1
00:00:00,100 --> 00:00:04,200
[off camera] Well if you looked at the night's sky through a soda straw what would you

2
00:00:04,220 --> 00:00:08,310
see. Turns out quite a lot using the Hubble Space Telescope. 

3
00:00:08,330 --> 00:00:12,490
Hubble's newest and final frontier field image shows us how

4
00:00:12,510 --> 00:00:16,560
vast and crowded our universe is when it looked at just a tiny

5
00:00:16,580 --> 00:00:20,680
portion of the sky. So what exactly is a galaxy

6
00:00:20,700 --> 00:00:24,790
and what superpower did Hubble use to capture this new image. We're joined 

7
00:00:24,810 --> 00:00:28,970
by Dr. Padi Boyd at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Thanks for joining us.

8
00:00:28,990 --> 00:00:33,030
[Boyd] My pleasure thanks for having me. [off camera] So start by telling us what is a galaxy

9
00:00:33,050 --> 00:00:37,110
and can you show us what Hubble has seen?

10
00:00:37,130 --> 00:00:41,230
[Boyd] Well a galaxy is a collection of many stars. The Milky Way galaxy, our galaxy

11
00:00:41,250 --> 00:00:45,390
has about a hundred billion or more stars in it. The star is just one of

12
00:00:45,410 --> 00:00:49,440
a hundred billion or million. We live in a beautiful spiral galaxy

13
00:00:49,460 --> 00:00:53,530
That's about a disk shape that has gas and stars

14
00:00:53,550 --> 00:00:57,650
orbiting around the center. And this is a beautiful Hubble image of

15
00:00:57,670 --> 00:01:01,820
two spiral galaxies. One is seen edge on, where we see that dust

16
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:05,890
and ther one one is seen more face on where we can start to see the structure of the spirals. 

17
00:01:05,910 --> 00:01:09,950
Galaxies near us look like that, but when we look at something a very small

18
00:01:09,970 --> 00:01:14,040
region of the sky and we stare at it for hours and hours up to a

19
00:01:14,060 --> 00:01:18,120
100 hours. We start to see galaxies coming out from

20
00:01:18,140 --> 00:01:22,310
very far distances from us. And we're looking at the evolution

21
00:01:22,330 --> 00:01:26,380
of galaxies as a function of time in these frontier fields. 

22
00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:30,480
[off camera] Talk about what superpower did Hubble use to see the faint and distant galaxies

23
00:01:30,500 --> 00:01:34,620
in this new image. [Boyd] Well it's nothing more than the superpower 

24
00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:38,790
of gravity. We know that mass influences space

25
00:01:38,810 --> 00:01:42,840
time and Einstein's theory of relativity predicted that

26
00:01:42,860 --> 00:01:46,860
mass bends space time and that even light would bend around it. What that

27
00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:51,060
means is that very massive structures can bend

28
00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:55,200
the light from behind it like a funhouse mirror. And in images like

29
00:01:55,220 --> 00:01:59,320
frontier fields, the mass of the foreground galaxy cluster

30
00:01:59,340 --> 00:02:03,440
magnifies the galaxies behind it so that we can start to put

31
00:02:03,460 --> 00:02:07,600
a picture together of those most distant galaxies. We can even use the

32
00:02:07,620 --> 00:02:11,620
mass to magnify galaxies that started, that were forming

33
00:02:11,640 --> 00:02:15,730
in the first 100 million years of the history of the universe

34
00:02:15,750 --> 00:02:19,830
and those little red specks there are what we think are some of the first galaxies

35
00:02:19,850 --> 00:02:23,970
to form. [off camera] Now I understand there's something 

36
00:02:23,990 --> 00:02:28,080
called dark matter. That sounds like something a villain would use. How do 

37
00:02:28,100 --> 00:02:32,120
missions like Hubble help us learn more about one of nature's biggest secrets?

38
00:02:32,140 --> 00:02:36,210
[Boyd] It is one of nature's biggest secrets because we can't study it by

39
00:02:36,230 --> 00:02:40,320
using traditional methods like looking at the light that it gives off. That's

40
00:02:40,340 --> 00:02:44,470
exactly why we call it dark matter. But even though it's dark to our eyes

41
00:02:44,490 --> 00:02:48,530
it does have mass and you can't get away from the fact that mass does have mass

42
00:02:48,550 --> 00:02:52,570
that impacts it surroundings. It impacts space time. So using an image like

43
00:02:52,590 --> 00:02:56,650
the frontier fields here and how it's distorting the galaxies behind us

44
00:02:56,670 --> 00:03:00,750
behind it, actually allows us to map out the dark 

45
00:03:00,770 --> 00:03:04,940
matter. And that dark matter then we can use it as a lens

46
00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:09,000
to look further behind in the universe. We now know that dark matter makes up

47
00:03:09,020 --> 00:03:13,080
80 percent or more of the mass of the universe. 

48
00:03:13,100 --> 00:03:17,260
And that's just an amazing fact. Dark matter is in individual galaxies

49
00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:21,340
and impacts the way that the stars move in those galaxies. So we can study

50
00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:25,400
the motions of stars in individual spiral galaxies and get another handle 

51
00:03:25,420 --> 00:03:29,490
and a hint about where dark matter is and how it's distributed. 

52
00:03:29,510 --> 00:03:33,620
[off camera] Now Hubble just celebrated it's 27th birthday. What 

53
00:03:33,640 --> 00:03:37,800
is next for the famous space telescope? [Boyd] So 27 years on

54
00:03:37,820 --> 00:03:41,890
orbit and Hubble is still going strong. And that's because 

55
00:03:41,910 --> 00:03:46,000
during it's lifetime astronauts visited the telescope and they outfit it with

56
00:03:46,020 --> 00:03:50,150
new components and new instruments. And the last time astronauts visited

57
00:03:50,170 --> 00:03:54,230
the telescope they really tuned it up. So it's still at the peak of it's scientific capabilities. 

58
00:03:54,250 --> 00:03:58,270
And we expect that to continue for years, working very closely

59
00:03:58,290 --> 00:04:02,370
really hard to make sure that Hubble is still operational when we launch the next

60
00:04:02,390 --> 00:04:06,510
big thing. The Webb Space Telescope which will launch in 2018. 

61
00:04:06,530 --> 00:04:10,700
Together these two very powerful space telescopes will be able to

62
00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:14,770
look at the universe in slightly different types of light and give us

63
00:04:14,790 --> 00:04:18,870
a broad picture of what's happening in galaxies nearby and even in the distant universe. 

64
00:04:18,890 --> 00:04:23,030
[off camera] Where can we learn more and see some

65
00:04:23,050 --> 00:04:27,120
more of Hubble's images? [Boyd] If you go to nasa.gov/hubble or you follow us on 

66
00:04:27,140 --> 00:04:31,170
Twitter @NASAHubble you can find all kinds of information

67
00:04:31,190 --> 00:04:35,240
and images we discussed today and many of the other programs that the Hubble Space Telescope

68
00:04:35,260 --> 00:04:39,330
has done from galaxies to objects in our solar system

69
00:04:39,350 --> 00:04:43,450
to stars, star forming nebulas. Check it out and learn more.

70
00:04:43,470 --> 00:04:50,504
[slate]