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This type of rapid survey will also enable other space telescopes to use their time more efficiently, or better rank existing applications for extremely valuable Hubble and JWST time.

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For anyone else as unaware as myself, it's named after the astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, not the horrible TV personality Nancy Grace.

They now think the dark energy is vacuum energy in older black holes .

Very interesting article that was posted not long ago on here.

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-evidence-black-holes-source.html

Wouldn’t it be terrible if they named something so scientific after somebody so anti science… lol the Nancy Grace telescope on Fox News …

And what the hell is a "Roman Telescope"?

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Horrible tv personality!?! Sounds like Grace is Under Fire here.

I was gonna say, does it yell at a camera with overwrought indignation?

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That was my first thought.... Poor woman had to live with that name.

Good to know. I started looking up Roman Space Telescope.

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Hmm… some solid Ace vibes here:

>What the...that's it. That's it. Einhorn is Finkle. Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is a MAN! OH MY GOD! EINHORN IS A MAN?!

bug on physicists wall overhears:

>What the… that’s it. That’s it. Dark matter is black hole. Black hole is Dark matter. Dark matter is a BLACK HOLE! OH MY GOD! DARK MATTER IS A BLACK HOLE?!

More importantly, what's a Grecian Urn?

Thank you lmao I was about to google “wtf does Nancy Grace have to do with telescopes” 😅

I felt my blood pressure rise for a minute

The Tucker Carlson Center for Climate Science and Immunology.

Let's just call it the Roman Space Telescope or RST for short.

This telescope is mostly a survey instrument, able to image roughly 1/4 of the sky every 5 years to a resolution of 0.11 arcseconds. For comparison, Hubble's resolution maxes out at 0.04 arcseconds, so it won't be quite at that level but it'll still be an enormous amount of very high quality data. Because of its large field of view and 0.3 gigapixel camera it'll return well over a terabyte of data per day (compared to JWST's ~30 gigabytes per day). Combined with JWST and the Vera Rubin Observatory these next generation telescopes will very much usher in a new era of high throughput data-rich astronomy.

It's like a regular telescope, but wearing a toga!

> They now think the dark energy is vacuum energy in older black holes .

That may be the case, but this is not how science works. Science isn't some Matlock-esque stage play where the hero rushes up, presents incontrovertible evidence, everyone says "yeah, that explains it" and then that's the end. Science is almost always a slow process of building a case piece by piece, layer by layer, which incrementally increases the likelihood of one specific explanation (competing theory) being true while eliminating alternative explanations.

The new idea of black holes being a source of dark energy is right now just a competing hypothesis, not an accepted fact. It may be true, it may not be, we don't know because we don't have enough observational evidence to say for sure. Science is the process of figuring out how to attempt to falsify a theory, collecting observational data, and seeing the results. It's possible that this theory will ultimately win out, but right now it's still just one of many potential ideas about dark energy.

Yeah science needs to make sure the 1 is without a doubt 1 and 2 is absolutely 2 just so they can figure out what 3 is.

And even then there is always the chance that 1 isn’t quite correct.

We can’t even see dark energy with our equipment. It’s called “dark energy” for a reason.

> Science isn't some Matlock-esque stage play where the hero rushes up, presents incontrovertible evidence, everyone says "yeah, that explains it" and then that's the end.

In fairness, that does happen, but it's very rare. When the sensitivity conjecture was proven in computer science, the proof was short enough to be tweeted out (a formal paper a couple pages long was published at the same time).

Just who are all these brilliant people who design, engineer etc etc these modern telescopes. They are building the dreams of astrologists of the last few thousand years. For a simple pleb, I'm in awe.

I have been reading about the whole dark energy thing for awhile and it never clicked .

So I guess I am excited about a different theory on the matter .

And no matter how smart any of us or all of humanity thinks we are we probably don’t even know a percentage of a percent of what would be considered the truth .

Science can be matlockesqe it has happened ..

When somebody finally cracks a cure to polio or malaria or eventually cancer sure there will have to be trails and studies but that person will feel that moment .

Spatial theory might be a whole different ballgame when it comes to that because even when you think you have it figured out you really don’t.

It is hard to have it all figured out when you can only see one piece of the puzzle.

There is so many different sciences or schools of science that it does happen more so in some then others.

Theories and physics is a bit different but it can happen to have that ah ha moment.

There is so much that we don’t know or can see it’s hard to have it all figured out.

Dark energy is just a placeholder like a letter in an algebra equation . We don’t know what it is , we don’t know if it really even exists . We just know something is missing from the picture.

I don't think you needed to exclude the woman's name.

You didn't even use the acronym again in your post.

Are you intentionally trying to erase this woman's accomplishments from the scientific record or just obtuse?

The woman's name is Roman, I used it.

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Interestingly, the paper proposes that the mass of black holes is "cosmologically coupled" to the expansion rate of the universe. This was based on unexpected mass growth in black holes that our current models do not explain with accretion alone. The observations were made through analysis of older elliptical galaxies and gravitational wave signatures. What is being described by the researchers is the hypothesis that emerged from these unexpected observations.

My question is, if this expansion continues to accelerate to the point where only discrete massive objects exist in an expanding spacetime where all other objects have receded beyond the light horizon, would said objects continue their mass growth being coupled with an arbitrarily large, expanding spacetime? If so, what happens next?

It would seem that in this condition the "universe" would eventually consist of permanently displaced, high-density, high-temperature, low-volume objects gaining mass through some unknown mechanism by manner of spactime's continued expansion. Would the hypothetical conditions that altered the state of the proto-universe from pre-Big Bang to post-Big Bang arise in these objects? Would the continued mass growth over arbitrarily long time scales consequently increase the chances of the hypothesized causative quantum fluctuations yielding renewed expansion in any of these objects? Is there a critical point at which these infintesimally low probability occurences necessarily happen due to the continued addition of mass?

Most of the above is just speculation from someone who doesnt know nearly enough about these matters. Nonetheless, it seems the nature of this relationship - the cosmological coupling of black holes to expansion rate - may provide some very insightful avenues for continued research if the signal proves to represent an actual physical phenomenon.

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That was the very nicest way I could describe her; there are many less nice, and more accurate, ways I can think of.

To be fair, it’s referenced as that in the article as well

I failed at making a joke. Thought her show was called “Grace Under Fire” but that was actually the name of a bad 90s sitcom by a different woman named Grace (not Nancy Grace). I agree with you on Nancy Grace tv lady

This is a highly unfortunate coincidence.

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Her name is Nancy Roman. Grace is her middle name.

why not just call it Nancy Roman? Everyone’s gonna think it’s a telescope named after Nancy Grace that was conceptualized and developed in Rome.

I just came to say can we just call it the nancy roman teleacope so we dont have to endure "tot mom" flashbacks

>just speculation from someone who doesnt know nearly enough about these matters

Well, I know I couldn't have put those sentences together, so you've got me beat!

Astronomers, not astrologists.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson is that you? But yes, thank you for the correction.

The mirror is 1 of 2 donated to NASA from the NRO, intended for use in spy satellites.

Mirror Update

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |JWST|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |NRHO|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |NRO|(US) National Reconnaissance Office| | |Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO|

^(2 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has 15 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8573 for this sub, first seen 16th Feb 2023, 06:16]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

I was trying to figure out how the TV showed was related. I thought I was missing something.

Accretes the question : Is the boundary between cosmological space/time expansion and metaphysical speculation decreasing or not?

Can't they just call it the N. Grace Roman Space Telescope? Or even just Nancy G. Roman Space Telescope?

Because all I can think of is that horrible horrible TV woman, sadly.

50 Dachma a week?

The thing that bothers me is that they never "go back to the drawing board" and instead choose to "tweak the current theory" x500 times. Doesn't seem very scientific, and reminds me of Luminiferous Aether or Quintessence. The descendants of those 16th century scientists are still marching around waving their hands, they just wear a different style of hat now

For the record, Grace Under Fire starred Brett Butler as a character named Grace.

They can’t do anything more with dark energy until it is “found/discovered”

It’s just a hypothesis because they know there is something there that’s doing something about the expansion. Until dark energy, whatever it may actually be, is found it is just a sort of variable in a math equation.

can we name these after all seeing mythical figures yet, rather than accidentally including fox newscasters who happen to be part of the scientist's name

I thank you for clarifying-I thought it was named Nancy Grace because of the “dark energy” part xD

is the telescope an angry racist drunk?

you know the stars in that neighborhood are up to no good!

a copy of a Greek Telescope

Saying a very grateful ciao from Rome , Italy. Is it made out of marble? ;)

“Why should I have to change my name??? She’s the one that sucks!”

Tucker, we present to you the Tucker Carlson Center for Warm Weather Smarts and Stopping Yucky Germies.

Tucker, doing his little furrowed brow frowny face: "What is this? A center for ants?"

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She’s awesome!! Story here

I was imagining her voice doing voice overs. <<chills>>

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Thank you, this is why I clicked on the thread.

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“Set to launch around 2026 or 2027”

That’s coming up pretty soon!

So you’re saying we SHOULDN’T honor one of the most influential people in the history of NASA because her name is similar to someone else’s name? That’s her name, and it should be used as she wished to be called. context is enough to make it clear who is being honored.

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I dated a girl once, she was going to school to become a forensic astrologist....

we should call these things heimdall array or the Horus satellite or the Panoptescope and not run the risk of later finding out that webb was a racist or that nancy grace roman supported something, especially when our entire era is going to be seen as complicit in asian child labor the way we see everyone in the past as complicit is slavery or systemic misogyny and shit.

the hermes orbiting mirror, what a romantic name for something.

Dark energy is caused by super massive blackholes in the center of galaxies

The Nancy regan telescope will suck in more light than any other before it

There are lots of people going back to the drawing board every day, but so far none of them have found a better model than Lambda-CDM. Certainly not for lack of trying, though.

I agree completely. I'm sure you are awesome. That terrible woman set the bar so low for anyone with your name. Don't change a thing.

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Most people do already call it the aromas space telescope- that’s what all their merch says at least

Most people just refer it as the Roman Space Telescope

The only thing Nancy Grace should have named after her is a form of torture equivalent to watching her reprehensible show.

Watching her show would be the worst kind of torture. I think it was specifically called out in the Geneva Convention as being too inhumane.

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I hate to be 'that guy', but:

Dark matter and dark energy are completely different, and from my layman's understanding - having opposite effects.

Dark matter (DM) is used to explain excess gravity observed in the universe - an attractive force.

Dark Energy is used to explain the observed accelerating expansion of the universe - a 'repulsive' force (not technically true, but observationally convenient phrasing).

Black holes are postulated to be possibly connected to the dark energy thing.

Upvoted for Ace Ventura reference.

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