Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., Hemos recibido información de la Agencia Espacial NASA, sobre que un equipo de científicos ha utilizado de rayos X y rayos gamma en observaciones de algunos de los objetos más distantes en el Universo para comprender mejor la naturaleza del espacio y el tiempo. Sus resultados establecen límites a la naturaleza cuántica, o "espumosidad" del espacio-tiempo en muy pequeñas escalas.
More information...........
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/nasa-telescopes-set-limits-on-spacetime-quantum-foam.html
A team of scientists has used X-ray and gamma-ray
observations of some of the most distant objects in the Universe to
better understand the nature of space and time. Their results set limits
on the quantum nature, or “foaminess” of spacetime at extremely tiny
scales.
This study combines data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope along with ground-based gamma-ray
observations from the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array
(VERITAS).
At the smallest scales of distance and duration that we can measure,
spacetime – that is, the three dimensions of space plus time – appears
to be smooth and structureless. However, certain aspects of quantum
mechanics, the highly successful theory scientists have developed to
explain the physics of atoms and subatomic particles, predict that
spacetime would not be smooth. Rather, it would have a foamy, jittery
nature and would consist of many small, ever-changing, regions for which
space and time are no longer definite, but fluctuate.
“One way to think of spacetime foam is if you are flying over the
ocean in the airplane, it looks completely smooth. However, if you get
low enough you see the waves, and closer still, foam, with tiny bubbles
that are constantly fluctuating” said lead author Eric Perlman of the
Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. “Even stranger, the
bubbles are so tiny that even on atomic scales we’re trying to observe
them from a very high-flying airplane.”
The predicted scale of spacetime foam is about ten times a billionth
of the diameter of a hydrogen atom’s nucleus, so it cannot be detected
directly. However, If spacetime does have a foamy structure there are
limitations on the accuracy with which distances can be measured because
the size of the many quantum bubbles through which light travels will
fluctuate. Depending on what model of spacetime is used, these distance
uncertainties should accumulate at different rates as light travels
travels over the large cosmic distances.
The researchers used observations of X-rays and gamma-rays from very
distant quasars – luminous sources produced by matter falling towards
supermassive black holes – to test models of spacetime foam. The authors
predicted that the accumulation of distance uncertainties for light
traveling across billions of light years would cause the image quality
to degrade so much that the objects would become undetectable. The
wavelength where the image disappears should depend on the model of
space-time foam used.
Chandra’s X-ray detection of quasars at distances of billions of
light years rules out one model, according to which photons diffuse
randomly through space-time foam in a manner similar to light diffusing
through fog. Detections of distant quasars at shorter, gamma-ray
wavelengths with Fermi and even shorter wavelengths with VERITAS
demonstrate that a second, so-called holographic model with less
diffusion does not work.
“We find that our data can rule out two different models for
spacetime foam,” said co-author Jack Ng of the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill. “We can conclude that spacetime is less foamy
that some models predict.”
The X-ray and gamma-ray data show that spacetime is smooth down to
distances 1000 times smaller than the nucleus of a hydrogen atom.
These results appear in the May 20th issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and
particle physics partnership managed by the agency's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. It was developed in collaboration
with the U.S. Department of Energy, with contributions from academic
institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and
the United States.
VERITAS is operated by a collaboration of more than 100 scientists
from 22 different institutions in the United States, Ireland, England
and Canada. VERITAS is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S.
National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Science
Foundation Ireland and the STFC of the U.K.
Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/FIT/E. Perlman; Illustration: CXC/M. Weiss
Last Updated: May 31, 2015
Editor: Jennifer Harbaugh
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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