模擬宇宙大爆炸

2010年2月18日
實驗室製4萬億℃高溫
科學家模擬宇宙大爆炸

【明報專訊】美國物理學家為模擬宇宙大爆炸（Big Bang）令物質衍生的「夸克湯」（quark soup）狀態，在實驗室將溫度提升至史無前例的4萬億℃，創下人為最高溫紀錄。

熱太陽核心25萬倍

能源部布魯克黑文國家實驗室表示，如此高溫效果是靠金離子以近乎光速，於實驗室裏的「相對論重離子對撞機」（RHIC，一個圓周長3.8公里的「粒子加速器」）內游走碰撞造成，產生出比太陽核心熱25萬倍的超高溫，比需要融化質子與中子成為夸克和膠子（gluons）等離子體（plasma）的溫度還要高。

科學家認為，137億年前宇宙誕生那幾微秒間，充塞太空的物質就是「夸克」和「膠子」。溫度高達4萬億℃的等離子體迅速冷卻、凝結，形成質子和中子，再而衍生個別的原子，乃至星宿及人類。

對高熱物質溫度的測量，是靠觀察它所發出的光芒顏色或能量分佈來衡量的，類似燒鐵時鑑光辨熱的法子。RHIC內所產生的物質，其屬性是利用精密探測裝置研究物質在其極短暫的存在裏所發射的粒子來判定。

法新社

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Hubble sees Pluto changing color, ice sheet cover


This undated handout photo provided by NASA, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the dwarf planet Pluto.The image shows an icy, mottled, dark molasses-colored world undergoing seasonal surface color and brightness changes.

Spurned Pluto is changing its looks, donning more rouge in its complexion and altering its iceball surface here and there.

Color astronomers surprised.

Newly released Hubble Space Telescope photos show the distant one-time planet — demoted to "dwarf planet" status in 2006 — is changing color and its ice sheets are shifting.

The photos, released by NASA Thursday, paint a Pluto that is significantly redder than it had been for the past several decades. To the layman, it has a yellow-orange hue, but astronomers say it has about 20 percent more red than it used to have.

The pictures show icy frozen nitrogen on Pluto's surface growing and shrinking, brightening in the north and darkening in the south. Astronomers say Pluto's surface is changing more than the surfaces of other bodies in the solar system. That's unexpected because a season lasts 120 years in some regions of Pluto.

"It's a little bit of a surprise to see these changes happening so big and so fast," said astronomer Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "This is unprecedented."

From 1954 to 2000, Pluto didn't change in color when it was photographed from Earth. But after that, it did. The red levels increased by 20 percent, maybe up to 30 percent, and stabilized from about 2000 to 2002, Buie said. It's not as red as Mars, however, Buie said.

Buie said he can explain the redness, but not why it changed so dramatically and so recently. The planet has a lot of methane, which contains carbon and hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen gets stripped off by solar winds and other factors, leaving carbon-rich areas on the surface, which tend to be red and dark.

The Hubble photos were taken in 2002 and the analysis took a few years. But why Pluto changed so quickly was such a mystery that Buie held off for years on announcing what he had found, worried that he might be wrong. However, since Pluto's moon Charon hadn't changed color in the same telescope images, he decided the Pluto findings weren't an instrument mistake.

His analysis also found that nitrogen ice was shifting in size and density in surprising ways. It's horribly cold on Pluto with, paradoxically, the bright spots being the coldest at about -382 degrees Fahrenheit. Astronomers are still arguing about the temperatures of the warm dark spots, which Buie believes may be 30 degrees warmer than the darker areas.

Part of the difficulty in figuring out what is going on with Pluto is that it takes the dwarf planet 248 years to circle the sun, so astronomers don't know what conditions are like when it's is farthest from the sun. The last time Pluto was at its farthest point was in 1870, which was decades before Pluto was discovered. Unlike Earth, Pluto's four seasons aren't equal lengths of time.

Buie's explanation makes sense, said retired NASA astronomer Stephen Maran, co-author of a book on Pluto. "Pluto is interesting and poorly understood, whether it qualifies as a planet or not," he said.

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