Wolfgang Korsus Dipl.-Ing.NT, Astrophysiker
Klingenberg 40
D-25451 Quickborn
Mobil 01625680456 FNetz 0410669295
Webside : wolfgang.korsus.net
Email : wkorsus@kabelmail.de
Astronomy, and therefore astronomers, are sometimes also involved ! …..What do you ask for ? The answer is clear: Of course with „light“. Call them simply „The light-readers“.
And what sounds quite trivial, they get the light simply from the „sky“ (doesn’t sound scientific, so forget it) therefore more correctly said, from the universe. There are unspeakably many objects there ! …….and this emitted light of them is taken in work, one can also say, is interpreted.
Now to the „work“ I mentioned. The light has to be captured, or even better interpreted or processed. How do you do that? You already know that…Yes, with telescopes or telescopes; and there are already innumerable of them available today.
What is the next step ? It is disassembled and processed with a so-called spectral apparatus. A short explanation of this „thing“ :
The spectral apparatus is a device that makes it possible to split light into wavelengths or frequencies. There are several groups of apparatuses: the most important are prism spectrometers, grating spectrometers and interference spectrometers (interference spectroscopy, interference filter spectroscopy). The first two groups are again divided into spectroscopes, spectrographs and spectrometers.
Astronomers try to find out several values, questions and properties of light:
1 What does it tell us, the light?
- where does light come from,
3 Which types of atoms have emitted the light?
- are they the atoms of hydrogen or perhaps those of iron?
- does the light source move?
- is it moving towards us or away from us?
- is radiation therefore shifted in its spectral property?
- is the spectral line not at all where it should be?
- but is it perhaps shifted into the blue? Then the light source is moving towards us.
- is the spectral line shifted to the red? Then the source is moving away from us.
These points try to show what astronomers do with light: I say it is something like an interpretation of light. So astronomers read from the light what matter does.
What I am sure many of you know is that nature has pretended that matter is luminous……..so it follows that luminous matter produces light.
And now the „other thing“ – there is another form of matter, it is simply dark, it does not produce light – of course it does not absorb light; so in short: it neither emits light nor does it absorb light.
Working with light is simply an absolute „NO“. ……..and what is very clear until today and has to be said, the „Dark Matter“ is one of the great secrets of the universe, who knows how long this secret will last or will always remain a secret ?
The following relationship can be stated: there is about ten times more dark matter than luminous matter. What we see in the universe, even with the most sensitive telescopes, is in the end only a small part of the whole that can be seen at first sight. Away from the explorable there is a much larger area
So, now it gets interesting, because about eighty percent of the matter in the universe consists of a substance that no one has ever seen before – namely dark matter. This is said to account for almost 27 percent of the energy density in the universe, but the baryonic matter that makes up what we know only contributes five percent. One thing, however, can be determined without hesitation: what lies behind the „dark matter“ just mentioned, we scientists are trying to find out with some of the methods now listed.
Matter and energy distribution in the universe :
Baryonic matter 4.9 % Dark matter 26.8 %. Dark energy 68.3 %
Already in 1930 there were first hints for the existence of dark matter ! It was the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky. He was investigating the movements of galaxies in the Coma cluster of galaxies. One can call Fritz Zwicky, the father of dark matter. He explained to us the origin of supernovae, found the origin of cosmic radiation, studied the devastation of atomic bombs in Japan and was the first to shoot a bullet into space in the race for space. But his achievements were hardly appreciated and at home he is almost forgotten. I bring him a hymn to the great thinker with rough edges.
But when the name Fritz Zwicky is mentioned in astronomical circles, the first thing that comes up is the image of the pugnacious astronomer who liked to call his opponents „spherical bastards“. This, because (no matter from which direction you look at them, they are the same bastards) .
One called Fritz Zwicky an unpleasant contemporary, and he had remained so in the minds of his contemporaries, he was one who liked to knock on the table and was not too bad to step on the feet of his „great“ of his time, and his scientific feuds are still gladly reflected at („astronomical“) regulars‘ tables today. But for this very reason it is surprising that Zwicky was actually a pacifist and also a great humanist. He basically stood up for a fairer society…..Bravo….Bravisimo !!!
So, now I like to come back to the galaxies in the Coma cluster of galaxies.
These were much too fast for the visible matter – „stars, gas and dust“ – to keep them in the galaxy cluster with their own gravity. But this must be looked at more closely. Then this remarkable phenomenon could only be explained by the assumption that there are vast amounts of invisible masses that provide additional cohesion among the celestial bodies. Now a new question arises : this matter, which seems to show itself only by its gravitational interaction with conventional matter, what is it made of, it is indeed beyond observation.