reading the science news reported by major media, one has the impression that research is a great game: those who finish first will be remembered forever, and after a great discovery cases are archived. Usually it is not a faithful description of reality. Sometimes, though, the atmosphere of the race against time not only the gist of the message filtered through the media, but a routine part of the same scientists. At least sometimes. Let's look at some very recent examples.
Last May, the Hubble Space Telescope has been visited by a team of astronauts who have replaced and repaired some of its tools, greatly increasing its already high performance. The powerful eye that scans the universe outside of our atmosphere has risen to new life , and has made numerous comments during the summer. One of the most sought-after goals by astronomers is known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the field very deep: it is a photograph of the sky obtained by exposing more than 48 hours to try to capture the light from distant galaxies to us, one of the first to have formed in the Universe. Even the "old" Hubble, before installation of the new instruments, had obtained spectacular images, identifying galaxies formed just 800 million years after the Big Bang, and the results promised by the new instruments were awaited with great trepidation. The first data were published last September 9 to the entire scientific community. Only two days later, the database where astronomers upload their research papers, there were already four articles that reported the discovery of the most distant galaxies ever seen before, formed between 700 and 550 million years after the Big Bang. To obtain these numbers, members of groups that submitted these works tell of having worked continuously for 48 hours analyzing the data, probably part of the work was ready, and waited for the actual data to pull out the numbers. After more than three months, those early results have not yet been fully realized, and published articles on the subject have increased both in number and in accuracy of the analysis. After all, no matter to find "the" most distant galaxies, although maybe that is the (temporary) goal that is imprinted in the collective memory. The results of interest to understand the formation of galaxies and the entire history of our universe can be obtained by identifying "many" distant galaxies and not in two days, but weeks and months of work.
Similarly, recent weeks have seen a similar rush in the field of particle physics. The LHC accelerator (of which we dealt with last week) started to work at CERN in Geneva, although still at low energies. The first proton collisions have occurred on November 23, and only five days after an article which reported the results obtained was ready for publication, signed by a vast collaboration of physicists in those days worked non-stop. Again, much of the work had already been prepared for months, and looked forward to throw in the data analysis meal to pull out the first numbers. The race to be the "first" has accelerated the work, although you will have to wait months for the main result expected from the experiment, which confirm (or not) that the so-called Higgs particle exists, and the resulting implications for theories fundamental physical.
Last Thursday also were announced the results of another major particle physics experiment, conducted in the U.S. and committed to try to identify in the laboratory, the so-called dark matter that astrophysicists believe pervades the universe. The experiment called CDMS (Cryogenic Dark Matter Search) and is located in a mine, half a mile underground in Minnesota. But about ten days before the announcement itself, the scientific community was in great turmoil. Before getting to know the nature of the new data about to be published, but based simply on the news that "some" data would be announced about the dark matter, at least three groups in the world had already begun to prepare articles analyzing the possible consequences of these theoretical results! In the end, the announcement was not epochal as expected: two observations made with CDMS "could" be explained with dark matter, but not necessarily. We need to make and, of course, long analysis to interpret the results.
Why run, then? To be the first to find the most distant galaxies, the most elusive particles? To accommodate the media hungry for news that they forget the next day? After a year behind the row of this column, ask yourself these questions naturally. We tried to propose with "to see the stars," an alternative space, that the stories of races and milestones replaced a more careful reflection on the hidden science behind each result. We hope to have succeeded, at least a little. I take this opportunity to greet and thank all readers who have written to all staff during this long Year of Astronomy 2009.
CLAUDIA MIGNONE
image, the latest version of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, achieved through observations in the infrared band to capture the light of distant galaxies, among the first to form in 'universe. To understand the depth of these observations, we think that the sides of the image in the sky are about 12 times smaller than the diameter of the Moon! (NASA, ESA, and the HUDF09 Team)
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