1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Hubble's images often look like works of art 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:10,000 But as we discovered in episode 59, the nuts and bolts of astronomers' work 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,000 with Hubble is often not so visual. 4 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:20,000 Spectra — the graphs of the distribution of colours within an observation — 5 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,000 are a powerful tool for studying the Universe. 6 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:26,000 But because they don't look visually arresting, 7 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,000 it's usually just the scientists who see them. 8 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:51,000 Episode 63: From the distant past — Hubble and art 9 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:59,000 To astronomers, spectra have an elegance that equals Hubble’s prettiest pictures. 10 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:05,000 They might not be as attractive as pictures of galaxies or nebulae, 11 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:08,000 but for astronomer Bob Fosbury 12 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,000 and conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth, 13 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:14,000 they can still be works of art. 14 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:21,000 I’m always thinking about ways of explaining what scientists actually do 15 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:28,000 and how they come up with these really rather profound facts about the Universe. 16 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:31,000 And the tools we use are of course very sophisticated, 17 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:34,000 and they sometimes produce data which are not 18 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:38,000 very visually appealing, attractive or understandable. 19 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:47,000 And so, one of the main tools that astronomers use and have used for many, many years is spectroscopy 20 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:51,000 The spectra themselves are full of information to somebody like me, an astronomer, 21 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:55,000 but that information is not obvious to the viewer. 22 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:59,000 Roth and Fosbury have worked to build a work of art 23 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:06,000 about the oldest colours in the Universe, using Hubble’s spectra of distant galaxies. 24 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:17,000 Using a green laser, Roth’s installation projects Hubble spectra of distant galaxies and quasars as an animated light wave. 25 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:21,000 It’s been exhibited in a number of cities in Europe and the USA 26 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:25,000 including its premiere here in Venice in 2010... 27 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:31,000 … and more recently on the dome of the Hayden Planetarium here in New York. 28 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:36,000 But why would an artist be interested in projecting spectra? 29 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,000 I think people are attracted in a way by the projection. 30 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:44,000 They see, well, they have anthropomorphic associations 31 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:49,000 They probably see a brainwave, or a heartbeat, 32 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:55,000 so people stop and get interested in that, and that’s important. 33 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,000 And they’re puzzled, and they start to reflect: “Well, what’s going on there?” 34 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:10,000 As a conceptual artist, Roth is interested in the concept of colour; 35 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:14,000 how it is reproduced, and how it is represented. 36 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:30,000 In the past, he has worked with CCDs — the type of chip that detects light in Hubble — 37 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:36,000 and has used individual coloured pixels taken from astronomical observations. 38 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,000 This work of art goes a step further: 39 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:45,000 the projection is in just a single shade of green, 40 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:48,000 but the peaks and troughs in the lines 41 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:56,000 represent thousands of colours observed in thousands of the most distant objects ever observed by science. 42 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:04,000 Would you be able to go into the signs there and interpret what it actually means? 43 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:10,000 You could. You’re seeing basically a randomly selected 1200 objects 44 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:17,000 so I wouldn’t be able to say off by heart which one you’re looking at 45 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:21,000 But by and large, if you put a couple of astronomers here like myself 46 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,000 in a few minutes they would be discussing, 47 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:29,000 “Yes, that’s H-alpha, that’s hydrogen, that’s nitrogen, I can see the wavelength”. 48 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:32,000 Yeah, I’m learning! 49 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,000 Every position has a corresponding element. 50 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:46,000 Well, it’s important, I think, for the art to reflect concepts like colour and the image 51 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:50,000 This is what art has done for the last 500 years 52 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000 We had movements also in the 20th century 53 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,000 we have concept art, we have colour field paintings, 54 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:03,000 and in a way, 'From the Distant Past' brings this together, 55 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:10,000 reflecting the concept of colour with a very conceptual formal approach. 56 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:15,000 What you see here is the heartbeat of the primordial Universe 57 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:21,000 This is very early colour information; it’s the oldest colour information we have, 58 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:27,000 it’s the oldest light information we have, travelling for billions of years across the Universe. 59 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,000 and it tells us of the origins of the Universe. 60 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:41,000 Well, I think the interaction between the art and the science is very interesting, 61 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,000 and it’s something I’m learning about, 62 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:48,000 but I think the art has a way of accessing the profound idea 63 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,000 I mean, the science is a way of exploring the profound idea 64 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:58,000 making the observations, making the deductions, painting the picture of the way the Universe works. 65 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:07,000 I think, for me, the art adds a very valid channel from this scientific work 66 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:12,000 to present the profound idea in a way that has impact to people 67 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:21,000 And it’s a way of doing it where you don’t have to explain all the intricate detail of what is actually being done 68 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:28,000 You can say, “Hey, what you’re seeing was captured by a telescope in orbit, 69 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:35,000 from photons which had left galaxies in the very early Universe and then have been detected 70 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:43,000 So you’re looking at the very distant Universe as it was happening all of those billions of years ago". 71 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,000 Special thanks 72 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,000 Venues 73 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:09,000 Hubblecast is produced by ESA/Hubble at the European Southern Observatory in Germany 74 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:14,000 The Hubble mission is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency 75 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:18,000 www.spacetelescope.org 76 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:24,000 Transcribed by ESA/Hubble. Translation ––