[ Hubble Science: Multiwavelength Astronomy, The Big Picture ]
Multiwavelength astronomy is basically looking at our universe with the full spectrum of light at
our disposal. So the light that we see with our eyes is the visible part of the electromagnetic
spectrum, but that spectrum extends dramatically much lower energy, longer wavelengths out into
the radio microwave and radio. And then higher energy the ultraviolet, the X-ray, the gamma rays,
this is an entire sweep of the electromagnetic spectrum and our eyes are only sensitive to the
visible. And our atmosphere here on Earth actually protects us from many many wavelengths of light,
ultraviolet light and high energy light is very damaging to life, it also blocks much of the
infrared part of the spectrum. Hubble is above the Earth's atmosphere, we're in a low earth orbit and
so we are above much of the atmosphere and so we are free to observe in the ultraviolet and the
near-infrared. So we have ultraviolet instruments and filters on there that expand our vision
greatly in the ultraviolet and very uniquely from space, and we also have instruments that go
into the near-infrared now so that stretches our vision in the other direction into the infrared.
And getting into space has been so powerful for us when we get up above
the atmosphere and we're able to look at those same objects now that we saw invisible before,
but add that ultraviolet part of the picture, the infrared part of the picture we're now taking
our vision of a very narrow part of the object and we're widening it to get the big picture.
[ Shot of colorful Lagoon Nebula in visible light, a line moves from left to right changing the view. It's still the Lagoon Nebula, but now in infrared. More muted, but we can peer through the gas and see previously hidden stars. ]
[ Shot of the Pillars of Creation, slowly tilting up as the colorful blues and greens of the visible transform into the infrared view. Once again seeing previously hidden stars. ]
So for example when we look in our own solar system, when we look at the ultraviolet at
a planet like Jupiter, the ultraviolet actually revealed that there was motion
happening in the polar region of Jupiter very similar to the Aurora on the Earth.
[ Very blue image of Jupiter's pole with flashing lights on top, these are the aurora. ]
That gave us a piece of the picture of our solar system, of Jupiter,
and of the sun's interaction with the planets in our own solar system that
we could not have seen without that ultraviolet view of the solar system.
[ Full visible view of Jupiter with blue aurora at its North Pole. ]
Mystic Mountain is a beautiful multi-color image of a star-forming region, or a stellar nursery.
What we see in the visible from Mystic Mountain is how the light from these
newly-born stars is engaging with the material around it, the gas and the dust that's still
there that has yet to form stars. We look at Mystic Mountain not in the visible now
but in the infrared we're actually able to peer through a lot of that gas and dust.
[ Shot of Mystic Mountain in the infrared as it slowly dissolves into the bright colors of the visible view. ]
Multiwavelength view looking at Mystic Mountain in both the visible and the
infrared lets us see that picture of star birth, early star formation in a much more nuanced and
detailed way than either just the infrared or the visible alone would allow us to do.
[ One again we see Mystic Mountain, this time in the visible, the image slowly rotates to the right as it begins to dissolve into the infrared view. Revealing once hidden stars ]
So multiwavelength astronomy has allowed us to take objects that we've been observing for
hundreds of years and put that new color on them to understand them better as objects, how they
evolve, the dynamics that's going on on there. Galaxies, stars, nebulae, supernova remnants, and
now James Webb Space Telescope it's going to add a tremendous amount of infrared information to that
multiwavelength picture, it's going to lead the way in that area of the electromagnetic spectrum
and it's going to continue this multiwavelength investigation of our universe for decades to come.
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