wide range of topics, mainly in
extragalactic astronomy. Members of the institute are heavily
involved in a number of high profile projects, for example: the
LOFAR radio telescope, the Herschel Infrared Space Telescope,
the European Extremely Large telescope (ELT) and GAIA. In 2008 the Kapteyn
astro-team won the national ‘Battle of the Universities’ (Academische Jaarprijs) for
the best public outreach of scientific research. With the prize money together with a
generous grant from the University of Groningen the team organizes projects in 2009
to let the general public in the Netherlands discover infrared radiation and astronomy
from an educational, informational and artistic perspective. In this International Year
of Astronomy the Kapteyn astro-team will tour the Netherlands with the Herschel
Truck to visit 35 schools and 12 cities. In addition, infrared photo exhibitions will be
on display in Science Centre NEMO and the Museum for Photography “Huis
Marseille” in Amsterdam. Last but not least, the astro-team will hold a national
competition to elect the Mr and Mrs Infrared Universe 2009 from secondary school
students in the Netherlands.
Experiment 1: create a rainbow using a DVD
Which colours can you see if you mirror white light in a DVD?
Write the colours of the light down in the order in which you see them on the screen.
With the webcam you can see light that you cannot see with your eyes. What is that
light called?
Do you know other kinds of light which you cannot see with your eyes?
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X-rays
visible light
infrared light
radiowaves
Experiment 2:
Infrared light: quite normal but also very different
There are two webcams connected to a laptop.
Point a remote control to the webcams and push a button. What do you see on the
webcams?
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Point the remote control to a mirror.
Point a webcam also to the same mirror.
Can you now see the light of the webcam?
Picture on the right:
One of the four biggest
telescopes used for European
space research: the Very
Large Telescope. Each
telescope has a mirror which
has a diameter of 8 meters.
The mirrors are used to
receive both visible and
infrared light.
Why does this telescope have such a big mirror (8 meters!)?
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Telescopes with mirrors are used both
on earth and in space. Here you can see
a picture of the Herschel space
telescope which will be launched in
2009. The telescope is named after the
astronomer who discovered the infrared
light in 1800: William Herschel.
Astronomers of for example the Kapteyn
Astronomical Institute in Groningen (The
Netherlands) will explore the infrared
universe with this telescope.
Shine with a flashlight through a bottle of Coca-Cola.
Can you see the light of the flashlight through the Coca-Cola?
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Now shine with a remote control through the Coca-Cola.
Which one of the two webcams detects the light of the remote control through the
Coca-Cola?
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Can infrared light pass through Coca-Cola?
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Below you can see a picture which is made using a sensitive infrared-camera. What
is happening in the picture?
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Pictures of stars in visible and infrared light
Two images of the Orion nebula, named after the constellation Orion. On the left is
an image in visible light made by the Hubble space telescope and on the right is an
image in infrared made by the Very Large Telescope. You can clearly see that in
infrared one can peer through the dust clouds and see many stars that hide behind
the clouds. It is in these dusty places in the universe that new stars are born. Thanks
to infrared light we can exactly see how stars are formed.
Visible light
Infrared light
Experiment 3: temperature and infrared light…
A small light bulb is connected to a low-voltage power box.
Increase the voltage until the light bulb burns just very very weak (so that you can
hardly see the light).
Now point the webcams at the light bulb. Do you see a difference between the two
webcams?
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The light bulb should emit (almost) no visible light. Why would the light than be
visible on the infrared-webcam?
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Let the light bulb burn normally now.
Can you see a difference between what the two webcams show on the screen? Why
would that be?
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Everything and everyone emits radiation: you, an elephant but also a rock. Stars and
planets too emit radiation. The ‘colours’ of the emitted light depend on the
temperature of the object. Very hot objects emit mainly ultraviolet light and visible
light. Objects with temperatures of a few thousand degrees Celsius emit mainly in
the visible light and infrared light (the Sun or a halogen lamp). Colder objects (the
earth and you yourself) emit mainly infrared light which is next to the visible light in
the electro-magnetic spectrum.
The visible light of a star is so fierce that one almost never can detect the visible light
from a planet orbiting a star. The star outshines the light of the planet. But the planet
is much colder than the star which it orbits. This means that a planet emits a different
colour of light than that star.
By looking only to the far infrared light, and not to the visible light, it is possible to see
planets orbiting around a star. Unfortunately our telescopes are not good enough yet
to detect such a planet as a disc on the sky. We can only conclude that we measure
infrared light which does not come from the star. The picture above is an artistic
impression how an exoplanet, a planet outside our own solar system, might look.
Look at the picture in infrared
on the right.
Why does the elephant have
so many different “colours”?
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Which part of the elephant is the coldest?
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And which part is the hottest?
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Look again at this picture which was at
question 3:
There is something wrong, the picture is
fake! Can you explain why?
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Experiment 4: You can see yourself shine!
Look at the two bottles on the table, and touch them. Do you see a difference? Do
you feel a difference?
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Look at the two bottles using the FLIR infrared camera. Which differences can you
see? Can you explain why?
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Look at someone’s hands. Let this person hold the cold bottles for a while. Look
again at the hands using the FLIR camera. What can you see? Why?
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Look at one of the bottles through the plexiglas using FLIR camera. What do you
see? Why?
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When using the FLIR infrared camera you can see infrared light that is further away
from the visible light than the light seen by the webcams. You yourself are like a light
bulb in this ‘far infrared’ light but also ice and even colder objects emit this kind of
light. In the pictures beneath you can see the constellation Orion in visible light (left)
and ‘far’ infrared light (right). The gas clouds, invisible in visible light become very
bright when looking in infrared
light.
More information about the Invisible Universe can be found on:
www.ontdekhetonzichtbareheelal.nl or coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu