People want to know, says Nobel prize winner
Illustration Credit & ©: Hana Gartstein.
John Mather: I think people are passionately interested in our own story, from the beginning of time, through the formation of all the places we could possibly live, how life originated here on Earth. We don’t know.
Earth & Sky spoke with Nobel Prize-winning physicist John Mather at a science meeting in Boston in early 2008, where he was speaking about physics on a grand scale.
John Mather: Scientists are currently able to think about how we got here on this planet Earth. Every step, from the Big Bang to the formation of the first stars and galaxies to the formation of the solar system and the possibility for the Earth to be the right temperature and to provide it with water, all of those things are possibilities for scientists to explore and currently being worked on by international collaborations of people building telescopes, observing the sky through them.
Mather is senior project scientist for one of the next generation of telescopes – after Hubble – the James Webb Telescope. He says the James Webb is about half built, with 5 years to go for it to launch. It should help answer many questions about this universe in which we find ourselves.
John Mather: People do want to know. I think it’s part of our culture that we want to know our origins and want to know where we’re going. And I think it would be really cool if we knew we aren’t alone.
Mather said that large-scale projects like the James Webb Telescope might reveal why our planet is the only wet one in our solar system. What’s more, it’s sensitive enough to study atmospheres of other worlds for signs of life beyond the Earth. It’ll also look at the universe’s infrared light, comparing ice and dust found at the outskirts of our solar system to that found near other stars in the act of forming planets.
John Mather: How Earth became habitable depends on how it was formed. We think that the early solar system was a very hot place, and that the Earth was formed by the merging and collision of numerous smaller planets that were here beforehand. And the final such event was probably the one that created the moon through the incredible collision of a Mars-like object with the Earth, or early Earth. And so that would have cooked everything to an incredible temperature. And there would have been an atmosphere of vaporized rocks circling around the Earth. So that wasn’t a good place to live yet. So probably there was not water there. Where did the water come from?
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THE TRUTH LIES IN OUR UNIVERSE AND OTHER GALAXIES ARE NOT HIDDEN ITS THERE WAITING FOR US TO FIND OUT.PUT IT IN GOOD USE.IF SCIENCE AND THECNOLOGY IS MORE FUCOS ON EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE INSTEAD OF MAKING BIG BOMBS.AND THE WORLD WILL COME AS ONE. MAINTAIN PEACE IN THIS PLANET.TAKE CARE OF MOTHER NATURE.MOTHER EARTH.FIX GLOBAL WARMIMG.THE DANGER OF GLOBAL WARMING IS DOWN BELLOW .STOP PUMPING OIL FROM THE GROUND NOW.SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVE FUEL NOW.WHO CARES IF WE LOSE OUR EXPENSIVE CARS AND MONEY AND OIL BUSINNESSES,WE CANT LOSE THE EARTH.THE WELL IS GETTING DRY.THE CORE OF THE EARTH IS OVERHEATING OUT OF BALANCE OIL IS MADE TO SERVE ITS PURPOSE DOWN BELLOW.IF WE DONT STOP PUMPING OIL NOW VOLCANOES WILL BE UPSET.WILL RELEASE MORE METHANE GASSES IN THE ATMOSPHERE MAKES GLOBAL WARMING WORST.CREATE SUNAMIS.EARTHQUAKES.IF WE ALL GET ALONG HERE ON EARTH AND TAKE CARE OF THIS PROBLEM. WE WILL REACH THE BRIGHT FUTURE,AND EXPLORE AND SEE WHATS MORE OUT THERE TO FIND.AND CHILDREN ARROUND THE WORLD AFTER US WILL BENIFIT AND CARRY ON OF THIS WHAT WE CALLED LIFE.AND LIVE IN A FUTURE WE ALWAYS IMAGINE.YES WE ARE NOT ALONE
THEY WERE HERE BEFORE US.THEY ARE STILL HERE WITH US.THEY CARE MORE OF OUR PLANET THAN WE DO.ONE VOICE ONE WORLD PEACE ON EARTH.EARTHDAY ITS NOT JUST A CELEBRATION, ITS A WARNING FOR US TO TAKE CARE OF MOTHER EARTH.I’M NO SCIENTIST WHAT I SAY IS FOR THE GOOD AND BETTER FUTURE OF MANKIND.
that’s ok!!