The View From The Bridge

Forget What You've Seen On Star Trek

As  camera pixels grow smaller, telescopic Infrared images of the  sky are growing ever more refined. This new mosaic of the whole Milky Way just released  by Japan's JAXA program, shows energy radiated by the black hole at the galactic center  turning the sky into a horizon to horizon toaster oven.  1.6 and 3.2 gigapixel cameras will render it even more striking in the decade to come.

There's more to relativistic visual effects in space travel than rainbows. High enough speeds can shift wavelengths clear out of the range of human vision--and render the unseen visible. In a realistic view from a starship bridge racing toward the galactic center at near light speed, the familiar  luminosity of the Great White Way could be blue-shifted into ultraviolet invisibility, and the galaxy's central infrared glow might emerge into something very like the tawny image JAXA has assembled .

 

Comments

[Robert Speirs]

Consider that the light from different stars which makes up that image left those stars at different times, corresponding to each star's distance from Earth. We have no idea what the galaxy looks like right now, because the light leaving most of the stars today won't reach us for many thousands of years. Not only that, we don't even have an image of how the galaxy actually looked at any one time ever. I wonder if such an image could be constructed using available information. The posted image could be likened to a high school graduation group photo which shows some students at the age of 18, others at 65, still others as babies and which leaves some out.

[publius]

Well, the diameter of the galaxy is on the order of 100 000 light years. The time scale of stellar evolution is measured in 100s of millions, so most of the stars in the image still exist now, and few new ones have come into existence. Stellar proper motions are fairly small, so the patterns have not changed much, either.

It's more like a yearbook which shows all 4 years together.

[Ed H]

I believe you are mistaken. The "view from the bridge" of a ship _approaching_ the galactic center at relativistic speeds would be shifted towards the other end of the spectrum. Instead of an infrared view, the occupants would enjoy a view where all wavelengths are shifted towards the ultraviolet.response

RESPONSE

That's what it says -- at a blue shift of 2, the scattered visible light concealing the galactic center would be blue shifted into ultraviolet invisibility, and the .~1.2 to 1.5 micron band shown would span the red end of the spectrum as shown

[Health News]

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