Olimpiade Astronomi

Olimpiade Astronomi


Akhirnya sayapun berhasil melewati seleksi sekolah dan seleksi kota dalam menyelesaian pertandingan olimpaide astronomi tersebut, hal ini merupakan pengalaman yang menyenangkan.

The Discovery of the Blackbody Form and Anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2006 jointly to

John C. Mather
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA,

and

George F. Smoot
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation".

 

Pictures of a newborn Universe

This year the Physics Prize is awarded for work that looks back into the infancy of the Universe and attempts to gain some understanding of the origin of galaxies and stars. It is based on measurements made with the help of the COBE satellite launched by NASA in 1989.

The COBE results provided increased support for the Big Bang scenario for the origin of the Universe, as this is the only scenario that predicts the kind of cosmic microwave background radiation measured by COBE. These measurements also marked the inception of cosmology as a precise science. It was not long before it was followed up, for instance by the WMAP satellite, which yielded even clearer images of the background radiation. Very soon the European Planck satellite will be launched in order to study the radiation in even greater detail.

According to the Big Bang scenario, the cosmic microwave background radiation is a relic of the earliest phase of the Universe. Immediately after the big bang itself, the Universe can be compared to a glowing "body emitting radiation in which the distribution across different wavelengths depends solely on its temperature. The shape of the spectrum of this kind of radiation has a special form known as blackbody radiation. When it was emitted the temperature of the Universe was almost 3,000 degrees Centigrade. Since then, according to the Big Bang scenario, the radiation has gradually cooled as the Universe has expanded. The background radiation we can measure today corresponds to a temperature that is barely 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. The Laureates were able to calculate this temperature thanks to the blackbody spectrum revealed by the COBE measurements.

COBE also had the task of seeking small variations of temperature in different directions (which is what the term 'anisotropy' refers to). Extremely small differences of this kind in the temperature of the cosmic background radiation – in the range of a hundred-thousandth of a degree – offer an important clue to how the galaxies came into being. The variations in temperature show us how the matter in the Universe began to "aggregate". This was necessary if the galaxies, stars and ultimately life like us were to be able to develop. Without this mechanism matter would have taken a completely different form, spread evenly throughout the Universe.

COBE was launched using its own rocket on 18 November 1989. The first results were received after nine minutes of observations: COBE had registered a perfect blackbody spectrum. When the curve was later shown at an astronomy conference the results received a standing ovation. 

The success of COBE was the outcome of prodigious team work involving more than 1,000 researchers, engineers and other participants. John Mather coordinated the entire process and also had primary responsibility for the experiment that revealed the blackbody form of the microwave background radiation measured by COBE. George Smoot had main responsibility for measuring the small variations in the temperature of the radiation.

Read more about this year's prize
Information for the Public (pdf)
Scientific Background (pdf)
To read the text you need Acrobat Reader.
Links and Further Reading

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John C. Mather, born 1946 (60), (US citizen). PhD in Physics in 1974 from the University of California at Berkeley, CA, USA. Senior Astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA. 

George F. Smoot, born 1945 (61) in Yukon, FL, USA, (US citizen). PhD in Physics in 1970 from MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.


Prize amount: SEK 10 million to be shared equally between the Laureates

Contact persons: 

Malin Lindgren, Information Officer, Phone +46 8 673 95 22, +46 709 88 60 04, malin@kva.se
Ulrika Björkstén, Scientific Editor, Phone +46 8 673 95 00, +46 702 06 67 50, ulrika.bjorksten@kva.se

Olimpiade Astronomi

Olimpiade Astronomi.

Alhamdulilah saya mengikuti seleksi peserta olimpiade astronomi tingkat sekolah, dan saya berusaha belajar banyak mengenai ilmu yang sangat menyenagkan ini.

Saya berusaha mempelajarinya dengan seksama bersama teman-teman sekelas saya.

Sejarah Singkat

Pada bagian awal sejarahnya, astronomi memerlukan hanya pengamatan dan ramalan gerakan benda di langit yang bisa dilihat dengan mata telanjang. Rigveda menunjuk kepada ke-27 rasi bintang yang dihubungkan dengan gerakan matahari dan juga ke-12 Zodiak pembagian langit. Yunani kuno membuatkan sumbangan penting sampai astronomi, di antara mereka definisi dari sistem magnitudo.

Alkitab berisi sejumlah pernyataan atas posisi tanah di alam semesta dan sifat bintang dan planet, kebanyakan di antaranya puitis daripada harfiah; melihat Kosmologi Biblikal. Pada tahun 500 M, Aryabhata memberikan sistem matematis yang mengambil tanah untuk berputar atas porosnya dan mempertimbangkan gerakan planet dengan rasa hormat ke matahari.

Penelitian astronomi hampir berhenti selama abad pertengahan, kecuali penelitian astronom Arab. Pada akhir abad ke-9 astronom Muslim al-Farghani (Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani) menulis secara ekstensif tentang gerakan benda langit.

Karyanya diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Latin di abad ke-12. Pada akhir abad ke-10, observatorium yang sangat besar dibangun di dekat Teheran, Iran, oleh astronom al-Khujandi yang mengamati rentetan transit garis bujur Matahari, yang membolehkannya untuk menghitung sudut miring dari gerhana.

Di Parsi, Umar Khayyām (Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim al-Nisaburi al-Khayyami) menyusun banyak tabel astronomis dan melakukan reformasi kalender yang lebih tepat daripada Kalender Julian dan mirip dengan Kalender Gregorian.

Selama Renaisans Copernicus mengusulkan model heliosentris dari Tata Surya. Kerjanya dipertahankan, dikembangkan, dan diperbaiki oleh Galileo Galilei dan Johannes Kepler. Kepler adalah yang pertama untuk memikirkan sistem yang menggambarkan dengan benar detail gerakan planet dengan Matahari di pusat. Tetapi, Kepler tidak mengerti sebab di belakang hukum yang ia tulis. Hal itu kemudian diwariskan kepada Isaac Newton yang akhirnya dengan penemuan dinamika langit dan hukum gravitasinya dapat menerangkan gerakan planet.

Bintang adalah benda yang sangat jauh. Dengan munculnya spektroskop terbukti bahwa mereka mirip matahari kita sendiri, tetapi dengan berbagai temperatur, massa dan ukuran. Keberadaan galaksi kita, Bima Sakti, dan beberapa kelompok bintang terpisah hanya terbukti pada abad ke-20, serta keberadaan galaksi "eksternal", dan segera sesudahnya, perluasan Jagad Raya dilihat di resesi kebanyakan galaksi dari kita.

Kosmologi membuat kemajuan sangat besar selama abad ke-20, dengan model Ledakan Dahsyat yang didukung oleh pengamatan astronomi dan eksperimen fisika, seperti radiasi kosmik gelombang mikro latar belakang, Hukum Hubble dan Elemen Kosmologikal. Untuk sejarah astronomi yang lebih terperinci, lihat sejarah astronomi.

Semoga Bermanfaat