Why ASTRONOMY matters?!

BREATHTAKING!

Many people ask about the benefits of basic research, in particular astronomy research. The simple answer is that the study of our universe is, in part, the study of ourselves. It's the oldest science; we have been gazing into the night sky and wondering about what was out there, and what our place is in the world, since humans came into existence. And not much has changed — just look around today and you'll see just how much astronomy has impacted our lives.

Over the past few years there has been a renewed emphasis placed on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. Today we need more students to have that inquisitive fire lit inside of them so they can become tomorrow's scientists and researchers. Imagine where we'd be without Galileo, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, or Carl Sagan, to name a few. These giants and the stars provided the fertile ground that helped humankind take tremendous leaps forward.

That's what makes astronomy — and scientific research — so amazing: every time there's a new discovery, it raises more questions than it provides answers. Being explorers is what humankind is all about — and it's what continues to fascinate us to this day.

So much to gasp at!

WHAT has ASTRONOMY ever done for us?

Go outside on a clear evening, away from the lights of the city and the streets, and you can see for yourself the glories of the night sky. Watch regularly, and the calendar shows itself as the Moon waxes and wanes and the constellations change through the seasons. This is what inspired our distant ancestors – astronomy has a good claim to be the oldest science – and still inspires creative and scientific minds today. Harnessing astronomical understanding for navigation led to commercial success in the 18th and 19th centuries; the subject continues to draw in intelligent and curious young people, who go on to world-leading roles in research and into industry, bringing advanced technological skills into the commercial marketplace. Astronomy now covers a huge range of topics, from how the universe began and evolved into what we see today, right up to the search for planets that might support life.

It involves the exploration of the unknown: the origin of the dark energy that is accelerating cosmic expansion is unknown, as is the composition of invisible dark matter, which together dominate the dynamics of the universe. The universe we see directly is only a small component of what is really out there. It is not surprising that children are fascinated by the sheer scale and strangeness of the universe. Many young people are drawn into studying science and engineering at university through an early introduction to the wonders of the cosmos. Modern astronomy, like global commerce, involves working in international teams on large-scale projects, often involving tremendous volumes of data. Students develop good management as well as strong analytical (mathematical and computational) and engineering skills. And the enthusiasm for astronomy that drives so many researchers fosters excellent communication skills.

The Very Large Array telescope

• Cutting-edge technology

Pushing back the boundaries of what we know about the universe requires ever more sophisticated instruments and computing methods. As telescopes grow in size and sensitivity, they require increasingly complex optical systems and innovative detectors. They also bring in almost unthinkable amounts of data, demanding advanced hardware such as supercomputers and sophisticated software to make the information accessible to researchers. These methods have applications in a range of business and technical areas such as environmental management and national security. Specialized instruments provide a testbed for novel materials and techniques which find use in industry or in the health sector.

• Popular culture 

Astronomy, cosmology and space science address the big questions about the nature of existence, exciting the public imagination in the process. Its concepts and imagery saturate popular culture, from toys and computer games to fashion. Although astronomy is intellectually challenging, it also lends itself to explanation at a level that can be appreciated and enjoyed by everyone. Citizen science Astronomy also enhances public engagement in science in another way: it can be pursued at an amateur level. Astronomers have exploited the internet to engage people further and involve the public in front-line research through projects. 

• An exciting future 

The future for astronomy is extremely exciting. New telescopes and instruments being planned are likely to lead to world-changing fundamental discoveries about the nature of the universe and the forces governing it. They also have the potential to provide life-enhancing technical developments. Even more extraordinarily, we may soon know whether there is life beyond the Earth, which will redefine our perceptions of human existence for ever.

Technology transfer

• From astronomy to industry

Some of the most useful examples of technology transfer between astronomy and industry include advances in imaging and communications. For example, a film called Kodak Technical Pan is used extensively by medical and industrial spectroscopists, industrial photographers, and artists, and was originally created so that solar astronomers could record the changes in the surface structure of the Sun. In addition, the development of Technical Pan — again driven by the requirements of astronomers — was used for several decades to detect diseased crops and forests, in dentistry and medical diagnosis, and for probing layers of paintings to reveal forgeries.

In 2009 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of another device that would be widely used in industry. The sensors for image capture developed for astronomical images, known as Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs), were first used in astronomy in 1976. Within a very few years they had replaced film not only on telescopes, but also in many people’s personal cameras, webcams and mobile phones. The improvement and popularity of CCDs is attributed to NASA’s decision to use super-sensitive CCD technology on the Hubble Space Telescope.

In the realm of communication, radio astronomy has provided a wealth of useful tools, devices, and data-processing methods. Many successful communications companies were originally founded by radio astronomers.

Some other examples of technology transfer between astronomy and industry are listed below (National Research Council, 2010):

• The company General Motors uses the astronomy programming language Interactive Data Language (IDL) to analyse data from car crashes.
• The first patents for techniques to detect gravitational radiation — produced when massive bodies accelerate — have been acquired by a company to help them determine the gravitational stability of underground oil reservoirs.
• The telecommunications company AT&T uses Image Reduction and Analysis Facility (IRAF) — a collection of software written at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory — to analyse computer systems and solid-state physics graphics.
• Larry Altschuler, an astronomer, was responsible for the development of tomography -  the  process of imaging in sections using a penetrating wave - via his work on reconstructing the Solar Corona from its projections. (Schuler, M. D. 1979)

A hypothetical case

• From astronomy to the energy sector

Astronomical methods can be used to find new fossil fuels as well as to evaluate the possibility of new renewable energy sources (National Research Council, 2010):

• Oil companies use IDL to analyse core samples around oil fields as well as for general petroleum research.
• An Australian company, called Ingenero, has created solar radiation collectors to harness the power of the Sun for energy on Earth. They have created collectors up to 16 metres in diameter, which is only possible with the use of a graphite composite material developed for an orbiting telescope array.
• Technology designed to image X-rays in X-ray telescopes — which have to be designed differently from visible-light telescopes — is now used to monitor plasma fusion. If fusion — where two light atomic nuclei fuse to form a heavier nucleus — became possible to control, it could be the answer to safe, clean, energy.
• Astronomy and medicine

Astronomers struggle constantly to see objects that are ever dimmer and further away. Medicine struggles with similar issues: to see things that are obscured within the human body. Both disciplines require high-resolution, accurate and detailed images. Perhaps the most notable example of knowledge transfer between these two studies is the technique of aperture synthesis, developed by the radio astronomer and Nobel Laureate, Martin Ryle (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1974). This technology is used in computerised tomography (also known as CT or CAT scanners), magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), positron emission tomography (PET) and many other medical imaging tools.

Along with these imaging techniques, astronomy has developed many programming languages that make image processing much easier, specifically IDL and IRAF. These languages are widely used for medical applications.

Another important example of how astronomical research has contributed to the medical world is in the development of clean working areas. The manufacture of space-based telescopes requires an extremely clean environment to prevent dust or particles that might obscure or obstruct the mirrors or instruments on the telescopes (such as in NASA’s STEREO mission; Gruman, 2011). The cleanroom protocols, air filters, and bunny suits that were developed to achieve this are now also used in hospitals and pharmaceutical labs (Clark, 2012).

• Astronomy in everyday life

All these satellites form just a part of the everyday use of astronomy and space science

There are many things that people encounter on an everyday basis that were derived from astronomical technologies. Perhaps the most commonly used astronomy-derived invention is the wireless local area network (WLAN). In 1977 John O’Sullivan developed a method to sharpen images from a radio telescope. This same method was applied to radio signals in general, specifically to those dedicated to strengthening computer networks, which is now an integral part of all WLAN implementations.

Other technologies important to everyday life that were originally developed for astronomy are listed below :

• X-ray observatory technology is also used in current X-ray luggage belts in airports.
• In airports, a gas chromatograph — for separating and analysing compounds — designed for a Mars mission is used to survey baggage for drugs and explosives.
• The police use hand-held Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) photometers — instruments developed by astronomers for measuring light intensity — to check that car windows are transparent, as determined by the law.
• A gamma-ray spectrometer originally used to analyse lunar soil is now used as a non-invasive way to probe structural weakening of historical buildings or to look behind fragile mosaics, such as in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.

More subtle than these contributions to technology is the contribution that astronomy has made to our view of time. The first calendars were based on the movement of the Moon and even the way that we define a second is due to astronomy. The atomic clock, developed in 1955, was calibrated using astronomical Ephemeris Time — a former standard astronomical timescale adopted by the IAU in 1952. This led to the internationally agreed-upon re-definition of the second.

To read more on the topic, go through this paper available on arxiv here. And to follow up on the craze of Elon Musk's big announcement about Starship, my next piece will go into the depths of it and what Musk exactly plans to do with it. Until then...

Ciao!

NOTE - All the specific information listed in this article is a lot for one man to scour and segregate, so the things that point to specific papers or companies have been directly taken from IAU's website.