Astrophysics and other animals

A personal view

An image of our Galaxy from the C.O.B.E. Satellite

I am an Astrophysics undergraduate at John Moores University, department od Astrophysics. I am a part time student - this means I do the course at "half speed" and instead of taking 3 years to do my degree it will take 6 years. I am due to start level 2 of the course in September 1998. At present, I am on-line for a first class degree (with Honours). Once I graduate I hope to do a PHd in Astrophysics at John Moores University.

I really enjoy the course and am doing really well at it (least I think I am doing well <g>). I do well in the Astro modules and the Maths modules (maths average about 87%)

Whilst I enjoy the general Astrophysics, my main interest is in Cosmology - The large scale structure of the Universe. Astrophysics concentrates on the physics of Start, Star clusters, Galaxies etc. whereas Cosmology concentrates on scales larger that Galactic scales. Cosmology also hopes to answer questions on the origins of the Universe and the fate of the Universe.

The physics of the early Universe is pretty well understood, the interactions, the distribution of elements but there are still pertenent questions that remain unanswered i.e. what "caused" the Big Bang? What caused the irregularities in the early Universe which resulted in the Galaxies being formed?

The fate of the Universe is a big topic of debate - Is the Universe open ie will expand forever (the Big Chill), is it closed ie will expand up to a point - then recolapse (the Big Crunch), or a flat Universe - where the Universe expands then stops - neither collapsing nor expanding (This is an oversimplification of the possibilities). My personal view is that the Universe is closed - it will recolapse in a Big Crunch! However convincing others of my view is difficult as most Astrophysisists have their own view on this matter.

One of the factors which dictates the fate of the Universe is a value called the Hubble Constant (Ho), again the value given to this (between about 55 and 100 Km/s.MPc - the units being Kilometers per Second per mega Parsec ) depends on who you ask! you could ask a group of 10 Astrophysisists and get 10 different values for Ho!!

Another factor affecting the fate of the Universe is Omega - the critical density parameter. This is the ratio of the actual density of the Universe against the density required to close the Universe. Observations suggest Omega is about 0.30. For the Universe to be closed Omega needs to be >1.0 Taking these values into account the fate of the Universe seems certain - OPEN! However studies of the Galaxies show that 90% of the actual matter in a Galaxy is not visible to our detectors. This matter we cannot detect has been dubbed "Dark Matter" and the search for this elusive matter is at the forefront of modern Astronomical research.

As you can see, just from this little snippet, Astrophysics is a very interesting and diverse discipline. It is however very rewarding and fascinating, personally speaking, I just love it!

So next time you gaze at the night sky, spare a brief thought for the marvells that exist in the great expanse that is our Universe.

A photo of Hale Bop (comet) which I took

from my garden early 1997.

The ion Tail (faint blue) is just visible above the dust tail. The pink haze is light polution!!

To go back to my home page Click Here

To go to the Astrophysics Forum page Click Here

To Comment on this page E-mail me

            This page hosted by         Get your own Free Homepage