The Latest Discovery by NASA's New Horizons Unveils the True Darkness of Deep Space.
In the grand scheme of things, the vastness of the universe can be likened to the statement made by Nigel Tufnel about the color black - there's always room for deeper darkness. Despite appearances, space isn't completely black. It teems with all types of radiation, from gamma rays to microwaves and infrared, which we may not be able to see but still classify as light. With space telescopes such as Hubble and James Webb, scientists have had an estimation of the cosmic optical background (COB), essentially the accumulated light produced over the 13.8 billion years of the universe's existence.
Measuring the exact level of the COB, however, has been a challenging task on Earth due to scattered sunlight caused by interplanetary dust. To tackle this issue, a group of astronomers turned to humanity's farthest reach - the New Horizons space probe, launched in 2006 and outfitted with telescopes capable of capturing a variety of light wavelengths. Its primary mission was to investigate Pluto, but in 2023, it was given a new task: to study the Sun's environment all the way from the edge of our solar system.
Located some 7.3 billion kilometers from Earth, the New Horizons spacecraft offers an unparalleled view of the universe's darkest regions. The study, published in the Astrophysical Journal, revealed that the amount of visible light in deep space aligns with the total light generated by galaxies since the universe's beginning.
The research team, which included scientists like Tod Lauer from the National Science Foundation NOIRLab, initially encountered inconsistencies in their previous attempts to measure the COB. Two previous analyses indicated the existence of unexplained light sources. In this latest study, however, they found that these whisperings of hidden light sources were due to miscalculations of light reflected off space dust.
"The universe's darkness has finally been unveiled to us," said Marc Postman, a distinguished astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, who was also part of the research team. "The findings confirm that the majority of visible light we receive from the universe originated in galaxies. Importantly, there's no evidence to suggest profound levels of light produced by unknown cosmic phenomena."
These recent findings should help alleviate some unease among scientists who were disheartened when the New Horizons mission was shifted from studying the Kuiper Belt in 2023. The spacecraft, despite being located in a relatively dark part of space, continues to shed light on some of the universe's most perplexing mysteries.
- The study published in the Astrophysical Journal, conducted by a group of astronomers including Tod Lauer from the National Science Foundation NOIRLab, reveals that the amount of visible light in deep space aligns with the total light generated by galaxies since the universe's beginning.
- Initially, the research team encountered inconsistencies in their attempts to measure the cosmic optical background (COB), with two previous analyses indicating the existence of unexplained light sources.
- However, in this latest study, they found that these whisperings of hidden light sources were due to miscalculations of light reflected off space dust, rather than profound levels of light produced by unknown cosmic phenomena.
- Nigel Tufnel's statement about the color black serves as a metaphor for the vastness of the universe, as scientists, including Marc Postman, continue to explore the universe's darkest regions, such as those observable by the New Horizons spacecraft, in an effort to calculate and understand the COB more accurately.