In this month's A&G, read all about the growth of the field of Cosmology, from its speculative origins to the respected discipline it is today, by Malcolm Longair doi.org/10.1093/astrog… #cosmology
(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/L Jenkins [GSFC])
(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/L Jenkins [GSFC])
@RoyalAstroSoc @AstronGeo @OxfordJournals @astro_librarian @KICC_official Early research in #MNRAS was largely based on observational astronomy, but a great number of important advances in cosmology have since been published with us as the field has grown. We look back on some of these groundbreaking discoveries...
The work of Albert Einstein was a clear foundation of things to come, outlined by Willem de Sitter in #MNRAS through a compilation of papers, starting with ‘On Einstein's Theory of Gravitation and its Astronomical Consequences’👨🏫doi.org/10.1093/mnras/… #Einstein
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian Arthur Eddington was another founder of modern cosmology, through his studies on the gravitational deflection of light by the Sun, nuclear fusion as an energy source to the Sun, stellar structure and evolution, and the Eddington–Lemaître world models 🌌☀️doi.org/10.1093/mnras/…
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian The research of Knut Lundmark 🇸🇪 and Edwin Hubble 🇺🇸 showed how spiral nebulae are extragalactic systems.
e.g. ‘The Motions and the Distances of Spiral Nebulae’ by Lundmark in 1925 doi.org/10.1093/mnras/… #Hubble #Lundmark #MNRAS
e.g. ‘The Motions and the Distances of Spiral Nebulae’ by Lundmark in 1925 doi.org/10.1093/mnras/… #Hubble #Lundmark #MNRAS
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian Hubble discussed his theories on the classification of galaxies, the recession of nebulae and the law of redshifts in his George Darwin Lecture in 1953 🌌 doi.org/10.1093/mnras/… #Hubble #Cosmology #redshift
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian @NASAHubble @hubblescience In the 1930’s, Lemaître theorised about the large-scale structure of the Universe and published ‘Expansion of the universe, A homogeneous universe of constant mass and increasing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extra-galactic nebulae’ doi.org/10.1093/mnras/…
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian @NASAHubble @hubblescience Also in the 1930’s, Robertson 🇺🇸 and Walker 🇬🇧 both studied distance scales in an expanding Universe. It wasn’t until post-WWII that it was realised that this ‘Robertson- Walker’ metric described all possible isotropic and homogeneous cosmological models doi.org/10.1093/mnras/…
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian @NASAHubble @hubblescience @AstronGeo An important step came in 1948, when Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle proposed a ‘The Steady-State Theory of the Expanding Universe’, which theorised that our Universe preserves the same appearance for all time ⏲️doi.org/10.1093/mnras/… #Cosmology
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian @NASAHubble @hubblescience @AstronGeo In 1961, Ryle et al indicated that extragalactic radio sources show evidence for cosmological evolution. Similar conclusions were found for quasars by Schmidt in 1965, after they were discovered in 1963 🌟doi.org/10.1093/mnras/… #Cosmology
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian @NASAHubble @hubblescience @AstronGeo The discovery of radio galaxies and quasars sparked a growth of the field in the 60’s, including the determination of Hubble's constant (Sandage), the horizon and flatness problems (Dicke) and the violent relaxation of galaxies in clusters (Lynden-Bell) doi.org/10.1093/mnras/…
@RoyalAstroSoc @astro_librarian @NASAHubble @hubblescience @AstronGeo @NASAJPL After the discovery of the cosmic background radiation by Penzias & Wilson in 1965, the field of cosmology burst with new questions and ideas. Observations in the 1990’s showed that the Universe is isotropic to better than 1 part in 10^5. Now the big question is dark energy...
