Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, November 6, 2012
Science Fossil Light
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 9:09 AM
A story about measuring starlight...
Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the total amount of light from all of the stars that have ever shone, accomplishing a primary mission goal."The optical and ultraviolet light from stars continues to travel throughout the universe even after the stars cease to shine, and this creates a fossil radiation field we can explore using gamma rays from distant sources," said lead scientist Marco Ajello, a postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics...
As you read the article, I recommend listening to Model 500's "Starlight."
The total sum of starlight in the cosmos is known to astronomers as the extragalactic background light (EBL). To gamma rays, the EBL functions as a kind of cosmic fog.
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If it's happening in this infinitely small corner of an infinitely small galaxy, what else is going on out there? Think about that.
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