Quintessence [Explored]

Barren landscapes, alien-looking plants, and incredibly dark skies. This lone quiver tree under the reverse Milky Way arc shows the quintessence of why landscape astrophotographers love Namibia.

 

After writing the above paragraph, I realized that the word 'quintessence' has a rather interesting history:

 

Medieval alchemists believed that besides the four classic elements - earth, air, fire, and water - yet another element was responsible for the stars and planets. They called it "quinta essentia", Latin for "fifth essence". They believed the quinta essentia was matter in its purest form, and if they could somehow isolate it, it would cure all diseases.

 

Of course, this idea has long since been abandoned, but many languages still use quintessence as a word for the purest essence of a thing.

 

Modern cosmology has given Quintessence a new twist. It is the name of a hypothetical scalar field, used in an attempt to explain dark energy without the cosmological constant, thus solving the problem that predicted vacuum energy is up to an embarrassing 100 orders of magnitude higher than actually measured.

 

To test whether dark energy is caused by quintessence or the cosmological constant, scientists must determine whether the strength of dark energy has changed over time. So far, all signs point to dark energy being constant. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, currently scheduled to start operations in 2025, should make measurements of the history of cosmic expansion dramatically more precise.

 

Scientists should thus soon be able to determine whether there's room in the data for Quintessence or whether the unchanging cosmological constant is the cause for dark energy, relegating quintessence back to parlance alone.

 

EXIF

Canon EOS-R, astro-modified

Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART

IDAS NBZ filter

iOptron SkyTracker Pro

 

Sky:

12 panel panorama, each a stack of 6x 45s @ ISO1600, unfiltered & 3x 105s @ ISO6400, filtered

 

Foreground:

Panorama of 12 panels, each a focus stack of 5x 1/2s @ ISO1600, during twilight

Done