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1Etymology

2History

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2.1Ancient Greek religion

2.2Anaximander

3Early views of cosmos

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3.1European view

3.2Chinese view

3.3Indian view

3.4Australian view

3.5Similarities in observation

3.6Copernican Revolution

3.7Early beliefs

3.8Copernican theory

3.9Neoplatonism

4Cosmology

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4.1Physical cosmology

4.2Philosophical cosmology

4.3Religious cosmology

5See also

6References

7Further reading

8External links

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Cosmos

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Universe as a complex and orderly system or entity

For other uses, see Cosmos (disambiguation).

Flammarion engraving, Paris 1888

The cosmos (Ancient Greek: κόσμος, romanized: Kósmos, /ˈkɒzmɒs/, US also /-moʊs, -məs/)[1] is an alternative name for the universe or its nature or order. Usage of the word cosmos implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity.[2]

The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in cosmology – a broad discipline covering scientific, religious or philosophical aspects of the cosmos and its nature. Religious and philosophical approaches may include the cosmos among spiritual entities or other matters deemed to exist outside the physical universe.

Etymology[edit]

The verb κοσμεῖν (κοσμεῖν) meant generally "to dispose, prepare", but especially "to order and arrange (troops for battle), to set (an army) in array"; also "to establish (a government or regime)", "to adorn, dress" (especially of women). Thus kosmos meant "ornaments, decoration" (compare kosmokomes "dressing the hair," and cosmetic).[3] The philosopher Pythagoras used the term kosmos (Ancient Greek: κόσμος, Latinized kósmos) for the order of the universe.[4] Anaxagoras further introduced the concept of a Cosmic Mind (Nous) ordering all things.[5] The modern Greek κόσμος "order, good order, orderly arrangement" is a word with several main senses rooted in those notions. κόσμος has developed, along with primary "the universe, the world", the meaning of "people" (collectively).

History[edit]

Ancient Greek religion[edit]

The 1870 book Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology noted[6]

Thales dogma that water is the origin of things, that is, that it is that out of which every thing arises, and into which every thing resolves itself, Thales may have followed Orphic cosmogonies, while, unlike them, he sought to establish the truth of the assertion. Hence, Aristotle, immediately after he has called him the originator of philosophy brings forward the reasons which Thales was believed to have adduced in confirmation of that assertion; for that no written development of it, or indeed any book by Thales, was extant, is proved by the expressions which Aristotle uses when he brings forward the doctrines and proofs of the Milesian. (p. 1016)

Plato, describes the idea of the good, or the Godhead, sometimes teleologically, as the ultimate purpose of all conditioned existence; sometimes cosmologically, as the ultimate operative cause; and has begun to develop the cosmological, as also the physico-theological proof for the being of God; but has referred both back to the idea of the Good, as the necessary presupposition to all other ideas, and the cognition of them. (p. 402)

The book The Works of Aristotle (1908, p. 80 Fragments) mentioned[7]

Aristotle says the poet Orpheus never existed; the Pythagoreans ascribe this Orphic poem to a certain Cercon (see Cercops).

Bertrand Russell (1947) noted[8]

The Orphics were an ascetic sect; wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later, in the Christian sacrament. The intoxication that they sought was that of "enthusiasm," of union with the god. They believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus. From Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious.

Anaximander[edit]

Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who is widely referred to as the "father of astronomy" and even as the "father of cosmology" as a result of his works to explain the origin and makeup of the physical universe. He is regarded as the most important of the Ionian philosophers, and was a pupil of Thales. Traditionally, details of his life and opinions are perpetuated not only by Aristotle and Theophrastos, but also by a great number of secondary authors.[9] He lived throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, BCE, and was most likely the first philosopher to try to rationalize the system of the Earth, Sun, and Moon by the use of geometry and mathematics. Anaximander was also said to have created the first map of the world, however, like much of the rest of his works, this has been lost since his time. There is, however, documentation of Anaximander being responsible for the conception of the first mechanical model of the world, which is outlined by a geocentric model. He postulated that the Earth was at the center of the universe, and that its shape was convex and cylindrical, with life existing on one of the two flat sides. Beyond the Earth, sits the other planets, which Anaximander also details the order of. Next are the fixed stars, which he regarded as wheel-like condensations of air filled with fire, provided at certain places with openings through which flames are discharged.[9] Anaximander places the Moon beyond these stars, and assumed it to also be wheel-like in shape, being nineteen times the size of Earth. Finally, on the top of the universe is the Sun, which interacts with the Moon, and the relationship between them is described in terms of aperture, in which a stoppage in would lead to eclipses.

In this model, the Sun is a ring, 28 times the size of the Earth, with a hollow rim, filled with fire, which at a certain place is seen through an aperture as in a pair of bellows.[9] He also postulated regarding the formation of thunder and lightning, maintaining that they are caused by the wind becoming compressed inside a thick cloud and suddenly breaking through, causing the loud sound to be heard as the cloud is bursting. He claimed the fissure then looked like a spark because of the contrast with the dark cloud. Anaximander's model set a precedent for succeeding theories, including Copernicus's system, with the major change being the shift away from the geocentric model and towards the heliocentric model of the universe. The explained model, although accredited to Anaximander, did necessarily take from ideas originated in foreign cultures, such as the astronomical wheels which are known from Persian cosmology.[9] But even without detailed commentary, these elements of the Anaximander tradition give a strong impression of an original and courageous thinker making conscious efforts towards producing a rational explanation of fundamental physical principles, the nature and motion of heavenly bodies, the shape of Earth, its place in the universe, etc.

Early views of cosmos[edit]

Eastern and Western thought differed greatly in their understanding of space and the organization of the cosmos. The Chinese saw the Cosmos as empty, infinite, and intertwined with the Earth. Western ideas, based on the ancient Greeks' understanding of the cosmos, believed in a multi-planar divided cosmos that was finite and filled with air.

European view[edit]

Stars rotating in the night sky

Early Europeans viewed the cosmos as a divinely created, spatially finite, bifurcated cosmos, divided into sublunary and superlunary realms. Objects above the lunar disc were believed to be stable, with heavenly bodies believed to be made out of a refined substance called "quintessence". This was understood to be a crystalline, completely transparent substance that held all of the superlunary spheres in perfect order. After their creation by God, these spheres did not change except for their rotation above the Earth.[10] Objects below the lunar sphere were subject to constant combination, separation, and recombination. This was because they consisted of the chaotic elements of earth, air, fire, and water.[10]

The idea of celestial spheres was developed in the cosmological models of Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and others.[11] They believed in a stable cosmos created by God, where distinct realms were subject to different kinds of order. Some Europeans maintained the Aristotelian view that infinity could only be seen as an attribute of God, with the cosmos being finite. Furthermore, following the Aristotelian view that "nature abhors a vacuum", some Europeans believed that the space between the spheres were filled with air.[10] This theory persisted until the Scientific Revolution, when the discovery that the Sun was in the center of the planetary system rocked cosmological understanding to its core. Other theories such as Atomism posited a void of atoms as the fundamental elements of physics, while Stoicism postulated a void allowing for the cosmos to expand and contract in volume through its cycles.[12][13]

Chinese view[edit]

The Chinese[who?] had multiple theories of the processes and components of the cosmos. The most popular of these beliefs was the Xuan Ye theory, the astronomical view of the cosmos as an infinite space with floating pieces of condensed vapor.[10] The Chinese believed that the Earth consisted of condensed yin and the heavens of yang; and that these properties coexisted in constant relation to each other, with yin and yang being used together to explain processes on Earth as well of those relating the Earth in conjunction with the heavens.[10] This idea was described by Joseph Needham as a cosmos that functioned similarly to a complex organism, with discernible patterns in an ever-changing structure. There was both a pattern and a randomness to the cosmos.[14] Because of this, the Chinese believed that earthly phenomena could affect heavenly bodies.[10]

The Chinese believed that qi was the substance of all things in the cosmos and Earth, including inanimate matter, humans, ideas, emotions, celestial bodies and everything that exists or has existed;[15] and that it was qi condensing that created all the matter within the cosmos.[10] This is relatively consistent with the modern understanding of the congregation of matter through gravitational fields.[15]

The Chinese held a belief associated with the Xuan Ye theory, which held space as both empty and infinite.[16] This was inconsistent with the Aristotelian concepts that nature would not contain a vacuum, and that infinity could only be a divine attribute.[10] The idea of the nothingness of space was later recognized as one of the most important discoveries of modern science.[10]

Indian view[edit]

The Indians[who?] believed in a cyclic universe related to three other beliefs: (i), time is endless and space has infinite extension; (ii), earth is not the center of the universe; and (iii), laws govern all development, including the creation and destruction of the universe. The Indians believed that there were three types of space, physiological, physical, and infinite space. The infinite space consists of undivided consciousness and everything that is inside and outside. However, finite division of space is where time begins, and the division of time is where all beings were first created. It was believed that there are connections between the physical and the psychological worlds, and an equivalence existed between the outer cosmos and the inner cosmos of the individual. This is expressed in the famous sentence – yat pinḍe tad brahmṇḍe, “as in the body so in the universe”.

The ancient Indians mapped out the outer world or the universe at an altar where Yajurveda listed multiples of ten that reached ten million. The numbers used to count to ten million was used as a reference to show the relation of the planets in the universe to Earth, it was not a relevant scale to the entire universe, therefore backing that they believed the universe to be infinite and endless. The Indians calculated the speed of light to be four thousand four hundred and four (4,404) yojanas per nimesa, or about one hundred eighty six thousand (186,000) miles per second. Ancient Indian beliefs also included the belief that the Earth was created after certain stars, these stars include the Sun, Gemini, Aja, and Kurma. Evidence from the Etymological considerations prove this belief and also points towards the discovery of the twin asses, which in western astrology can be found next to the Cancer constellation as Asellus, Borealis, and Asellus Australis

The Indian cyclic model assumes the existence of countless island universes, which go through their own periods of development and destruction. The conception of cyclicity is taken to be recursive. For an early exposition of these astronomical and cosmological ideas, one may read al-Bīrūnī's classic history of Indian science, composed in 1030 AD, and for an even earlier, popular, view of Indian ideas, one may consult the Vedantic text called the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (YV), which at 32,000 shlokas is one of the longest books in world literature.[17]

Australian view[edit]

See also: Australian Aboriginal astronomy

Australian cosmology has a vast and varied history.[18]

Australian cosmology beliefs were based around the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's ideas, also known as Indigenous astronomy, and it was around before the Babylonians, Greeks, and the Renaissance period. They found ways to observe the Moon, stars, and the Sun, this enabled them to create a sense of time. This also allowed them to navigate across the continent, create calendars, and predict the weather. One of the most important constellations in Australia for the Aboriginal people is the Emu. The Emu constellation represents the connection between the earth and the sky, and stories and representations of their constellations were written on some cave walls in Australia. Another indigenous tribe known as the Euahlayi saw the Milky Way as a river and between the two bright sides represented a Galactic Bulge where the two sons of the creator Baiame and the river made a connection from the earth and the sky. The Yolngu people were one of the first to discover how the tide of the ocean works. They discovered the tide had a direct correlation with the Moon. Their reasoning as to why the ocean did not fill up as much as perhaps when the Moon was full versus a crescent moon is because the Moon was not as full either. This contradicts the father of science, Galileo, who said that the tides correlated with the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Multiple indigenous tribes described winter by the seven sisters, a group of stars in the sky that provided hunter-gatherers a sort of calendar to indicate whether they should be hunting or gathering, based on the season.

Similarities in observation[edit]

There is one way that both the Chinese and the Europeans, along with countless other ancient societies, related to the cosmos. This was through meaning, placed on celestial bodies, that were observed moving above the Earth. The Chinese had a very complex astronomical understanding of the stars and the cosmos that influenced everything from their art and architecture to their myths and science.[19] This was also true of the Greeks and Romans, whose 48 constellations, including the zodiac signs and the constellation of Orion, have been passed down to modern Western cultures. These were likely passed down to them from ancient Babylonian and Egyptian astronomers.[20] Copernicus is said to have been inspired by the fecund sun deity of neoplatonic thought, which may have initially inspired his vision of a heliocentric universe.[10]

Copernican Revolution[edit]

Copernicus' Heliocentric Solar System

Further information: Copernican Revolution

Commonly regarded as the foundation of modern astronomy, the common universal view of the cosmos shifted as Nicolaus Copernicus positioned the Sun as the center of the Universe.

Early beliefs[edit]

Prior to the Copernican Revolution, the Ptolemaic system, also known as the geocentric model, was widely accepted. This put the Earth at the center of the universe, with the Sun and other planets revolving around the Earth in an epicyclic orbit.[21] Aristotle's geocentric model was also broadly acknowledged, along with his claim that the planets rotated but did not orbit. The reasoning behind this was due to the belief that all objects outside of the lunar sphere were celestial bodies, and therefore could not change, as they were made of quintessence.[22]

There were notable critiques of this model prior to Copernicus. In the Islamic world, Ibn al-Haytham doubted Ptolemy's notion of the planetary orbits, and Muhammad al-Battani recalculated the parameters. However, both still agreed with the geocentric model.[23]

One of the first known astronomers that supported the Heliocentric theory was Aristarchus of Samos. After observing a lunar eclipse, he came to the conclusion that the Sun was farther away from Earth than the Moon and that the Sun was much larger than Earth. He also claimed the Sun was a star. While Aristarchus was later an influence on Copernicus and his groundbreaking work, prior to the 17th century Aristarchus' findings were obstructed by the more established theories of Ptolemy and Aristotle.[24][25]

Copernican theory[edit]

Astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus was appointed by the Catholic Church as an official, as his uncle was a bishop in the church. He used his income to further his studies, eventually studying at the University of Bologna in Italy.[26] Copernicus began doubting the knowledge of natural philosophers and their beliefs, claiming that geometrical astronomy instead would result in the true reality of the cosmos. His manuscript, De revolutionibus, pioneered ideas that would change the course of how both the cosmos and astrology were viewed. Most notably, Copernicus claimed that the Sun was the stationary center of the universe. His work also included calculations on the motions of the Moon, and the motions in latitude and longitude of the planets, all which orbit the Sun.[27][28] Copernicus' work was not immediately published as it disagreed with Biblical teachings, and he feared his work would be rejected by Catholic officials.[29]

Neoplatonism[edit]

Copernicus' work was not entirely mathematical conviction. There is evidence that Copernicus was influenced by Neoplatonism. Founded by philosopher Plotinus, neoplatonism believes that the Sun is the symbol of The One, or The Universal Soul. It would make sense then that Copernicus would place the god-like figure at the center of the universe.[30] Neoplatonist Nicholas of Cusa claimed the universe was infinite, containing multiple earths and suns. This changed the belief of a finite universe to an infinite one, which emphasized a more obscure and incomplete version of God.[31][32]

Cosmology[edit]

Main article: Cosmology

The Ancient and Medieval cosmos as depicted in Peter Apian's Cosmographia (Antwerp, 1539)

Cosmology is the study of the cosmos, and in its broadest sense covers a variety of very different approaches: scientific, religious and philosophical. All cosmologies have in common an attempt to understand the implicit order within the whole of being. In this way, most religions and philosophical systems have a cosmology.

When cosmology is used without a qualifier, it often signifies physical cosmology, unless the context makes clear that a different meaning is intended.

Physical cosmology[edit]

Physical cosmology (often simply described as 'cosmology') is the scientific study of the universe, from the beginning of its physical existence. It includes speculative concepts such as a multiverse, when these are being discussed. In physical cosmology, the term cosmos is often used in a technical way, referring to a particular spacetime continuum within a (postulated) multiverse. The particular cosmos in which humans live, the observable universe, is generally capitalized as the Cosmos.

In physical cosmology, the uncapitalized term cosmic signifies a subject with a relationship to the universe, such as 'cosmic time' (time since the Big Bang), 'cosmic rays' (high energy particles or radiation detected from space), and 'cosmic microwave background' (microwave radiation detectable from all directions in space).

According to Charles Peter Mason in Sir William Smith Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870, see book screenshot for full quote), Pythagoreans described the universe.[6]

Excerpt from Philolaus Pythagoras book (Charles Peter Mason, 1870)

It appears, in fact, from this, as well as from the extant fragments, that the first book (from Philolaus) of the work contained a general account of the origin and arrangement of the universe. The second book appears to have been an exposition of the nature of numbers, which in the Pythagorean theory are the essence and source of all things. (p. 305)

In September 2023, astrophysicists questioned the overall current view of the universe, in the form of the Standard Model of Cosmology, based on the latest James Webb Space Telescope studies.[33]

In October 2023, astronomers proposed a new, more comprehensive, view of the cosmos, and which includes all objects in the universe, and suggested that the universe may have begun with instantons, and may be a black hole.[34][35]

Philosophical cosmology[edit]

Cosmology is a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe, a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe.[36] The basic definition of Cosmology is the science of the origin and development of the universe. In modern astronomy, the Big Bang theory is the dominant postulation.

Philosophy of cosmology is an expanding discipline, directed to the conceptual foundations of cosmology and the philosophical contemplation of the universe as a totality. It draws on the fundamental theories of physics – thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and special and general relativity – and on several branches of philosophy – philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and epistemology.[37]

Religious cosmology[edit]

See also: Religious cosmology, Hellenistic philosophy and Christianity, and Orphism (religion)

In theology, the cosmos is the created heavenly bodies (Sun, Moon, wandering stars, and fixed stars). The concept of cosmos as the created universe and its arrangement has been important in Christendom since its very inception, as it is heavily used in the New Testament and occurs over 180 times.[38] In Christian theology, the word is sometimes used synonymously with aion[39] to refer to "worldly life" or "this world" or "this age" as opposed to the afterlife or world to come, although "aion/aeon" is also at times used in a more other-worldly sense as the eternal plane of the divine [40]

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Physics of the Cosmos

ExploreSearchSubmitNews & EventsMultimediaNASA+…Astrophysics ProgramsPhysics of the CosmosOverviewBig QuestionsOrganization and StaffFocus AreasDark Energy, Dark MatterBlack HolesThe Big BangGalaxiesStarsExoplanets ProgramsPrograms OverviewPhysics of the CosmosCosmic OriginsExoplanet ExplorationExplorersAstrophysics ResearchAstrophysics PioneersAstrophysics Division TechnologyHabitable Worlds Observatory Astrophysics Strategic Missions ProgramDataResourcesDocuments2020 Decadal SurveyAPD Responses to DecadalPre 2020 Decadal ReportsFleet ChartThe UniverseExplore This SectionOverviewFocus AreasProgramsDataResourcesThe UniversePhysics of the CosmosThe CosmosOur quest to understand how the universe works starts with the study of the very basic building blocks of our existence - matter, energy, space, and time - and how they behave under the extreme physical conditions that characterize the infant and evolving Universe. The Physics of the Cosmos (PCOS) program incorporates cosmology, high-energy astrophysics, and fundamental physics projects aimed at addressing directly central questions about the nature of complex astrophysical phenomena such as black holes, neutron stars, dark energy, and gravitational waves. By utilizing a fleet of space-based missions operating across the whole electromagnetic spectrum, PCOS ultimate, overarching goal is to learn about the origin and ultimate destiny of the cosmos.Keep ExploringDiscover More Topics From NASAJames Webb Space TelescopePerseverance RoverParker Solar ProbeJunoReturn to topThe National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery.About NASA's MissionJoin UsHomeNews & EventsMultimediaNASA+MissionsHumans in SpaceEarth & ClimateThe Solar SystemThe UniverseScienceAeronauticsTechnologyLearning ResourcesAbout NASANASA en EspañolFollow NASAMore NASA Social AccountsNASA NewslettersSitemapFor MediaPrivacy PolicyFOIANo FEAR ActOffice of the IGBudget & Annual ReportsAgency Financial ReportsContact NASAAccessibilityPage Editor:SMD Content EditorsResponsible NASA Official for Science:Dana Bolles

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By Space.com Staff published 21 October 2011

See how the universe evolved into what we see today in this infographic tour of our cosmos: "The History & Structure of the Universe" (below).

(Image credit: Illustration: Karl Tate; Galaxy M74: NASA, ESA, and Hubble Heritage Collaboration; "Awakening of the Pilgrim" by Camille Flammarion)

SPECIAL REPORT: Our universe is both ancient and vast, and expanding out farther and faster every day. This accelerating universe, the dark energy that seems to be behind it, and other puzzles like the exact nature of the Big Bang and the early evolution of the universe are among the great puzzles of cosmology.There was a time when scientists thought Earth was at the center of the universe. As late as the 1920s, we did not realize that our galaxy was just one of many in a vast universe. Only later did we recognize that the other galaxies were running away from us — in every direction — at ever greater speeds. Likewise in recent decades, our understanding of the universe has accelerated.In this 8-part series of stories, videos, pictures and infographics, SPACE.com looks at some of the most amazing revelations about the universe and the enduring enigmas still to be solved.Part 1Video Show: A Blueprint for the Universe The universe is filled with stars, galaxies, planets and more, plus a veritable buffet of invisible stuff like dark matter astronomers have yet to see. But scientists have pinned down some of the major ingredients of our universe. Take a look at star stuff and more in this video show. Part 2Images: Peering Back to the Big Bang & Early Universe Our universe is 13.7 billion years old, but astronomers are peering deep into its history and are getting a greater understanding of how the first stars formed, and how the earliest galaxies came together. See images, illustrations and diagrams of the universe from now back to the Big Bang. Part 3The Universe: Big Bang to Now in 10 Easy Steps The widely accepted theory for the origin and evolution of the universe is the Big Bang model, which states that the universe began as an incredibly hot, dense point roughly 13.7 billion years ago. Here's a breakdown of the Big Bang to now in 10 easy steps. Part 4The History & Structure of the Universe (Infographic Gallery) Tour the universe's 13.7-billion-year history, from the Big Bang to planet Earth today, in this SPACE.com infographic series. Part 5The Big Bang: What Really Happened at Our Universe's Birth? Big Bang theory holds that our universe began 13.7 billion years ago, in a massive expansion that blew space up like a balloon. Here's a brief rundown of what astronomers think happened.Part 6The Universe's Dark Ages: How Our Cosmos Survived The dark ages of the universe — an era of darkness that existed before the first stars and galaxies — mostly remain a mystery because there is so little of it to see, but scientists intensely desire to shed light on them in order to learn secrets about how the universe came into being.Part 7The Universe Today: What It All Looks Like Now In the 1920s, astronomer Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory, which is the most widely accepted model to explain the formation of the universe.Part 8Endless Void or Big Crunch: How Will the Universe End? Not only are scientists unsure how the universe will end, they aren't even sure it will end at all.

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New X-Ray Map of Cosmic Megastructures Unravels Subatomic Mysteries | Scientific American

Skip to main contentScientific AmericanSign inMarch 5, 20248 min readNew X-Ray Map of Cosmic Megastructures Unravels Subatomic MysteriesA new catalog of more than 12,000 galaxy clusters is helping scientists better understand the universe’s clumpiness, dark energy and some of the smallest particles in the cosmos: neutrinosBy Ashley Balzer VigilA false-color x-ray view of one half of the sky, based on data from the eROSITA telescope. Sources of broad-band x-ray emission (white) include halos of hot gas surrounding galaxies as well as feeding black holes. Longer wavelength x-rays correspond to redder colors. Shorter wavelength x-rays are shown in bluer hues and cluster around the dark, dusty regions of the Milky Way where longer wavelengths are blocked. Credit: MPE, J. Sanders for the eROSITA consortiumCosmologyGhosts haunt our galaxy, passing right through not only walls but entire planets and even heftier objects with ease. Trillions upon trillions are whispering their way through your body even now, as you read this. These subatomic specters, called neutrinos, are harbingers of fiery cosmic processes, such as the nuclear fusion powering our sun and the titanic supernova explosions that herald the deaths of more massive stars.Neutrinos aren’t mere cosmic messengers, however; they also help shape the universe’s evolution by influencing how structures such as galaxies formed long ago. Neutrinos move so swiftly that they can travel great distances before being captured by the gravitational pull of a dense region. That helped the particles smooth out tiny knots where matter was beginning to clump together, making it harder for bigger structures to form.Learning more about neutrinos offers a window into the early universe, but they’re extremely difficult to study. They hardly ever interact with normal matter, so it takes state-of-the-art technology to detect them.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Some fundamentals of the neutrino—such as its mass, as well as the particle’s cosmic abundance—can have surprisingly outsized effects on the number, size and distribution of galaxies and galaxy clusters. By looking at those cosmic megastructures, scientists can sleuth out information about neutrinos indirectly. They can essentially do thought experiments to rewind creation by giving neutrinos different characteristics and playing a virtual universe back to see if its emerging megastructures match those of reality.Scientists recently used the extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (eROSITA) to do this on a particularly grand scale. eROSITA is a German-built x-ray telescope on board the orbiting Russian observatory Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG), which launched in July 2019. Using data from the first six months of eROSITA’s operations—which constitutes the most detailed celestial map of x-ray sources yet made—the scientists found more than 12,000 galaxy clusters across one half of the sky, tracing each one by the telltale x-ray glow from surrounding halos of rarefied, 100-million-degree gas. They posted their results last month on the preprint server arXiv.org.Combined with what we already know about neutrinos, the researchers’ analysis of a subset of galaxy clusters from eROSITA’s data allowed them to fine-tune models that describe the particles and better estimate neutrino masses. They present a new upper limit on how heavy neutrinos could be. The previous mass range was between 0.06 and 0.74 electron volts (a single electron volt is more than a trillion trillion times less massive than a single grain of sugar). The eROSITA results constrain it much further, suggesting an upper bound of 0.22 eV, or 0.11 eV when combined with other data.“We’ve been wondering about the neutrino’s mass since these particles were first conjectured in the 1930s,” says Joseph Formaggio, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved with eROSITA. “The cosmology limits on the neutrino mass are the most advanced at the moment. Getting precision measurements across the entire arc of the universe is unique and very compelling.”Formaggio notes that the neutrino’s mass is particularly interesting because neutrinos are so different from other particles. “We think they get their mass differently from all the other particles,” he says. “That could hint there’s new physics at play.”A Clumpy CosmosAnd “new physics” is exactly what some researchers are ardently seeking when they poke and prod around the hazy edges of the standard model of cosmology. This framework uses just a handful of parameters to very successfully explain the origin and evolution of the universe. Its simplicity makes it elegant, but many scientists suspect it needs significant tweaks because of escalating tensions between its predictions and actual observations. eROSITA’s unprecedented data offer a wealth of new, independent observations to test against and may ease some of those tensions.One inconsistency eROSITA explores has to do with how clumpy the universe is. To explain the problem, we’ll have to journey back more than 13.7 billion years, nearly to the birth of the cosmos.The early universe was filled with a hot, dense and opaque fog of ionized particles. But by about 380,000 years after the big bang, the expanding universe had sufficiently cooled for atoms to form, clearing the fog and allowing light to travel freely. Modern observatories see that ancient light today as an all-sky microwave glow called the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and missions such as the Planck spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) have scrutinized its properties with astounding precision. Many of Planck’s studies focused on tiny temperature fluctuations in the CMB, which scientists can connect with the emergence of larger, later cosmic structures.Those little fluctuations show that the early universe wasn’t entirely homogenous; there were tiny variations in density (like chocolate chips in cookie dough except far more subtle). Areas that were ever-so-slightly lumpier formed the seeds for eventual galaxies. Studying the CMB allows scientists to better understand the initial conditions of the universe. Then researchers play a grand game of connect-the-dots to figure out how the cosmos produced the grand assemblages of galaxies we see today.Until recently, there’s been one big problem. In theory, one should be able to pair Planck’s CMB measurements with the standard cosmological model to calculate, from first principles, the clumping of galaxy clusters other telescopes can see and study across the past several billion years of cosmic history. Yet observations from several independent instruments keep coming up with results that are inconsistent with CMB-based extrapolations, which could indicate that the standard model may not be quite right.But eROSITA’s galaxy-clustering results mark what could be a sea change in this trend: they are in harmony with extrapolations from Planck’s CMB measurements and therefore support the standard model. “We’re not seeing this tension at all,” says Esra Bulbul, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany and lead scientist for eROSITA cluster science and cosmology. “That opens up the question of why nearly all of the other ‘late universe’ probes do see a discrepancy. What is going on?”Vittorio Ghirardini, a postdoctoral researcher at MPE and the lead author of the recent preprint on eROSITA’s galaxy-clustering results, suggests the telescope offers better measurements than those from other observatories because of its wavelength range. “Optical and infrared telescopes can help identify galaxy clusters,” he says, albeit such telescopes can struggle to distinguish between a cluster’s true members versus objects in the far-distant foreground or background. X-ray measurements are better for such work, he says, because they offer higher contrast between, for instance, the bright x-ray emissions associated with galaxies in a cluster and those far weaker from galaxies in the remote background.The telescope uses x-rays to trace vast clouds of hot, dilute gas that suffuse and surround a cluster’s galaxies. The extent of this so-called intracluster medium also helps outline halos of dark matter that wreathe and bind together galaxy clusters like invisible gravitational glue. “Scanning the x-ray sky gives us an accurate and efficient way to find galaxy clusters and their dark matter halos,” Bulbul says. “Ground-based optical telescopes can find them, but as an all-sky survey, eROSITA isn’t limited to certain parts of the sky. We can compile huge, pure samples.”Using those samples, scientists measure the universe’s clumpiness by determining the abundance of normal and dark matter, as well as the prevalence of galaxy clusters and the great filaments, sheets and voids formed by their distribution. “With eROSITA we find the largest dark matter halos in the universe, and by counting them and measuring their mass, what we find is consistent with Planck,” Bulbul says. “So we are a rare late-universe probe confirming Planck.”But some scientists aren’t convinced. “I think it’s unclear whether this data really removes the tension,” says Yun Wang, a senior research scientist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, who was not involved with eROSITA. She points out that eROSITA’s joint constraints on matter clumpiness and density only marginally agree with those from Planck. “But to me, that only makes it even more exciting. Here we have the biggest, highest quality set of galaxy cluster data, and the results could be interpreted in multiple ways. Perhaps analyzing additional eROSITA data will offer clues.”Additional clues could come via fresh results from other missions, such as the forthcoming cosmological measurements from ESA’s Euclid Space Telescope, which launched in July 2023 on a mission to map the size, shape and distribution of galaxies across the past 10 billion years or so of cosmic history.A Dark MysteryThe eROSITA team says its findings also support the standard model of cosmology in another way.A wealth of data decisively points to some mysterious force somehow accelerating the universe’s expansion. Although no one yet knows what it is, scientists refer to the culprit as dark energy. One of the ways to study it is by trying to determine its equation of state, which essentially describes how its expansion-accelerating pressure depends on its density.That’s usually a straightforward relationship; if you compress normal matter, its pressure increases. But dark energy must possess negative pressure to account for its repulsive effect that drives the acceleration of cosmic expansion. “Its equation of state offers us an essential clue to what dark energy might be,” Wang says.To figure out its equation of state, scientists are exploring whether dark energy’s density weakens as the universe expands—or if, for that matter, its repulsive effect becomes even stronger. The standard model splits the difference by suggesting that its density should remain constant. There is no known physics, however, that can explain such a constant density, which must be vanishingly tiny. “We have to push hard to find out if dark energy’s density is constant or not,” Wang says. “This would have fundamental implications for particle physics one way or another.”“We can constrain dark energy’s equation of state because seeing how many dark halos there are in the universe as a function of distance tells us the universe’s expansion rate,” Ghirardini says. The standard model says dark energy’s equation of state should be –1. The eROSITA-derived estimate is −1.12 ± 0.12––in keeping with the standard model. “So this is something really spectacular that’s coming from these measurements,” he says.Science, InterruptedAll these results stem from just a half year’s worth of observations––time in which eROSITA, which slowly scans the heavens as it spins, was able to complete one pass across the entire sky. That this latest result only draws upon half of those data is because of a messy mix of the mission’s origins and geopolitics.As a joint German-Russian project, exclusive access to eROSITA’s measurements is divided between those two nations, with data from the southern half of the sky allotted to a group based in Germany and a different group in Russia getting the northern half. eROSITA began its observations shortly after its 2019 launch, and it completed four all-sky surveys before its scientific partnership was disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Soon afterward the German government put this collaboration with Russia on ice, and eROSITA was placed in safe mode. It remains functional but is not currently making new observations. The status of the Russian group’s work with its share of the eROSITA data is uncertain; requests to the group for comment were not acknowledged by the time this story went to press.There’s no way to know if or when eROSITA will begin surveying the sky again, but scientists still have work to do in the meantime because the bulk of the mission’s data remain unpublished. For Bulbul, Ghirardini and their colleagues in the Germany-based group, the plan is to spend the next two years or so compiling their half of the data from the other three surveys to yield even tighter cosmological constraints.“Understanding the dark energy equation of state and figuring out the neutrino’s mass has the potential to revolutionize physics,” Ghirardini says. “eROSITA has breakthrough capabilities in cosmology research.”For now we’ll continue to hover on the brink of potentially transcendent cosmology results, with new observations thwarted by dismal world affairs. We humans, it seems, are still deciding whether to deepen our cosmic understanding by mapping enigmatic patterns in the heavens above—or to continue our conflicts and divisions over imaginary lines drawn on maps of Earth.Rights & PermissionsAshley Balzer Vigil writes about astrophysics for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center by day and moonlights as a freelance environmental writer.More by Ashley Balzer VigilExpand Your World with ScienceLearn and share the most exciting discoveries, innovations and ideas shaping our world today.SubscribeSign up for our newslettersSee the latest storiesRead the latest issueFollow Us:Return & Refund PolicyAboutPress RoomFAQsContact UsInternational EditionsAdvertiseSA Custom MediaTerms of UsePrivacy PolicyCalifornia Consumer Privacy StatementUse of cookies/Do not sell my dataScientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers.© 2024 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, A DIVISION OF SPRINGER NATURE AMERICA, INC.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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ESA - Webb & Hubble confirm Universe’s expansion rate

Science & Exploration

Webb & Hubble confirm Universe’s expansion rate

11/03/2024

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ESA / Science & Exploration / Space Science / Webb

Webb measurements shed new light on a decade-long mystery.The rate at which the Universe is expanding, known as the Hubble constant, is one of the fundamental parameters for understanding the evolution and ultimate fate of the cosmos. However, a persistent difference, called the Hubble Tension, is seen between the value of the constant measured with a wide range of independent distance indicators and its value predicted from the afterglow of the Big Bang. The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed that the Hubble Space Telescope’s keen eye was right all along, erasing any lingering doubt about Hubble’s measurements.

NGC 5468 – Cepheid host galaxy

One of the scientific justifications for building the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was to use its observing power to provide an exact value for the expansion rate of the Universe. Prior to Hubble’s launch in 1990, observations from ground-based telescopes yielded huge uncertainties. Depending on the values deduced for the expansion rate, the Universe could be anywhere between 10 and 20 billion years old. Over the past 34 years Hubble has shrunk this measurement to an accuracy of less than one percent, splitting the difference with an age value of 13.8 billion years. This has been accomplished by refining the so-called ‘cosmic distance ladder’ by measuring important milepost markers known as Cepheid variable stars.However, the Hubble value does not agree with other measurements that imply that the Universe was expanding faster after the Big Bang. These observations were made by the ESA Planck satellite’s mapping of the cosmic microwave background radiation – a blueprint for how the Universe would evolve structure after it cooled down from the Big Bang.The simple solution to the dilemma would be to say that maybe the Hubble observations are wrong, as a result of some inaccuracy creeping into its measurements of the deep-space yardsticks. Then along came the James Webb Space Telescope, enabling astronomers to crosscheck Hubble’s results. Webb’s infrared views of Cepheids agreed with Hubble’s optical-light data. Webb confirmed that the Hubble telescope’s keen eye was right all along, erasing any lingering doubt about Hubble’s measurements.The bottom line is that the so-called Hubble Tension between what happens in the nearby Universe compared to the early Universe’s expansion remains a nagging puzzle for cosmologists. There may be something woven into the fabric of space that we don’t yet understand.Does resolving this discrepancy require new physics? Or is it a result of measurement errors between the two different methods used to determine the rate of expansion of space?

Comparison of Hubble and Webb views of a Cepheid variable star

Hubble and Webb have now tag-teamed to produce definitive measurements, furthering the case that something else – not measurement errors – is influencing the expansion rate.“With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility that we have misunderstood the Universe,” said Adam Riess, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Adam holds a Nobel Prize for co-discovering the fact that the Universe’s expansion is accelerating, owing to a mysterious phenomenon now called ‘dark energy’.As a crosscheck, an initial Webb observation in 2023 confirmed that Hubble’s measurements of the expanding Universe were accurate. However, hoping to relieve the Hubble Tension, some scientists speculated that unseen errors in the measurement may grow and become visible as we look deeper into the Universe. In particular, stellar crowding could affect brightness measurements of more distant stars in a systematic way.The SH0ES (Supernova H0 for the Equation of State of Dark Energy) team, led by Adam, obtained additional observations with Webb of objects that are critical cosmic milepost markers, known as Cepheid variable stars, which can now be correlated with the Hubble data.“We’ve now spanned the whole range of what Hubble observed, and we can rule out a measurement error as the cause of the Hubble Tension with very high confidence,” Adam said.The team’s first few Webb observations in 2023 were successful in showing Hubble was on the right track in firmly establishing the fidelity of the first rungs of the so-called cosmic distance ladder.Astronomers use various methods to measure relative distances in the Universe, depending upon the object being observed. Collectively these techniques are known as the cosmic distance ladder – each rung or measurement technique relies upon the previous step for calibration.But some astronomers suggested that, moving outward along the ‘second rung’, the cosmic distance ladder might get shaky if the Cepheid measurements become less accurate with distance. Such inaccuracies could occur because the light of a Cepheid could blend with that of an adjacent star – an effect that could become more pronounced with distance as stars crowd together on the sky and become harder to distinguish from one another.The observational challenge is that past Hubble images of these more distant Cepheid variables look more huddled and overlapping with neighbouring stars at ever greater distances between us and their host galaxies, requiring careful accounting for this effect. Intervening dust further complicates the certainty of the measurements in visible light. Webb slices through the dust and naturally isolates the Cepheids from neighbouring stars because its vision is sharper than Hubble’s at infrared wavelengths.“Combining Webb and Hubble gives us the best of both worlds. We find that the Hubble measurements remain reliable as we climb farther along the cosmic distance ladder,” said Adam.The new Webb observations include five host galaxies of eight Type Ia supernovae containing a total of 1000 Cepheids, and reach out to the farthest galaxy where Cepheids have been well measured – NGC 5468, at a distance of 130 million light-years. “This spans the full range where we made measurements with Hubble. So, we’ve gone to the end of the second rung of the cosmic distance ladder,” said co-author Gagandeep Anand of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which operates the Webb and Hubble Telescopes for NASA.Together, Hubble’s and Webb’s confirmation of the Hubble Tension sets up other observatories to possibly settle the mystery, including NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and ESA’s recently launched Euclid mission.At present it’s as though the distance ladder observed by Hubble and Webb has firmly set an anchor point on one shoreline of a river, and the afterglow of the Big Bang observed by Planck from the beginning of the Universe is set firmly on the other side. How the Universe’s expansion was changing in the billions of years between these two endpoints has yet to be directly observed. “We need to find out if we are missing something on how to connect the beginning of the Universe and the present day,” said Adam.These findings were published in the 6 February 2024 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

More informationWebb is the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Under an international collaboration agreement, ESA provided the telescope’s launch service, using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace. ESA also provided the workhorse spectrograph NIRSpec and 50% of the mid-infrared instrument MIRI, which was designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).Release on esawebb.org

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