April 28, 2020

On Monday, May 11,The College of Liberal Arts and Sciencesat Arizona State University will recognize its highest achieving students from the social sciences, natural sciences and humanities at the 2020 virtual convocation ceremony.

Each department and school within The College has selected an outstanding student who has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to academic excellence during their time at ASU. These students will be awarded a prestigious Deans Medal in honor of their scholastic achievements.

Meet the outstanding spring 2020 Deans Medalist awardees from around The College.

Deans Medal:Department of EconomicsMajor:EconomicsMinor:Statistics

Mann is a student at Barrett, The Honors College at ASU, a New American University Scholar and a National Merit Scholar who is passionate about economics and statistics.

While at ASU, Mann researched projects including assisting in econometric research examining the effects of spatial and temporal disaggregation on the relationship between extreme weather and GDP in the United States.

I could not think of a more ideal recipient for this award than John, said Jose Mendez, chair of the awards committee for the Department of Economics. Not only is he outstanding academically, he is also truly remarkable as an individual. I have never had a student that was so respectful and gracious. I feel privileged having had him in my class.

During his college career, Mann worked at a number of places, including the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where he provided research and analysis to inform reports, and at ASUs Office of University Initiatives, where he worked as a strategic research analyst.

Deans Medal:School of Civic and Economic Thought and LeadershipMajors:Civic and economic thought and leadership, political scienceMinors:Film and media production, Spanish

Throughout his time at ASU, Doebbeling stood out as a leader among his peers. As an early adopter of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, Doebbeling was able to grow alongside a new program.

Doebbeling served as the secretary of ASU Young Democrats and is a member of ASU Students for Education Equity. Taking a substantial international approach to his education, Doebbeling participated in numerous Global Intensive Experiences including traveling to India, Israel and the West Bank, Trinidad, Spain and Cuba. His capstone project makes an interesting comparison between founding father George Washington and revolutionary founder Fidel Castro.

Cormac Doebbling possesses a rare combination of intellectual breadth and depth, said Paul Carrese, director and professor at the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Whether it is international politics, grassroots political activism, political philosophy, film, theater or literature Cormac is enthusiastic and knowledgeable. It has been a pleasure having him as part of our schools founding generation of students.

After graduating from ASU, he plans on completing his masters degree in comedic writing at DePaul University in Chicago in order to pursue a career in political satire in television and film.

Deans Medal:School of Earth and Space ExplorationMajors:Earth and space exploration (astrophysics), physicsMinor:Mathematics

Through his endless dedication and determination, Bechtel exemplifies the interdisciplinary spirit and community engagement the School of Earth and Space Exploration thrives for. During his time at ASU, Bechtel, a New American University Scholar and ASU/NASA Space Grant Scholar, participated in several research projects (including both Barrett and senior thesis projects), mentored incoming students and volunteered in support of STEM education.

He has outperformed every other student in the class, including the graduate students by a substantial margin, said Judd Bowman, a professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration. He is a joy to have in class. While many students balk at working with raw untested data, Shane faced the challenge head on.

Bechtel wrote and contributed to many academic papers and gave several presentations on his research. For his senior thesis, Bechtel worked with research scientist Rolf Jansen to conduct an in-depth structural analysis of a small sample of intermediate redshift galaxies.

He approached this new topic of research with enthusiasm and more importantly produced tangible results in a very short period of time, while juggling his many other commitments, Jansen said. Moreover, he implemented his code in a general pipeline that will prove useful for related future research projects.

Deans Medal:School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious StudiesMajor:Philosophy (morality, politics and law)

Leland, a Barrett student, stands out for her outstanding hard work, compelling and clear writing ability and her helpful class participation.

Her honors thesis explores disability from a personal perspective and aims to dramatically shift the way we think about disabilities while recognizing that the stigmatization of disabilities affects other marginalized identities. Leland alsostudied abroad in Greece and Italy, and served as a study abroad diversity panelist.

Shawn E. Klein, philosophy faculty at the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, said Leland is the kind of student who goes above and beyond to help her peers come to better understand content.

What distinguishes Morgan is that she is an educator, that she is committed to the potential of higher education for producing broader social changes, and that she is personally devoted to changing the content of, social relations in, and standard operating procedure of academia, Klein said.

Deans Medal:Hugh Downs School of Human CommunicationMajors:Communication, political scienceCertificates:Cross-sector leadership, political entrepreneurship through internships: local to global and international studies

Throughout Hinshaws time at ASU, she has engaged in a wide variety of opportunities, including 11 different internships across the public, private and nonprofit sectors.

Hinshaw is a Barrett student and two-time Hugh Downs School of Human Communication Scholar. She also served as the 201819 Barrett Honors Fellow, working with Keith Brown, director and professor at the Melikian Center: Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies.

It has been a great experience to be part of her ASU journey, and an inspiration to observe her clarity of purpose, her organizational skills and her poise and professionalism, Brown said. Besides her innovative and meticulous thesis work on the impact of Tempe Sister Cities youth exchange program, she also personified ASU's commitment to community engagement."

Hinshaw explored her interest in intercultural communication and international affairs while studying abroad in Ghana, Israel and the West Bank as well as nationally in Washington, D.C., with the McCain Institutes Policy Design Program.

In addition to internships, Hinshaw works as the communications coordinator for ASU Project Humanities and also served in leadership roles for the Next Generation Service Corps, the Global Leadership Development Program and the advisory board of ASU Global Guides.

Deans Medal:School of International Letters and CulturesMajor:Russian

Philipson is an outstanding student, employee and volunteer with an extraordinary talent for languages including Russian, English and Latin. She has a passion for foreign affairs, which she is using to make a difference in the world through public, government service.

With an impeccable knowledge of Russian grammar, Philipson is an outstanding student who always understands what she is reading and is prepared to discuss her ideas, said Hilde Hoogenboom, an associate professor in the School of International Letters and Cultures.

Philipson is a semifinalist for the U.S. State Departments highly competitive Critical Languages scholarship for advanced Russian study in Russia and is one of the first students from ASU who was offered a prestigious summer internship as a Russian Language Analyst with the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland.

In the fall she will attend the University of Oxford to pursue her masters degree in Russian and East European studies. Afterwards she plans on attending law school and hopes to work in the Department of Homeland Security to fight against human trafficking.

Deans Medal:Department of PhysicsMajor:Physics

Johnson is an accomplished student interested in applying physics to real-world problems, specifically when it comes to renewable energy. She is the co-author of three published papers and an award-winning presenter who has received the NASA Space Grant consecutively for the past few years.

Anna Zaniewski, an associate instructional professional in the Department of Physics, said Johnsons outstanding productivity, skills and maturity were exemplified in her work.

Holly demonstrates an ability to learn quickly, think independently and collaborate well. Her technical skills are impressive Zaniewski said. She learns each new technique quickly and carefully. She takes detailed notes and is trusted with our most essential samples and research projects.

In addition to her research, Johnson regularly volunteers and contributes to the development of other students through her position as a mentor in ASUs Sundial Project. Johnson has been accepted into several prestigious graduate programs including Princeton.

Deans Medal:School of Transborder StudiesMajor:Transborder Chicana/o & Latina/o studies (U.S. and Mexican regional immigration policy and economy)Certificate:Cross-sector leadership

Austin is known for her diligence, persistence, community outreach, involvement and educational excellence. Through her life experiences in between high school and college, Austin realized that she wanted to dedicate her life to public service and building a better community.

Austin served as the transfer chair for the Next Generation Service Corps scholarship where she connected and assisted potential transfer students by providing them with resources. As a transfer student herself, she was able to provide helpful insights that have helped many students succeed in transitioning to the university.

Throughout her time at ASU, Austin successfully balanced schoolwork, community service and leadership roles while simultaneously working two to three jobs. Austin has also been a strong ambassador for the School of Transborder Studies by representing the unit in The College Welcome Assembly and being recognized as a Student Leader in The College.

Lorena is vividly passionate about her current studies and future career in law. In the classroom, she is fully engaged and contributes to the learning of every student, said Irasema Coronado, director and professor at the School of Transborder Studies.

Deans Medal:School of Social TransformationMajors:Justice studies, politics and the economyCertificate:Socio-legal studies

Saunders, a Barrett student, has actively shown her commitment to social innovation and fostering a more inclusive and just society by participating in campus residence life and leadership positions in political advocacy and nonprofit organizations.

In her honors thesis, Saunders drew from her own experience as a walking paraplegic and aimed to expand access for ASU students with physical disabilities. By conducting an extensive inventory of nearly all buildings on the Tempe campus, she identified physical accessibility issues across campus.

Mackenzie is a pathbreaker who rises above the small-mindedness of individuals and the restrictions of society, said Annamaria Oliverio, a lecturer in the School of Social Transformation. She elegantly transforms challenges into opportunities, not just for herself, but also others.

Saunders works as a deputy campaign manager for the November 2020 and March 2021 elections for the Phoenix City Council and as Director of Operations for a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for disability rights.

Through an early decision, two-year deferral program that encourages students to gain professional experience before law school, Saunders wasaccepted to Harvard Law School. After earning her law degree she aspires to work in disability rights law to strengthen the ADA and eventually become a federal judge.

Deans Medal:T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family DynamicsMajor:Family and human developmentMinor:Sociology

Since her freshman year, Berendzen demonstrated a high level of involvement in research, teaching, optional advanced coursework and leadership roles.

She pursued advanced statistical methods courses, served as a research assistant on six research projects and worked as a grader or teachers assistant for four different courses. Through this work, she has a first-author manuscript in progress and presented at the National Conference on Family Relations.

Clearly, Hannah is a highly accomplished student. More importantly, however, interacting with her is a pleasure, said Stacie Foster, director of undergraduate programs at the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics. She is kind, compassionate towards others, and incredibly hard-working.

Following graduation Berendzen plans to continue her education in family and human development by pursuing her PhD at ASU.

Deans Medal:Department of PsychologyMajor:PsychologyMinor:Statistics

Smola is a first-generation college student whose early experiences inspired her to pursue a psychology degree at ASU with a focus on success and well-being of students and adolescents from underrepresented backgrounds.

Xochitl Arlene Smola is an exemplary student who has overcome adversity and taken advantage of everything that ASU has to offer, the Department of Psychology awards committee said in their nomination letter. She represents us all well and is truly worthy of the Dean's Medal.

She worked for multiple research programs including as a field manager for the Bridges Project at the REACH Institute during her freshman year, where she interviewed parents and adolescents, oversaw program interventions and supervised the field work of 30 of her peers. During her junior year, she worked in the Adolescent Stress and Emotion Lab, where she studied the Latino transition to college. Smola also represented ASUs Department of Psychology in summer research training programs at the University of California, Los Angeles and University of Minnesota.

Following graduation, Smola will attend graduate school for developmental psychology at one of the five programs that she was accepted into. She aspires to be a research professor in developmental psychology.

Deans Medal:School of Life SciencesMajor:Biological sciences (biology and society)Minors:Spanish, civic and economic thought and leadershipCertificate:History and philosophy of science

In her time at ASU, Buckerexplored a diverse span of activitiesand engaged in a variety of leadership positions, often forming connections and establishing partnerships across departments and academic disciplines at ASU and on a global level. Bucker, an ASU Tillman Scholar, successfully channeled her passion for community development, educational access and science communication with her skills in design-based research and curriculum-building.

Bucker co-founded the community initiative, INvision, which seeks to excite low-opportunity background youth about higher education through partnering ASUs diverse learning opportunities with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona.

She studied abroad in the rural village of Tilonia, Rajasthan, India, where she developed an understanding of mental health in the rural context through participant observation, interviews and community engagement.

In addition to her academic and research work, Bucker participated in athletic endeavors on the womens triathlon team swimming, biking and running her way to two consecutive NCAA National Championships.

Deans Medal:School of Mathematical and Statistical SciencesMajors:Mathematics, physicsCertificate:Cryptology

Burgueno is a first-generation college student who is known for her creative, self-driven and collaborative nature. She performed several research projects on MRI imaging and on applications of p-adic number theory to quantum physics.

In her honors thesis Burgueno continued her research on applications of p-adic number theory to quantum physics. Her research has been published and presented at conferences. In her work, Burgueno also initiated collaboration with researchers in Europe

Burgueno served as an officer of the schools flagship program, Association of Women in Mathematics, various extracurricular activities as a tutor and a contributor to an online physics program for high school students.

Upon graduation she plans on continuing her studies and pursuing a PhD in mathematics modern particle physics.

Deans Medal:Department of EnglishMajors:English (literature), French, political scienceMinor:Asian languages (Chinese)Certificate:International studies

McCrearys diverse set of interests pushed him to take on three majors, a minor and a certificate while working as a teaching assistant at Barrett and a research assistant and French tutor.

During his time at ASU, McCreary participated in both the International Chinese Language Program and the French Language and Culture in Lyon programs. He is the founder and president of ASU Cultural Attachs, hosting weekly meetings where American and international students practice languages and learn about other cultures. In addition, he serves as a chief ambassador of ASU Global Council of Diplomats and as the membership chair of ASU United Nations Association.

As a student, Micah was prepared, attentive, respectful and participated regularly and thoughtfully, said Stephanie R. deLus, principal honors faculty fellow at Barrett. His willingness to learn and inquiring mind served him well as he built on his strong foundation to become even more excellent as time unfolded.

McCreary studied abroad several times, traveling to China and Taiwan to immerse himself in his study of the languages. McCreary was accepted to many prestigious law programs and will pursue his graduate degree at Harvard Law School in fall 2020.

Deans Medal:School of Molecular SciencesMajor:ChemistryMinors:Materials science and engineering, mathematics

Howell has been extensively involved in undergraduate research at ASU in the interfaces of materials chemistry and health and co-authored several peer-reviewed, published papers. Her accomplishments have been recognized with the Goldwater Scholarship, the highest recognition for undergraduate research in science in the nation.

Howell excelled in her coursework and her research, receiving the ACS Divisions of Physical Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry awards from the School of Molecular Sciences.

It is remarkable for a student to earn one of these awards, and almost unheard of for a student to earn two, the school of Molecular Sciences awards committee said in their nomination letter.It is a testament to Ms. Howells success and its recognition broadly by SMS faculty. In short, Ms. Howell is a standout who makes an impression on those who interact with her.

Following graduation, Howell plans topursue a PhDin physical chemistry at Harvard University. Her long-term career goal is to become tenure-track faculty at a large research university.

Deans Medal:School of Geographical Sciences and Urban PlanningMajor:GeographyMinors:Sustainability, urban planning

Berry is atop-performing graduating seniorin the geography, urban planning and sustainability programs, making the Deans list every semester. She has balanced her studies while juggling many duties in her position as a student retention assistant.

Faculty in the school speak glowingly about Berry, noting her exemplary performance in class and her outstanding projects including her study of agricultural land loss in the U.S. using GIS and statistics.

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The College honors outstanding academic achievement with 2020 Dean's Medals - ASU Now

HIGH POINT, N.C., April 24, 2020 Members of the High Point University community frequently conduct, publish and share research and creative works in a variety of ways. Below is a recap of recent research initiatives.

HPU Biology Professor Leading Student Research on COVID-19

Dr. Davin Townley-Tilson, instructor of biology, is working with students to take the novel coronavirus genome and perform real-time phylogenetic analysis, which compares the new genomes to other coronavirus genomes. This allows students to see how their learnings can be applied in the real-world, while supporting efforts to understand the COVID-19 virus.

We are teaching students crucial genomic and bioinformatic techniques through experiential learning, using real-world data that is incredibly germane to current events, said Townley-Tilson. The students analysis of the novel SARS-CoV-2 genome may serve to be incredibly important for clinicians and scientists who are using this data to produce therapeutics and vaccines against the virus.

The research started in March as part of a class assignment in Townley-Tilsons Principles of Genetics Lab. Although students are currently learning remotely, they were able to monitor and analyze the evolution of the novel coronavirus in real-time through the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a genetic-sequence repository that is part of the National Institute of Health.

The students have been able to observe that, unlike influenza virus or rhinovirus, which are responsible for the flu and common cold, that this novel coronavirus actually mutates relatively slowly, Townley-Tilson said. Using multiple sequence alignment of several CoV-2 isolates, or viral strains, demonstrates the evolution, or mutation rate, of the virus is slow enough to allow for an effective vaccine, something that is exceedingly difficult with most other viruses.

Townley-Tilson plans to use both the teaching methodology and research findings in an upcoming National Science Foundation (NSF) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) grant proposal.

HPU Faculty Research Recognized by Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

Dr. Matthew Ritter and Dr. Sarah Vaala, assistant professors of strategic communication in the Nido R. Qubein School of Communication, were recognized by the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior for a co-authored article, titled, Child-Oriented Marketing on Cereal Packaging: Associations with Sugar Content and Manufacturer Pledge.

The research assesses sugar content and child-oriented promotional features on packaging among cereals manufactured by companies with varying Childrens Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) participation.

Consumers often confuse what they consider to be a single serving and what is listed as the products suggested serving size, generally eating more than what is recommended for a healthy diet, Ritter said. Through this research, we found child-oriented features were rare on low-sugar cereals and highest on cereals with higher sugar content per ounce produced by CFBAI-participating companies.

Findings suggest variable cereal-suggested serving sizes may contribute to consumers misunderstanding of sugar content, and CFBAI manufacturers continue to market cereals with high sugar to children.

There is a long history of the food industry being at odds with public health advocates when it comes to child-directed foods, said Vaala. Raising awareness of this issue is important.

HPU Religion Professor Published in Multiple Research Journals

Dr. Joe Blosser, associate professor of religion and philosophy and Robert G. Culp Jr. director of service learning, recently had three separate research articles published in national journals.

Maintaining an active research agenda is critical to being a relevant and innovative teacher who can prepare students for the world as it is going to be, said Blosser. I work at the intersections of economics and religion, helping students understand the ways our faith shapes our world and the economic choices we make.

The Journal of Business Ethics Education published Blossers piece titled, Faith and Ethics at Work: A Study of the Role of Religion in the Teaching and Practice of Workplace Ethics. The research is based on a study Blossers students conducted around young professionals in High Point, through a partnership with the High Point Chamber of Commerce.

This is a practical article that demonstrates how faith works to impact ethical decision-making in the lives of young professionals in High Point, said Blosser. As my students conducted this research, they met these young professionals, and a few of my students even ended up with internships based on the connections they made through these classes.

Secondly, Blosser was featured in Intgrit: A Journal of Faith and Learning, for his work, titled, Johnny Cash: An American Prophet. The article explores how Cashs faith shaped his music and his life, and includes original interviews with his family members.

I grew up in a small town, went to school in Texas and Nashville, and have always loved country music, said Blosser. Cash is a legend and lived out his faith in unique and powerful ways. I love teaching at local churches about Cash because his faith is a relatable way to connect people to the power of Christianity.

The third article, published by the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, is titled, Relational History: Adam Smiths Types of Human History, which expands on how capitalism has shaped our world.

Adam Smith set the foundations for capitalism as we know it, and this work explores how he understood human development over time, said Blosser.

These three scholarly publications demonstrate Blossers commitment to an active research agenda in Christian ethics and economic thought. As the director of service learning, he uses insights gained from his research to ensure HPU students are doing the kind of service that makes the biggest impact on our local community so they grow to become responsible citizens in a global environment. He is available to local churches and civic groups for lectures on any of these topics.

HPU Faculty Research Recognized with National Award

Dr. Allie Blosser, assistant professor in the Stout School of Education, along with her co-authors Dr. Joe Blosser, HPUs Robert G. Culp Jr. director of service-learning, and Mrs. Pam Greene, volunteer coordinator with Communities in Schools High Point, were recently awarded the Service-Learning and Experiential Education SIG Outstanding Conference Submission Award from the American Educational Research Association (AARA) for research conducted in Blossers honors social scientific inquiry service-learning class.

Their paper, titled, How can I uproot the system?: Justice-oriented outcomes from community-based research in schools, analyzed student learning. The class partnered with local Title I schools to collect data and research topics the local schools wanted to address, like school readiness, parent engagement, teacher morale and student transiency. Then, students presented their recommendations to the schools based on the data they collected and analyzed.

We found that partnering with local Title 1 schools cultivated several justice-oriented learning outcomes for students, like a recognition of deficit perspectives, a deepened understanding of systemic poverty and the ability to distinguish empowering models of service from paternalistic ones, said Blosser. Essentially, the course prepared students for being better stewards in their communities because it taught them how research, as a form of service, can be used to promote positive social change in organizations like schools.

Through a rigorous blind review process by colleagues and experts in the field, Blossers work was identified as exceptional at the level of general AERA conference submission and again by the Service Learning special interest group, which is dedicated to bringing together researchers, practitioners and community partners to build and promote understanding and practice of service-learning and experiential education for the betterment of the field and the reform of PK-20 education, both in the United States and abroad. The AERA Conference is one of the most highly revered conferences in the field of education.

I am thankful to teach at a place like HPU that values experiential education and service learning because I believe that students learn more by doing, said Blosser. In this case, my students learned a lot and simultaneously empowered schools with the research they needed to make informed decisions that will benefit students and families.

HPU Psychology Professor Published in National Journal

Dr. Sarah Ross, assistant professor in the Psychology Department, was recently published in the peer-reviewed, American Psychological Associations The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention for her article, titled, The Suicide Prevention for College Student Gatekeepers Program: A Pilot Study.

American college students are exhibiting increasingly lower levels of mental health and higher levels of anxiety and depression, said Ross. Designed to provide college students with information about the warning signs of suicide, as well as how to intervene when indicated, I worked with a team of students to develop the Suicide Prevention for College Student Gatekeepers training program.

HPU graduate, Megan Deiling, co-authored the article, which highlights the campus suicide prevention program that Ross and colleagues developed based on evidence-based practice in suicide prevention. Ross and her team of student researchers implemented suicide prevention training across HPUs campus, and to-date, have trained over 500 students.

Because of the programs success, Ross and colleagues have received SAMSHA funding to disseminate the program across other campuses in the United States.

HPU Astrophysics Professor, Physics Student Publish Research in Top-Tier Journal

Senior physics major Stephen Walser and Dr. Brad Barlow, associate professor of astrophysics and director of the Culp Planetarium, recently published an article titled, Hot Subdwarf All Southern Sky Fast Transit Survey with the Evryscope, in the Astrophysical Journal,alongwith collaborators from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.The peer-reviewed article presents a survey of 1,400 stars and the discovery of more than two dozen new variable stars, including several rare compact binaries.

We have been working hard on this survey for several years, and its nice to publish our results and share our efforts with others, said Barlow. Stephen played an integral role in helping us nail down the properties of one of these exciting binaries by taking follow-up observations with a remote telescope in Chile.

The work was carried out with the Evryscope, the worlds first gigapixel-scale telescope built by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and deployed on Cerro Tololo in the Chile Andes mountain range. The work was also supported in part by a $349,621 research grant the group received from the National Science Foundation.

This is my first peer-reviewed publication, said Walser. I am grateful for the opportunity to work alongside Barlow and other great astrophysicists and gain this invaluable experience conducting astrophysics research and disseminating science results

Barlow is a member of the Evryscope Science Collaboration and has been working with their team over the past few years to identify and study new variable stars. He also helped advise and served on the Ph.D. committee of the lead author, Jeff Ratzloff.

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HPU Students, Faculty and Staff Recognized for Research and Innovation - High Point University

A nova is a dramatic episode in the life of a binary pair of stars. Its an explosion of bright light that can last weeks or even months. And though theyre not exactly rarethere are about 10 each year in the Milky Wayastronomers have never watched one from start to finish.

Until now.

A nova occurs in a close binary star system, when one of the stars has gone through its red giant phase. That star leaves behind a remnant white dwarf. When the white dwarf and its partner become close enough, the massive gravitational pull of the white dwarf draws material, mostly hydrogen, from the other star.

That hydrogen accretes onto the surface of the white dwarf, forming a thin atmosphere. The white dwarf heats the hydrogen, and eventually the gas pressure is extremely high, and fusion is ignited. Not just any fusion: rapid, runaway fusion.

When the rapid fusion ignites, we can see the light, and the new hydrogen atmosphere is expelled away from the white dwarf, into space. In the past, astronomers thought these new bright lights were new stars, and the name nova stuck. Astronomers now call these types of nova classical novae. (There are also recurrent novae, when the process repeats itself.)

Suddenly there was a star on our records that wasnt there the day before.

This is an enormously energetic event, that produces not only visible light, but gamma rays and x-rays too. The end result is that some stars that could only be seen through a telescope can be seen with the naked eye during a nova.

All of this is widely accepted in astronomy and astrophysics. But much of it is theoretical. Recently, astronomers using the BRITE (BRIght Target Explorer) Constellation of nanosatellites were fortunate enough to observe the entire process from start to finish, confirming the theory.

BRITE is a constellation of nanosatellites designed to investigate stellar structure and evolution of the brightest stars in the sky and their interaction with the local environment, according to the website. They operate in Low-Earth Orbit and have few restrictions on the parts of the sky that they can observe. BRITE is a coordinated project between Austrian, Polish, and Canadian researchers.

This first-ever observation of a nova was pure chance. BRITE had spent several weeks observing 18 stars for several weeks in the Carina constellation. One day, a new star appeared. BRITE Operations Manager Rainer Kuschnig found the nova during a daily inspection. Suddenly there was a star on our records that wasnt there the day before, he said in a press release. Id never seen anything like it in all the years of the mission!

Professor Werner Weiss is from the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Vienna. In a press release, he emphasized the significance of this observation. But what causes a previously unimpressive star to explode? This was a problem that has not been solved satisfactorily until now, he said. The explosion of Nova V906 in the constellation Carina is giving researchers some answers and has confirmed some of the theoretical concept behind novae.

It is fantastic that for the first time a nova could be observed by our satellites even before its actual eruption and until many weeks later.

V906 Carinae was first spotted by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae. Fortunately, it appeared in an area of the sky that had been under observation by BRITE for weeks, so the data documenting the nova is in BRITE data. It is fantastic that for the first time a nova could be observed by our satellites even before its actual eruption and until many weeks later, says Prof. Otto Koudelka, project manager of the BRITE Austria (TUGSAT-1) satellite at TU Graz.

V906 Carinae is about 13,000 light years away, so the event is already history. After all, this nova is so far away from us that its light takes about 13,000 years to reach the earth, explains Weiss.

The BRITE team reported their findings in a new paper. The paper is titled Direct evidence for shock-powered optical emission in a nova. Its published in the journal Nature Astronomy. First author is Elias Aydi from Michigan State University.

This fortunate circumstance was decisive in ensuring that the nova event could be recorded with unprecedented precision, explains Prof. Konstanze Zwintz, head of the BRITE Science Team, from the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck. Zwintz immediately realised that we had access to observation material that was unique worldwide, according to a press release.

Novae like V906 Carinae are thermonuclear explosions on the surface of white dwarf stars. For a long time, astrophysicists thought that a novas luminosity is powered by continual nuclear burning after the initial burst of runaway fusion. But the data from BRITE suggests something different.

In the new paper, the authors show that shocks play a larger role than thought. The authors say that shocks internal to the nova ejecta may dominate the nova emission. These shocks may also be involved in other events like supernovae, stellar mergers, and tidal disruption events, according to the authors. But up until now, theres been a lack of observational evidence.

Here we report simultaneous space-based optical and ?-ray observations of the 2018 nova V906 Carinae (ASASSN-18fv), revealing a remarkable series of distinct correlated flares in both bands, the researchers write. Since those flares occur at the same time, it implies a common origin in shocks.

During the flares, the nova luminosity doubles, implying that the bulk of the luminosity is shock powered. So rather than continual nuclear burning, novae are driven by shocks. Our data, spanning the spectrum from radio to gamma-ray, provide direct evidence that shocks can power substantial luminosity in classical novae and other optical transients.

In broader terms, shocks have been shown to play some role in events like novae. But that understanding is largely based on studying timescales and luminosities. This study is the first direct observation of such shocks, and is likely only the beginning of observing and understanding the role that shocks play.

In the conclusion of their paper the authors write Our observations of nova V906 Car definitively demonstrate that substantial luminosity can be producedand emerge at optical wavelengthsby heavily absorbed, energetic shocks in explosive transients.

They go on to say that With modern time-domain surveys such as ASAS-SN, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, we will be discovering moreand higher luminositytransients than ever before. The novae in our galactic backyard will remain critical for testing the physical drivers powering these distant, exotic events.

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Astronomers Watch a Nova Go From Start to Finish for the First Time - Universe Today

I was asked to coordinate the disability projects in Spain for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy. In searching for ideas, I learned about a planetarium show for the blind in Argentina. My colleagues and I contacted the shows creator Sebastian Musso, and with his input we developed a tactile planetarium show. The shows key element is a half-sphere made of resin with constellations in relief on the surface. Each blind visitor is given one of these half-spheres so that they can feel the shape of the constellations, while listening to the planetarium presentation.

Afterwards, somebody approached our group and said, Hey, you have this sky, why dont you make a tactile Moon? We said okay and spent the next year developing a model with craters and other features. Since then, we have made tactile models of Mars, Venus, and Mercury. And were now working on a model of Earth.

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Q&A: Putting the Sky in Everyone's Hands - Physics

At the center of our galaxy, roughly 26,000 light-years from Earth, is the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) known as Sagittarius A*. The powerful gravity of this object and the dense cluster of stars around it provide astronomers with a unique environment for testing physics under the most extreme conditions. In particular, it offers them a chance to test Einsteins Theory of General Relativity (GR).

For example, in the past thirty years, astronomers have been observing a star in the vicinity of Sagittarius A* (S2) to see if its orbit conforms to what is predicted by General Relativity. Recent observations made with the ESOs Very Large Telescope (VLT) have completed an observation campaign that confirmed that the stars orbit is rosette-shaped, once again proving that Einstein theory was right on the money!

The study that describes the international teams findings recently appeared in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. The team responsible was made up of members of the GRAVITY Collaboration, which includes researchers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPA), CERN, and multiple institutes and universities.

To break it down, General Relativity states that the curvature of space-time is altered in the presence of a massive object. When Einstein formalized this theory by 1915, it explained a number of things, not the least of which was the strange orbit of Mercury. By the early 20th century, astronomers had noted that the perihelion of Mercury was subject to precession i.e. it rotated over time.

Most stars and planets have elliptical orbits, which means that their distance to the object theyre orbiting changes. But in the case of precession, the closest point in their orbit (perihelion) rotates around the object itself. This is known as a Schwarzschild precession which (when visualized) looks like a rosette instead of an ellipse, with each individual orbit resembling a petal of the flower.

As Reinhard Genzel, the director of the MPE and the architect of the nearly 30-year-long program that led to this result, explained in a recent ESO press release:

Einsteins General Relativity predicts that bound orbits of one object around another are not closed, as in Newtonian Gravity, but precess forwards in the plane of motion. This famous effect first seen in the orbit of the planet Mercury around the Sun was the first evidence in favour of General Relativity. One hundred years later we have now detected the same effect in the motion of a star orbiting the compact radio source Sagittarius A* at the centre of the Milky Way. This observational breakthrough strengthens the evidence that Sagittarius A* must be a supermassive black hole of 4 million times the mass of the Sun.

In the case of S2, its orbit takes it from a distance of less than 20 billion km (12.4 billion mi), or one hundred and twenty times the distance between the Sun and Earth making it one of the closest stars ever found in orbit around Sagittarius A*. At its closest approach, S2 is hurtling through space at almost 3% of the speed of light, completing an orbit once every 16 years. This long orbit is why it was necessary to monitor the star for nearly thirty years.

In so doing, the GRAVITY Collaboration was able to see a Schwarzschild precession around an SMBH for the very first time. Said Stefan Gillessen, an MPE researcher who led the analysis of the teams measurements: After following the star in its orbit for over two and a half decades, our exquisite measurements robustly detect S2s Schwarzschild precession in its path around Sagittarius A*.

These results confirm General Relativity, which accurately predicts how much the orbit of S2 should change over time. The study with the VLT is also a boon for astronomers because it allows them to learn more about what is taking place in the vicinity of Sagittarius A*, which could shed light on the evolution of our galaxy and other cosmological mysteries. Said Guy Perrin and Karine Perraut, the French lead scientists of the project:

Because the S2 measurements follow General Relativity so well, we can set stringent limits on how much invisible material, such as distributed dark matter or possible smaller black holes, is present around Sagittarius A*. This is of great interest for understanding the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes.

These findings are the result of 27 years of observations of S2 that (for the majority of that time) relied on a fleet of instruments at the ESOs VLT. These included the GRAVITY, Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observations in the Near Infrared (SINFONI), and the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System (NAOS) Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph (NACO), which together took over 330 measurements of the stars position and velocity.

The GRAVITY Collaboration is named after the instrument they developed for the VLT Interferometer, which combines the light of all four 8-m (26.25 ft) VLT telescopes into a super-telescope with a resolution equivalent to that of a 130-m (426.5 ft) telescope. This same team was responsible for the 2018 study that confirmed General Relativity by showing how light from S2 was stretched to longer wavelengths when passing close to Sagittarius A*.

Looking ahead, the team believes that they will be able to see much fainter stars orbiting Sagittarius A* using the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Andreas Eckart, a researcher from Cologne University and one of the lead scientists of the project, believes that they will be able to measure the spin and mass of Sagittarius A*, thus characterizing it and defining the nature of space-time around it.

If we are lucky, we might capture stars close enough that they actually feel the rotation, the spin, of the black hole, he said. That would be again a completely different level of testing relativity.

Further Reading: ESO, Astronomy and Astrophysics

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A Star is Orbiting the Milky Way's Black Hole and Moving Exactly How Einstein Predicted it Should - Universe Today

There is a group of physicists specifically dedicating their work to the physics of high energy densities. High-energy-density physics (HEDP) is a relatively new subfield of physics intersecting condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics and plasma physics. It has been defined as the physics of matter and radiation at energy densities in excess of about 100 GJ/m^3.

High energy density physics studies the collective properties of matter under extreme conditions of temperature and density. Not surprisingly, this study of extreme science has considerable overlap with astrophysics and nuclear weapons physics, as well as inertial confinement fusion research. It is a highly specialized and narrow subfield.

In addition, the entire field of relativistic HED physics, also known as high-field physics, was enabled by the invention in the early 1980s of so-called chirped-pulse amplification of laser light, a technique that generated laser electromagnetic fields of unprecedented intensities.

The physicists in this unique sub field of physics are extremely passionate about the matter inside planets and one of the main component of this subfield is highly classified nuclear weapons work and research, which is part of the defense spectrum.

A new work has become available by a very distinguished physicist Suxing HU, who works in the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester in New York. His latest work, in collaboration with French physicists, is titled Interspecies radiative transition in warm and superdense plasma mixtures.

The work includes the new theoretical idea that interatomic radiation transitions can occur at the high pressure. A radiation transition is simply a jump of an electron into the orbit of a neighboring electron within a single atom. Hus idea is that interatomic radiation transitions can occur at high pressures.

The new proposed theory by Hu brings complexity to the spectral method of identifying substances from the cosmic depths. When atoms come together the electron shells overlap due to high pressure. Electrons become shared. You cant tell which is which. According to Hu, under these conditions, radiation transitions between the electron orbits of not one, but different, atoms are possible. The energy of the emitted or absorbed photon is different from what it would be at the transition inside the native atom.

Some electrons fly in a circular orbit, others in a dumbbell-shaped orbit and that there are also hybrid orbitals. Inside the atom, transitions are possible only to the orbit whose shape differs from the one from which the electron jumps. When pressure mixes atoms into an incomprehensible heap, transitions between identical orbits, according to Hus theory, become possible. As a result of the new allowed jumps of electrons between atoms, new lines should appear in the spectrum of x-ray radiation coming from astronomical objects,

As a result of the new allowed jumps of electrons between atoms, new lines corresponding to previously unknown radiation transitions should appear in the spectrum of x-ray radiation coming from astronomical objects. These lines must be interpreted correctly.

The physicists that are part of this project plan to test the new theory by using a laser installation, while transferring the substance to an exotic state. In 2018, NASA created a rare, exotic state of matter in space. NASA was able to cool a cloud of rubidium atoms to ten-millionth of a degree above absolute zero, producing the fifth exotic state of matter in space. The experiment also now holds the record for the coldest object we know of in space.

Hus experiment will be done on our planet, hence an exotic state can only be held at best for a couple of nanoseconds. If the test is successful it would lead to a completely different approach for physicists and amendments would have to be made in the academic world.

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New Theory and Space X-Rays - What Does It Entail? - Communal News

Noted physicist, computer scientist, and mathematician Stephen Wolfram recently stunned the science community at-large after announcing hed pretty much figured out how the universe works.

Wolframs a household name in the science community. Hes responsible for Wolfram Alpha, the search engine that AskJeeves wished it was, and the creation of a math-based programming language called Wolfram Language used to power the popular Mathematica system and, now, the creation of the Wolfram Physics Project. His contributions go back to his formative years where, by age 14, hed written three books on the subject of physics.

Its important to understand that Wolframs considered a respected scientific mind because his new theory, which is represented as simply A Class of Models with the Potential to Represent Fundamental Physics, come straight out of left field with a pretty wacky approach.

Read: Our universe may be part of a giant quantum computer

Now, of course, wacky is a relevant term when it comes to physics. Woframs attempting to do what Einstein and Stephen Hawking have tried before him: create an explanation for the universe that makes sense. To this end, physicists and other scientists have come up with theories that range from multiple worlds (as in, more than one universe) to were all living in a computer simulation (which just begs the question, whats the universe that the computer is in made of?). So calling a physics theory wacky implies an entirely different level of weirdness.

Lets start at the beginning. According to a blog post from Wolfram, he had a sort-of eureka moment a few months back that gave him insight into the inner workings of the universe. The post begins with the ominous phrase I never expected this.

Then Wolframs fervor immediately paints the picture of a scientist in semi-mad mode:

Its unexpected, surprisingand for me incredibly exciting. To be fair, at some level Ive been working towards this for nearly 50 years. But its just in the last few months that its finally come together. And its much more wonderful, and beautiful, than Id ever imagined.

In many ways its the ultimate question in natural science: How does our universe work? Is there a fundamental theory? An incredible amount has been figured out about physics over the past few hundred years. But even with everything thats been doneand its very impressivewe still, after all this time, dont have a truly fundamental theory of physics.

This all adds up. We do have quantum mechanics, but despite being a very, very successful theory it doesnt quite explain everything. Then theresstring theory, which has taken a bit of a beating in recent years. So yeah, maybe we do need a new kind of physics.

What makes Wolframs theory different is that, well, its not really a theory. Its more like the frame-work of a theory. It seems like hes just saying the universe is made of a 3D mesh with enough point-to-point lines added in to create a physical topography. In other words, it feels like Wolframs proposing that the universe works exactly like a 3D computer model.

This seems like just the kind of thing someone who specializes in creating computer languages would say. Much like how Einstein and Hawking, scientists who specialized in nuclear and astrophysics, decided that gravity and black holes were the key to understanding the universes true nature.

Mathematicians tend to think the universe is made of math and physicists tend to think its made of tiny stuff that keeps getting tinier the closer you look.

Wolfram describes the basics of his new concept as thus:

In the early 1980s, when I started studying the computational universe of simple programs, I made what was for me a very surprising and important discovery: that even when the underlying rules for a system are extremely simple, the behavior of the system as a whole can be essentially arbitrarily rich and complex.

What he then proposes is that everything in the universe can be explained by imagining it all as a series of interconnected points. He explains the topography and physical structure of the universe as a series of unfolding events that follow precise mathematical rules. This seemingly allows Wolfram to explain the concept of time, which Einstein side-steps by combining it with space, as a sort of backdoor math modifier to rationalize expansion.

Per the blog post:

So what then is time? In effect its much as we experience it: the inexorable process of things happening and leading to other things. But in our models its something much more precise: its the progressive application of rules, that continually modify the abstract structure that defines the contents of the universe.

Wolframs offering a set of math-based rules that he believes could eventually become the foundation for a unified theory of everything. But theres a catch: hes asking for the science community at large to help him prove it. Like many big theories especially those that come along to challenge quantum mechanics or string-theory this one has all the answers, but it hasnt worked out which questions make them relevant quite yet.

Perhaps the biggest criticism of Wolframs work is that its a bit dense. The technical explanation alone weighs in at over 400 pages. Its going to take a few months for all of his ideas to see peer-review. That makes it a bit odd that hes already publishing a book, running a project website, and soliciting partnerships to move the work forward. Whats the rush? The universe will still need explaining after everyones had a glance at the paper.

At the end of the day, one has to wonder how much chance a unified theory of the universe that cribs from both the arcade gaming era and Nick Bostroms simulation hypothesis has against M-theory, relativity, or other long-standing remedies.

Still, a rising tide lifts all vessels and Wolframs current passion is bound to yield some interesting mathematical results.

Are you a physicist or physics enthusiast? Let me know what you think about Wolframs new project on Twitter @mrgreene1977.

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The silliest string-theory alternative yet draws inspiration from video games - The Next Web

A planetary system of six exoplanets in near-perfect synchronization gives astronomers a hint at how such groupings could evolve.

Over a period of seven years, astronomers have observed the star HD 158259 invisible to the naked eye discovering six planets in orbit around it in near-perfect synchronization. The extrasolar planets (exoplanets) consist of one Super-Earth and five Mini-Neptunes with exceptionally regular spacing and timing. Their regimented order gives researchers a hint as to how the system may have formed.

The study, led by researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), was conducted with the aid of the SOPHIE spectrograph and observations from the TESS space telescope and is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The team was able to determine that the planet closest to HD 158259 and the five outer planets have a mass ranging from two to six times the mass of the Earth respectively. The distance to the outermost planet from its parent star is just over two and a half times smaller than the distance between the Sun and its closest planet Mercury thus making the system incredibly compact.

The HD 158259 system is quite remarkable as of the hundreds of multi-planetary systems astronomers have discovered thus far, only a handful have consisted of six planets or more. Its most extraordinary feature, however, isnt the number of incumbent planets, but rather the regularity and rhythm with which they occupy the system.

The planets in the HD 158259 are synchronized in such a way that in almost the same time that it takes the innermost planet to complete three orbits, the next planet out completes two orbits. Continuing the pattern, as this second planet completes three orbits the third is, in turn, almost completing its second.

The researchers describe this synchronicity with a resonance framework, a concept that plays a vital role in the understanding of the structure of planetary systems. Planets are described as being in resonance when they are in a periodically repeating configuration. The planets of HD 158259 are close to resonance, but not exactly.

This is comparable to several musicians beating distinct rhythms, yet who beat at the same time at the beginning of each bar, says Nathan C. Hara, also from UNIGE, member of the PlanetS institute and first author of the study.

The 3:2 resonance of HD 158259s planets is more than an interesting quirk, however, by studying the systems rhythm researchers can answer important questions about how it formed.

One of the most hotly debated aspects of planetary system formation is do the planets form in place or do they migrate into position after formation? The resonance of the planets in this particular system seems to support the migration theory.

Several compact systems with several planets in, or close toresonances are known, such as TRAPPIST-1 or Kepler-80, says Stephane Udry, also a professor at the Department of astronomy of the Faculty of Science at UNIGE. Such systems are believed to form far from the star before migrating towards it. In this scenario, the resonances play a crucial part.

It turns out that the fact that the planets almost complete an orbit as their leading neighbor completes its own orbit is actually very telling. It hints that the planets which are now slightly out of synchronization were once in perfect resonance. The breaking of the resonance could have been caused by the planets moving away from synchronicity in unison.

Here, about is important. Besides the ubiquity of the 3:2 period ratio, this constitutes the originality of the system, says Hara. Furthermore, the current departure of the period ratios from 3:2 contains a wealth of information.

In summary, the current state of the system gives us a window on its formation

The UNIGE team used the same method to discover this system of planets that was employed by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz to make the first discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star back in 1995 a discovery that netted the duo the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Ironically, the study of the HD 158259 system wouldnt have been possible in 1995, as the planets are too small to have been discerned by the technology available at the time. Such an investigation has only been made possible with recent developments in telescope technology.

The discovery of this exceptional system has been made possible thanks to the acquisition of a great number of measurements, as well as a dramatic improvement of the instrument and of our signal processing techniques, says Franois Bouchy, of UNIGE and coordinator of the observational program.

Paul A. Wilson, a researcher at the University of Warwick and another co-author on the paper, concludes by highlighting the important role smaller telescopes such as the SOPHIE spectrograph installed at the Haute-Provence Observatory in 2006 have to play in the future of astronomy: This is great work and shows the important role smaller telescopes play in furthering the advances of astronomy through high-quality research using old, but well-funded observatories.

Source:Nathan C. Hara, Isabelle Boisse, Paul A. Wilson, [2020], The SOPHIE search for northern extrasolar planets, Astronomy & Astrophysics, DOI: 10.1051/00046361/201937254

This article was originally published onThe Cosmic CompanionbyRobert Lea, afreelance science journalist from the UK, specializing in physics, astronomy, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and obscure comic books.You can read this original piecehere.

Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion is also available as a weekly podcast,carriedon all major podcastproviders. Tune in every Tuesday for updates on the latest astronomy news, and interviews with astronomers and other researchers working to uncover the nature of the Universe.

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This planetary system's perfect rhythm tells us a lot about how it came to be - The Next Web

To date, astronomers have confirmed the existence of 4,152 extrasolar planets in 3,077 star systems. While the majority of these discoveries involved a single planet, several hundred star systems were found to be multi-planetary. Systems that contain six planets or more, however, appear to be rarer, with only a dozen or so cases discovered so far.

This is what astronomers found after observing HD 158259, a Sun-like star located about 88 light-years from Earth, for the past seven years using the SOPHIE spectrograph. Combined with new data from the Transiting Exoplanet Space Satellite (TESS), an international team reported the discovery of a six planet system where all were in near-perfect rhythm with each other.

The international team responsible for this discovery was led by Dr. Nathan Hara, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), a member of the Swiss PlanetS institute, and a Fellow with the European Space Agencys (ESA) CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite (CHEOPS) mission. The study that describes their findings recently appeared in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Using SOPHIE, astronomers have been conducting velocity measurements of many stars in the northern hemisphere to determine if they have exoplanets orbiting them. This method, known as the Radial Velocity Method (or Doppler Spectroscopy), consists of measuring the spectra a star to see if it is moving in place which is an indication that the gravitational force of one or more planets is working on it.

Interestingly enough, it was SOPHIEs predecessor (the ELODIE spectrograph) that led to one of the earliest exoplanet discoveries in 1995 the hot Jupiter 51 Peg b (Dimidium). After examining HD 158259 for seven years, SOPHIE succeeded in obtaining high-precision radial velocity measurements that revealed the presence of a six planet system.

This system consists of an innermost large rocky planet (a super-Earth) and five small gas giants (mini-Neptunes) that have exceptionally regular spacing between them. As Franois Bouchy, a professor of astronomy and science at UNIGE and the coordinator of the observation program, explained in a UNIGE press release:

The discovery of this exceptional system has been made possible thanks to the acquisition of a great number of measurements, as well as a dramatic improvement of the instrument and of our signal processing techniques.

These planets range from being 2 (the innermost super-Earth) to 6 times (the mini-Neptunes) as massive as Earth. The system is also very compact, with all of six planets orbit closely to the star and the outermost being just 0.38 times as distant as Mercury is from the Sun. This places the planets well inside the stars habitable zone (HZ), which means none are likely to have water on the surfaces or dense enough atmospheres to support life.

Meanwhile, TESS monitored HD 158259 for signs of transits (aka. the Transit Method) and observed a decrease in the stars brightness as the innermost planet passed in front of the star. According to Isabelle Boisse, a researcher at the Marseille Astrophysics Laboratory and co-author of the study, the TESS readings (combined with the radial velocity data) allowed them to constrain the properties of this planet (HD 158259 b) further.

The TESS measurements strongly support the detection of the planet and allow to estimate its radius, which brings very valuable information on the planets internal structure, she said. But as noted earlier, the most impressive feature of this system is its regularity. Basically, the planets in the system have an almost exact 3:2 orbital resonance

This means that for every three orbits the innermost planet makes, the second one will complete about two. In the time it takes the second planet to complete three orbits, the third will complete about two. This ratio applies to all six planets in the system and came as quite a surprise to Hara and his colleagues.

When describing the planets orbits, Hara compared it to an orchestra playing music, though the arrangement is not quite perfect:

This is comparable to several musicians beating distinct rhythms, yet who beat at the same time at the beginning of each bar. Here, about is important. Besides the ubiquity of the 3:2 period ratio, this constitutes the originality of the system.

Resonances, even imperfect ones, are of interest to astronomers because of how they provide hints to a star systems formation and evolution. In astronomical circles, there is still considerable debate about how star systems come together and change over time. A particularly contentious point is whether planets form close to their final position in the system, or if they change their orbits after forming.

This latter scenario (known as planetary migration) has been gaining traction in recent years thanks to the discovery of exoplanets like Hot-Jupiters, leading many astronomers to question if planetary shake-ups occur. This theory would appear to explain the formation of the six planets in the HD 158259 system. Said Stephane Udry, a professor of astronomy and science at UNIGE:

Several compact systems with several planets in, or close to resonances are known, such as TRAPPIST-1 or Kepler-80. Such systems are believed to form far from the star before migrating towards it. In this scenario, the resonances play a crucial part.

The fact that HD 158259s planets are close to a 3:2 resonance, but not exactly within one, suggests that they were trapped in one in the past. However, they would have subsequently undergone synchronous migration and moved away from the resonance. According to Hara, thats not all that this system can tell us.

Furthermore, the current departure of the period ratios from 3:2 contains a wealth of information, he said. With these values on the one hand, and tidal effect models on the other hand, we could constrain the internal structure of the planets in a future study. In summary, the current state of the system gives us a window on its formation.

The more we learn about this multi-planet system and others like it, the more we can learn about how star systems like our own came to be. The resolution of these and other questions about the formation and evolution of planetary systems will put us one step closer to knowing how life can emerge (and perhaps where to look for it!)

Further Reading: University of Geneva, Astronomy & Astrophysics

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Astronomers Find a Six-Planet System Which Orbit in Lockstep With Each Other - Universe Today

The Indianapolis Colts shocked the league and traded up to the No. 41 pick to take Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor. While this pick may have come as a surprise to many, Taylor is one of the best and most decorated players in this draft and obviously caught the eye of Chris Ballard.

Taylor may also be one of the most interesting players in the draft as well. Here are five things to know about about the Colts new running back in Taylor:

1. Many unique interests including astrophysics and yoga

When Jonathan Taylor was considering his options after high school, he toured Harvard and almost fed his love for astrophysics like his idol, Neil deGrasse Tyson. His parents even got him a telescope as a graduation present. He decided to go to Wisconsin who recruited him heavily out of Salem, New Jersey. He is also very focused on yoga and does a variety of stretches before practices and games.

2. One of the most decorated players in the draft

Taylors long list of accomplishments at Wisconsin include three-time All-American selection, three first-team All-Big Ten selections, two Big Ten Running Back of the Year selections and two Doak Walker Award wins as the best running back in the nation. He also finished fourth all-time in FBS rushing yards with 6,174.

3. Almost a Scarlet Knight

Jonathan Taylor is obviously very good at football, but he was a high school track phenom as well. In fact, he was recruited by Rutgers for football and track and actually committed to Rutgers before a Wisconsin scout attended a track meet in New Jersey to see him run. Shortly after, Taylor recommitted from Rutgers and officially committed to the Badgers.

4. Did not take long for Taylor to pop

When Taylor walked into Madison, WI in 2017, he was fifth on the depth chart to start training camp. That designation did not last long for Taylor however. He was quick to impress coaches and eventually found his way into the starting role. He almost cracked 2,000 yards in his freshman year and had 13 touchdowns.

5. Wise beyond his years

Taylors teammates and coaches have nothing but praise for the 21-year-old, high powered back who is wise beyond his years. As a philosophy major, he loves to ask questions and many have noted his curiosity about the world. Hes a great player, but he is one unique guy off the field, said Badgers star offensive guard Beau Benzschawel in 2017. You talk to him, and its like youre talking to a 30-year-old.

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5 things to know about Colts new RB Jonathan Taylor - Colts Wire

There are hot planets, and then there are unbelievably, unbearably, insufferably hot planets.

Imagine an alien world torrid enough to not just melt, but vaporize metal. MASCARA-2 b (whose name has absolutely nothing to do with makeup) is that planet. A team of Yale scientists recently used theEXPRES (Extreme PREcision Spectrometer) spectrograph to investigate this hot Jupiter, a gargantuan ball of gas that orbits extremely close to its star and gets roasted in the process. Turned out that metals cant stay solid or even liquid in that heat. Iron, chromium, and magnesium vapor were found in its atmosphere.

Never mind that human lungs could never breathe that. If you landed there, youd probably be vaporized yourself before you could puff one breath.

Hot Jupiters like MASCARA-2 b (and NTGS-10b, above) are Jupiter-like in that they are gas giants, but more like versions of our Jupiter in the seventh circle of hell in Dantes Inferno. Their orbital periods are less than 10 days compare that with our Jupiters orbital period of 12 years. The shorter the orbital period, the closer that planet is to its host star, so you can guess where this is going. MASCARA-2 bs orbit is a hundred times closer to its star than Jupiters is to the Sun. How they get so close is still a mystery. Many scientists believe they form further out in their star systems and migrate closer, but there has been much debate about how that migration occurs.

Hot Jupiters provide the best laboratories for developing analysis techniques that will one day be used to search for biosignatures on potentially habitable worlds, said Debra Fischer, a Yale astronomer and Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy, who co-authored a study recently accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics.

MASCARA-2 b is an extreme hot Jupiter. Twenty-eight quadrillion miles from Earth, its atmosphere blazes at over 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit. Not hot enough? Iron in its regular form will only vaporize at 5,184 degrees Fahrenheit. What Fischers team actually found were iron ions Fe I and Fe II, along with sodium ion Na I, which they think emerged in the atmosphere, which is so hot and bothered it is actually inflated. Magnesium ion Mg I and chromium ion Cr II were also detected. Ions form when atoms gain or lose their outermost electrons. The bigger the ions, the lower the boiling point, because they stay further apart than smaller ions and need less heat energy to separate them.

So how did EXPRES find out there was metal in the air? EXPRES was designed by Yale scientists to both find Earthlike planets (based on how they gravitationally influenced their stars) and find out what is swirling in the atmospheres of distant worlds. After it was installed on the Lowell Discovery Telescope near Flagstaff, Arizona, it was able to pick up on the chemicals MASCARA-2 b left behind after it crossed the direct line of sight between our planet and its star.

Atmospheric signatures are very faint and difficult to detect, said grad student Sam Cabot, another co-author of the study who also led the data analysis. Serendipitously, EXPRES offers this capability, since you need very high-fidelity instruments to find planets outside our own solar system.

EXPRES is hardly finished. It will be collaborating with other ultra-precise spectrometers to discover more unreal things out there, so get ready for more hot action.

(via Yale University/Astronomy and Astrophysics)

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This planet is so scorching that metals actually vaporize into the atmosphere - SYFY WIRE

In April of 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration history made history when it released the first image of a black hole ever taken. This accomplishment was decades in the making and triggered an international media circus. The picture was the result of a technique known as interferometry, where observatories across the world combined light from their telescopes to create a composite image.

This image showed what astrophysicists have predicted for a long time, that extreme gravitational bending causes photons to fall in around the event horizon, contributing to the bright rings that surround them. Last week, on March 18th, a team of researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) announced new research that shows how black hole images could reveal an intricate substructure within them.

The study that describes their findings, titled Universal interferometric signatures of a black holes photon ring, recently appeared in the journal Science Advances. The team was led by Michael Johnson, an astrophysicist with the CfA, and induced members from Harvards Black Hole Initiative (BHI), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, and multiple universities.

As Johnson explained in a recent CfA press release:

The image of a black hole actually contains a nested series of rings. Each successive ring has about the same diameter but becomes increasingly sharper because its light orbited the black hole more times before reaching the observer. With the current EHT image, weve caught just a glimpse of the full complexity that should emerge in the image of any black hole.

As the law of General Relativity tells us, gravitational fields alter the curvature of spacetime. In the case of a black hole, the effect is extreme and causes even light (photons) to infall around them. These photons cast a shadow on the bright ring of infalling gas and dust that is accelerated to relativistic speeds by the black holes gravity.

Around this shadowed region is a photon ring produced from photons that are concentrated by the strong gravity near the black hole. This ring can tell astronomers a lot about a black holes since its size and shape reveal the mass and rotation (aka. spin) of the black hole. Because of the EHT images, black hole researchers now have a tool with which to study black holes.

Since the 1950s, astronomers have learned a great deal about them by studying the effect they have on their surrounding environment. In other words, the study of black holes has been indirect and theoretical in nature. But with the ability to take images of these celestial objects, astronomers can finally study them directly and glean real data.

George Wong, a physics graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was responsible for developing software to produce simulated black hole images. This software is what allowed for images that were of the highest resolution to date to be computed and allowed their team to decompose them into the predicted series of sub-images. As Wong indicated:

Bringing together experts from different fields enabled us to really connect a theoretical understanding of the photon ring to what is possible with observation. What started as classic pencil-and-paper calculations prompted us to push our simulations to new limits.

What was especially surprising to the researchers, however, was how the substructure revealed by the black hole image creates new opportunities for research. While the subrings they revealed are normally invisible to the naked eye on images, they produce very clear signals when observed by arrays of telescopes using interferometry.

This presents astronomers with a relatively easy way to expand on the work conducted by the EHT collaboration thus far. While capturing black hole images normally requires many distributed telescopes, the subrings are perfect to study using only two telescopes that are very far apart, said Johnson. Adding one space telescope to the EHT would be enough.

The fields of astronomy and astrophysics have experienced multiple revolutions in recent years. Between the first-ever observations of interstellar objects, the confirmation of gravitational waves, and the first direct observations of a black hole. These firsts have enabled research that promises to unlock a number of enduring mysteries about the cosmos.

The teams research was made possible in part by grants issued by NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DoE), and multiple scientific and research foundations.

Further Reading: CfA

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How Researchers Produce Sharp Images of a Black Hole - Universe Today

A year ago a team of radio astronomers startled the world with the first photograph of a black hole, lurking like the eye of Sauron in the heart of a distant galaxy. Now it appears there was more hiding in that image than we had imagined.

When you point a telescope at a black hole, it turns out you dont just see the swirling sizzling doughnut of doom formed by matter falling in. You can also see the whole universe. Light from an infinite array of distant stars and galaxies can wrap around the black hole like ribbons around a maypole, again and again before coming back to your eye, or your telescope.

The image of a black hole actually contains a nested series of rings, said Michael Johnson of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, not unlike the rings that form around your bathtub drain.

Dr. Johnson was lead author of a study, describing the proposed method that would allow our telescopes to pry more secrets from the maw of any black hole, that was published in the March 18 edition of the journal Science Advances.

He and other authors of the paper are also members of the team operating the Event Horizon Telescope, a globe-girding network of radio telescopes that made that first image of a black hole. Their telescope saw these rings, but it didnt have enough resolution to distinguish them, so they were blurred into a single feature.

The work, scientists with the project said, pointed toward new ways to shed light, so to speak, on the properties of black holes, particularly by adding a radio telescope in space to the existing E.H.T. network.

This paper is, in my professional capacity, very cool! Shep Doeleman, also of Harvard-Smithsonian and leader of the E.H.T. collaboration, said in an email.

Andrew Strominger, a Harvard theorist and co-author of the paper, said, Understanding the intricate details of this historic experimental observation has forced theorists like myself to think about black holes in a new way.

Einstein thought that was crazy, but astronomers have found that space is littered with these apocalyptic creatures. There seems to be a supermassive black hole, weighing millions or billions of times more than the Sun, lurking in the center of every galaxy.

The Event Horizon Telescope, named after the edge, the point of no return from a black hole, consisted of eight radio observatories on six mountains and four continents. All that observing power was yoked together by a technique called very-long baseline interferometry, to achieve the resolution of a telescope as big as the Earth. For 10 days in April 2017 they pointed it at the center of the giant galaxy M87 in the Virgo constellation, where there is a black hole as massive as six billion Suns belching tongues of radio fire.

The resultant image of gases heated to billions of degrees swirling around the cosmic drain matched the predictions of Einsteins theory, as far as anyone can tell. A copy of the telescopes vision now resides in the permanent photography collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

But the Event Horizons work has barely begun, Dr. Doeleman said. For one thing the scientists are trying to make a movie of the supermassive black hole in the center of our own Milky Way galaxy; a summertime attempt was recently called off because of the coronavirus pandemic.

If they could increase the size of their event horizon network by adding an antenna in space, Dr. Doeleman said, they could gain enough resolution to see individual photon rings, as they are called, turning the event horizon into a true cosmic laboratory for testing our most fundamental theories.

As Peter Galison of Harvard, another E.H.T. collaborator said, As we peer into these rings, we are looking at light from all over the visible universe, we are seeing farther and farther into the past, a movie, so to speak, of the history of the visible universe.

Dr. Johnson said there were several space radio telescopes on the drawing boards that could fit the bill. One is a Russian mission called Millimetron, which is optimistically hoping to launch in 2029. Another is the Origins Space Telescope, which has been proposed to NASA for a launch in 2035.

Dr. Johnson said astronomers dont know the mass of the M87 black hole they revealed last year to better than 10 percent accuracy, nor do they know if and how fast it is spinning. A space mission with a radio antenna would allow them to see the ring structure and determine the M87s mass to an accuracy of a fraction of a percent, and could estimate its spin.

All this if Einstein was right, he added. Other theories of gravity and other types of compact objects (wormholes, naked singularities, boson stars) would suggest a very different ring structure.

So this is a way of studying exactly what lies at the centers of galaxies, in a way that we can never learn from larger scale measurements such as the orbits of stars or gas, Dr. Johnson said.

Link:

Infinite Visions Were Hiding in the First Black Hole Images Rings - The New York Times

A new spacecraft proposed by scientists at CU Boulder could soon be NASAs nose in space, sniffing out the environments beyond Earths solar system that might host planets with thick atmospheres.

Astrophysicist Kevin France is leading the development of that mission, called the Extreme-ultraviolet Stellar Characterization for Atmospheric Physics and Evolution (ESCAPE). Hes hoping it will provide the critical reconnaissance work in humanitys search for life far away from home.

NASA and the entire astronomical community have made the search for signs of life on exoplanets a priority, said France, an assistant professor in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) and the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS). We believe that detectable life outside the solar system probably relies on the presence of an atmosphere.

This month, the space agency gave him and his colleagues an important go-ahead to start the hunt for habitable environments: ESCAPE will be one of two candidates vying to be the next satellite to launch under NASAs ambitious Explorers Program.

A concept design for theExtreme-ultraviolet Stellar Characterization for Atmospheric Physics and Evolution (ESCAPE) spacecraft in an alien star system. (Credit: Brandy Coons/Laura Murray/CU Boulder)

If selected, the mission, which would have a budget of no more than $145 million, could pack a lot of scientific punch for the cost.

These promising proposals under the Explorers Program bring out some of the most creative, innovative ways to help uncover the secrets of the universe," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. "From studying stars and planets outside our solar system to seeking answers to the largest cosmic mysteries, I look forward to the breakthrough science from these modest size missions.

The proposed mission, a joint effort of LASP, JILA and the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA) at CU Boulder, wouldnt seek out exoplanet atmospheres directly. Instead, ESCAPE would take a close look at distant stars.

Allison Youngblood, a research scientist at LASP, explained that some stars probably dont make good homes for habitable planets. In particular, stars that spit out a lot of high-energy radiationin this case, extreme ultraviolet lightcan strip the atmospheres away from orbiting worlds. Think of it like a strong gust blowing through a pile of leaves.

This high-energy radiation is absorbed in the highest layers of a planet's atmosphere and regulates the escape of an atmosphere to space, said Youngblood, part of Frances ESCAPE team. We must measure the extreme ultraviolet radiation from exoplanet host stars to be able to say whether or not exoplanets can hang on to their atmospheres.

Over the course of its proposed two-year mission, which could begin in 2025, ESCAPE would survey the radiation streaming from more than 200 stars.

By doing that, France hopes to narrow down the list of the spots where scientists might expect to find the signals of flourishing life.

Were going to be able to make a road map of the most promising habitable worlds that NASA will spend its resources studying over the next 20 years, France said.

For now, he and his colleagues are buckling down. NASA has given the team $2 million dollars to develop their concept for ESCAPE further, and the agency will make its final decision in 2021.

The teams vision is definitely ambitious, France said. ESCAPE would measure about 7-feet-long and weigh more than 300 poundsa roughly Shaquille ONeal-sized chunk of machinery in low-Earth orbit.

ESCAPE also makes use of a new type of telescope designone that would be capable of measuring the faint extreme-ultraviolet radiation from distant stars, data that astronomers have so far not been able to collect.

Over the next nine months, were going to be making and testing engineering models of some of the more critical parts of the system in order to demonstrate that our design is actually going to perform as well as we think its going to, said Brian Fleming, a research professor at LASP and the instrument scientist for ESCAPE.

In other words, the researchers have some busy months ahead of them.

We were extremely excited when we found out we were selected, France said. Then maybe a day later it hit us that, Oh my gosh, we actually have to do all this. Its very gratifying to see it all come together and for NASA to be excited about it.

Other CU Boulder members of the ESCAPE team include Zachory Berta-Thompson and Adam Kowalski, assistant professors in APS; James Green, a professor in APS; and Jeffrey Linksy of JILA; and James Mason and Nick Kruczek, research scientists at LASP. Tom Patton leads the projects engineering team at LASP.

The effort also brings together researchers from the Ball Aerospace, Southwest Research Institute, and the National Solar Observatory, based in Boulder. ESCAPE also has science and technical partners at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center and numerous other universities and science institutions around the world.

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New mission would provide a road map in the search for alien atmospheres - CU Boulder Today

But this closeness doesnt last. The very next day, it will be obvious that Saturn has moved away from Mars. In fact, both Saturn and Jupiter are heading westward, away from the red planet. On the 9th, Saturn will be almost exactly midway between Mars, to the left, and Jupiter. By months end, the gap between Mars and Saturn will have opened to nearly 20 degrees.

While Saturn and Jupiter are pulling away from Mars, Earth is moving closer. During April the distance to Mars drops from 135 million miles to 114 million miles. Also, Jupiter is slowly drifting closer to Saturn. In December these two planets make a very close pass.

In the evening sky, Venus visits the lovely Pleiades star cluster. On the 1st, the cluster hovers close above the queen of planets. The next night, Venus has arrived at the border, and on the 3rd the planet appears to be another star in the cluster. On the 4th, Venus is above the Pleiades, and from then on the two objects rapidly separate. The one wrinkle is the bright waxing moon that shines those nights, so keep your binoculars handy.

And if that werent enough, Aprils full moon is one of the closer ones this year and qualifies as a supermoon. It rises the evening of the 7th, looking not only bigger and brighter than usual, but very round because itll be only a couple of hours or so from the moment of perfect fullness. Also, have a look on the 25th, when a young crescent moon of the next cycle appears below Venus and next to Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus, the bull.

April ends with an astronomically based holiday that the ancient Celts (and many contemporary ones) called Beltane. It was celebrated on May 1, which began formally at sundown April 30 and was one of four cross-quarter days falling midway between an equinox and a solstice. The night of April 30 was when evil spirits that had been wreaking havoc since Halloweenanother cross-quarter dayhad a last fling. At dawn on May 1, they had to begin their annual six-month exile from the world of humans. Beltane was, and is, a celebration of the coming summer and hopes for an abundant harvest.

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The University of Minnesota offers public viewings of the night sky at its Duluth and Twin Cities campuses. For more information and viewing schedules, see:

Duluth, Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium: http://www.d.umn.edu/planet

Twin Cities, Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics: http://www.astro.umn.edu/outreach/pubnight

Check out the astronomy programs at the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum Exploradome: http://www.bellmuseum.umn.edu/education/exploradome

Find U of M astronomers and links to the world of astronomy at http://www.astro.umn.edu

8/22/19 Contact: Deane Morrison, University Relations, (612) 624-2346, morri029@umn.edu

--- --- --- --- ---

Minnesota Starwatch is a service of the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, located in the Tate Laboratory of Physics and Astronomy, 116 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis MN 55455.

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April's full moon is a supermoon, and rises on the 7th - Brainerd Dispatch

Amateur astronomers in cities across India are making the best out of a bad situation to observe celestial objects --stars, constellations and planets -- in skies that have become unusually clear because of reduced pollution after the all-India lockdown came into force on March 25 to stop the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19).

The night skies, especially, have brightened with many more stars visible, according to astrophysicists in Kolkata who are monitoring celestial events with a telescope.

The stars, which were earlier only eight times brighter compared to the black sky in the background, have become at least 13 times brighter now compared to the black background. With the help of our telescopes we can now observe stars which were at least three times fainter earlier, said Sandip K Chakrabarti, director of Indian Centre for Space Physics (ICSP) and former head of the astrophysics and cosmology department at the SN Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences.

HT reported on March 24a general improvement in air quality across the world amid lockdowns to check the spread of Covid-19. The European Space Agency (ESA) has released satellite images showing a plunge in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels. In India, the government has cancelled flights and trains and taken public transport off the roads.

Constellations such as the Orion, Auriga, Gemini and Canis Minor have become much brighter now. One can see these constellations much clearly because of the drop in air pollution levels, said Basudev Bhattacharya, president ofthe Sky Watchers Association in Kolkata.

The concentration of aerosols that used to scatter light and create a dense haze have dropped because of the lockdown. An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi has revealed that morning and evening peaks in PM 2.5 (particulate matter 2.5, fine, respirable pollution particles) levels have flattened out.

As a result of this, several stars and planets have become much brighter. The Canopus star in the southern hemisphere is looking quite bright. Planets such as Jupiter, Mars and Saturn have become brighter and can be seen before dawn around 4 am. Venus is also looking brighter in the evening sky, said J Khemchandani, secretary of Ahmedabads astronomy club.

The sky is now dotted with stars, many of which were earlier not visible. Earlier, only two objects from the deep sky were visible. But now I can see at least five including the Little Beehive star cluster, Messier 36, Messier 37 and Messier 38. These could be seen in the western sky in the evening. Earlier I could see only two to three stars of the Scorpio constellation. But now I can see the entire constellation. Even the pole star is shining brightly over the last one week or so, said Sneh Kesari, an amateur astronomer in Delhi.

Originally posted here:

Pollution down, sky clearer: Amateur astronomers have a good time - Hindustan Times

According to classical theories, these space giants would not have had the time to develop in the young Universe. Yet, observations say they were already present. A new study by SISSA proposes a response to the fascinating question. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

These space giants would not have had the time to develop in the young Universe. Yet, observations say they were already present; a new study proposes a response to the mystery.

They are billions of times larger than our Sun: how is it possible that, as recently observed, supermassive black holes were already present when the Universe, now 14 billion years old, was just 800 million years old? For astrophysicists, the formation of these cosmic monsters in such a short time is a real scientific headache, which raises important questions on the current knowledge of the development of these celestial bodies. A recent article published in The Astrophysical Journal, by the SISSA Ph.D. student Lumen Boco and his supervisor Andrea Lapi, offers a possible explanation to the thorny issue. Thanks to an original model theorized by the scientists from Trieste, the study proposes a very fast formation process in the initial phases of the development of the supermassive black holes, those up to now considered slower. Proving, mathematically, that their existence was possible in the young Universe, the results of the research reconcile the timing required for their growth with the limits imposed by the age of the Cosmos. The validity of the theory can be fully validated thanks to future gravitational wave detectors namely Einstein Telescope and LISA, but tested in several basic aspects also with the current Advanced LIGO/Virgo system.

The scientists started their study with a piece of well-known observational evidence: the growth of supermassive black holes occurs in the central regions of galaxies, progenitors of the current elliptical galaxies, which had a very high gas content and in which the stellar formation was extremely intense. The biggest stars live a short time and very quickly evolve into stellar black holes, as large as several scores of solar masses; they are small, but many form in these galaxies. The dense gas that surrounds them, explain Boco and Lapi, has a very powerful definitive effect of dynamic friction and causes them to migrate very quickly to the center of the galaxy. The majority of the numerous black holes that reach the central regions merge, creating the supermassive black hole seed. Boco and Lapi continue: According to classical theories, a supermassive black hole grows at the center of a galaxy capturing the surrounding matter, principally gas, growing it on itself and finally devouring it at a rhythm which is proportional to its mass. For this reason, during the initial phases of its development, when the mass of the black hole is small, the growth is very slow. To the extent that, according to the calculations, to reach the mass observed, billions of times that of the Sun, a very long time would be required, even greater than the age of the young Universe. Their study, however, showed that things could go much faster than that.

Our numerical calculations show that the process of dynamic migration and fusion of stellar black holes can make the supermassive black hole seed reach a mass of between 10,000 and 100,000 times that of the Sun in just 50-100 million years. At this point, the researchers say, the growth of the central black hole according to the aforementioned direct accretion of gas, envisaged by the standard theory, will become very fast, because the quantity of gas it will succeed in attracting and absorbing will become immense, and predominant on the process we propose. Nevertheless, precisely the fact of starting from such a big seed as envisaged by our mechanism speeds up the global growth of the supermassive black hole and allows its formation, also in the Young Universe. In short, in light of this theory, we can state that 800 million years after the Big Bang the supermassive black holes could already populate the Cosmos.

The article, besides illustrating the model and demonstrating its efficacy, also proposes a method for testing it: The fusion of numerous stellar black holes with the seed of the supermassive black hole at the center will produce gravitational waves which we expect to see and study with current and future detectors, explain the researchers. In particular, the gravitational waves emitted in the initial phases, when the central black hole seed is still small, will be identifiable by the current detectors like Advanced LIGO/Virgo and fully characterizable by the future Einstein Telescope. The subsequent development phases of the supermassive black hole could be investigated thanks to the future detector LISA, which will be launched in space around 2034. In this way, explain Boco and Lapi, the process we propose can be validated in its different phases, in a complementary way, by future gravitational wave detectors.

This research concludes Andrea Lapi, coordinator of the Astrophysics and Cosmology group of SISSA, shows how the students and researchers of our group are fully approaching the new frontier of gravitational waves and multi-messenger astronomy. In particular, our main goal will be to develop theoretical models, like that devised in this case, which serve to capitalize on the information originating from the experiments of current and future gravitational waves, thereby hopefully providing solutions for unresolved issues connected with astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics.

Reference: Growth of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds in ETG Star-forming Progenitors: Multiple Merging of Stellar Compact Remnants via Gaseous Dynamical Friction and Gravitational-wave Emission by L. Boco, A. Lapi and L. Danese, 9 March 2020, The Astrophysical Journal.DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab7446

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Mystery of Supermassive Black Holes Shortly After the Big Bang Explanation Discovered - SciTechDaily

So youre in quarantine, and youve got kids playing too much Roblox while the school system scrambles to put digital learning in place. Even for families with experience educating at home, it can be a daunting task coming up with learning experiences to fill a students day, especially with most public libraries closed during the COVID-19 crisis. While television is not the cure-all for the problem, a nice educational program, perhaps one that includes instructional materials, could be just the thing to fill in the instructional gaps and give flustered parents a little break from playing teacher.

Weve listed here our favorite educational television program in each of the main subject areas: math, science, language arts, and social studies. Most of these are available via PBS and are often presented along with materials for follow-up lessons. Theres obviously a lot more out there for the elementary set than any other age group, but we tried to include programming that could appeal to a wide variety of grade levels broken down by subject.

In the opening credits of Genius by Stephen Hawking, the titular physicist says, I believe that anyone can answer big questions for themselves. This show takes the questions we all ask such as Can We Time Travel? and Where Did the Universe Come From? and turns them into the episode titles designed specifically to explore those ideas through practical demonstrations, commentary from experts, and the interaction of three so-called regular people that act as the audiences proxy. The large-scale experiments and incredible stunts will appeal to students of many ages as they come to grips with molecular biology, astrophysics, and even Hawkings speciality, quantum mechanics.

Genius by Stephen Hawking was produced in 2016 but is currently available to stream through your PBS station and is free to Amazon Prime subscribers.

Continued here:

Educational Shows For Kids to Stream From Home - Den of Geek UK

COLUMBIA, Md. and WASHINGTON, March 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NASAScience Mission Directorate recently selected four Small Explorer (SMEX) mission concepts that would study cosmic explosions and the debris they leave behind, as well as monitor how nearby stellar flares may affect the atmospheres of orbiting planets. Among these is the LargE Area burst Polarimeter (LEAP) concept led by Principal Investigator Mark McConnell at the University of New Hampshire in Durham and Director of R&D at the Southwest Research Institute.The mission is being managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. One of the Co-Investigators on the project is Adam Goldstein of Universities Space Research Association (USRA) Science and Technology Institute in Huntsville, Alabama.

"These promising proposals under the Explorers Program bring out some of the most creative, innovative ways to help uncover the secrets of the universe," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "From studying stars and planets outside our solar system to seeking answers to the largest cosmic mysteries, I look forward to the breakthrough science from these modest size missions."

The LargE Area Polarimeter (LEAP) mission would be an instrument mounted as an external payload to the International Space Station, and its primary mission is to study the polarization of gamma rays from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). GRBs are the most energetic explosions in the universe and are highly-relativistic jets of material ejected from the core-collapse of massive stars or when two neutron stars collide. An instrument capable of measuring the polarization of the GRB radiation has been long-desired in the community, since it could answer several open questions about the jet physics and the underlying processes that produce the jets. Specifically, measuring the polarization could inform us about the magnetic field strengths present in these systems during core-collapse or collision; it could tell whether the jet itself mostly contains matter moving at very near the speed of light or contains a lot of radiation; and it could also indicate how the matter in the jet is converted to the gamma-rays that we observe.

USRA's Adam Goldstein stated, "LEAP is an exciting project to be involved in because it promises to advance the study of GRBs and our understanding of high-energy astrophysics.GRBs have been studied for several decades, and yet there are still many open questions about their exact nature.LEAP could help answer a number of those."

Mark McConnell, the Principal Investigator, stated, "LEAP represents the culmination of many years of work to make some extremely important measurements. Not only do we have the right instrument for the task, but we also have been very successful in putting together a team of researchers who represent some of the foremost researchers in the study of Gamma Ray Bursts. We are thrilled with the prospects for the LEAP project."

The LEAP instrument is composed of gamma-ray scintillators coupled to photo-multiplier tubes, together creating detectors that owe heritage to both the current Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and the previous Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) onboard the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory. Unlike GBM and BATSE, however, LEAP's unique arrangement of the detectors will allow it to measure the polarization of the gamma-rays that neither of the previous instrument had the capability to observe. Additionally, its very large observing area, several times that of GBM, will make it sensitive to detecting many GRBs, so GRB polarization could be measured for potentially hundreds of GRBs, allowing for a population analysis.

The selected missions are provided an opportunity to improve their proposed mission concept during an extended phase-A -- until 2021. NASA intends to select two of the four proposed mission concepts at that time for further development and launch in 2025.

Ghassem Asrar, Senior Vice President of Science at USRA noted, "We are thrilled to see USRA scientists supporting one of proposed SMEX mission concepts.What is also special about the LEAP Mission of Opportunity as an attached payload is that it will take full advantage of the International Space Station."LEAP will also complement NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), scheduled to launch in 2021.

USRA, in partnership with Marshall Space Flight Center will take part in the awarded concept study to develop a final report on the ability of LEAP to achieve its proposed science. It is expected that in 2021, NASA will select the final mission concepts, and if LEAP is one of the missions chosen, it will be built and is expected to be operational in 2025.

About USRAFounded in 1969, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the U.S. Government, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) is a nonprofit corporation chartered to advance space-related science, technology and engineering. USRA operates scientific institutes and facilities, and conducts other major research and educational programs, under Federal funding. USRA engages the university community and employs in-house scientific leadership, innovative research and development, and project management expertise. More information about USRA is available at http://www.usra.edu.

About the Explorers ProgramManaged by Goddard, this is the oldest continuous NASA program designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the Science Mission Directorate's astrophysics and heliophysics programs. Since the launch in 1958 of Explorer 1, which discovered Earth's radiation belts, the Explorers Program has launched more than 90 missions, including the Uhuruand Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)missions that led to Nobel Prizes for their investigators. For information about the Explorers Program visit: https://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

PR Contact:Suraiya Farukhi, Ph.D.sfarukhi@usra.edu443-812-6945

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Universities Space Research Association's Adam Goldstein Named Co-Investigator on NASA's Recently Elected Proposed Mission on LargE Area burst...

Written by AZoQuantumMar 24 2020

Supermassive black holes are billions of times bigger than the Sun, but how is this possible? According to recent observations, these space giants already existed when the Universe was just 800 million years old and is currently 14 billion years old.

The emergence of these celestial giants in such a brief time poses a real scientific dilemma to astrophysicists, raising significant questions on the present knowledge relating to the formation of these cosmic bodies.

A new article, authored by Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) PhD student Lumen Boco and his supervisor Andrea Lapi and recently published in The Astrophysical Journal, provides a potential explanation to this tricky problem.

Based on an original model conceptualized by Trieste researchers, the study recommends an extremely rapid formation process during the preliminary phases of the formation of the giant black holes, which, so far, were believed to be slower.

The study results mathematically showed that supermassive black holes could possibly exist in the young Universe and reconciled the timing needed for their development with the limitations imposed by the Cosmos age.

Thanks to upcoming gravitational wave detectors such as LISA and Einstein Telescope, the validity of this concept can be completely confirmed, while this was also tested in a number of rudimentary aspects using the present Advanced LIGO/Virgo system.

The researchers began their analysis with a piece of familiar observational proofthe development of giant black holes that takes place in the core regions of galaxies, progenitors of the present elliptical galaxies, which had an extremely high concentration gas and in which the star formation was very strong.

The biggest stars live a short time and very quickly evolve into stellar black holes, as large as several scores of solar masses; they are small, but many form in these galaxies, stated Boco and Lapi.

The duo further explained that the thick gas surrounding the black holes has a very strong definitive effect of dynamic friction and makes them to move quite rapidly to the core of the galaxy. Most of the various black holes that approach the core regions combine and produce the giant black hole seed.

According to classical theories, a supermassive black hole grows at the centre of a galaxy capturing the surrounding matter, principally gas, growing it on itself and finally devouring it at a rhythm which is proportional to its mass.

Lumen Boco, PhD Student, and Andrea Lapi, Supervisor and Coordinator, The Astrophysics and Cosmology Group, SISSA

Boco and Lapi continued, For this reason, during the initial phases of its development, when the mass of the black hole is small, the growth is very slow. To the extent that, according to the calculations, to reach the mass observed, billions of times that of the Sun, a very long time would be required, even greater than the age of the young Universe.

But the researchers study revealed that things could go relatively faster than that.

Our numerical calculations show that the process of dynamic migration and fusion of stellar black holes can make the supermassive black hole seed reach a mass of between 10,000 and 100,000 times that of the Sun in just 50-100 million years, added the researchers.

At this juncture, the scientists stated that the growth of the central black hole according to the aforementioned direct accretion of gas, envisaged by the standard theory, will become very fast, because the quantity of gas it will succeed in attracting and absorbing will become immense, and predominant on the process we propose.

Nevertheless, precisely the fact of starting from such a big seed as envisaged by our mechanism speeds up the global growth of the supermassive black hole and allows its formation, also in the Young Universe. In short, in light of this theory, we can state that 800 million years after the Big Bang the supermassive black holes could already populate the Cosmos.

Lumen Boco, PhD Student, and Andrea Lapi, Supervisor and Coordinator, The Astrophysics and Cosmology Group, SISSA

The study, apart from describing the model and illustrating its efficacy, also suggests a way for testing it: The fusion of numerous stellar black holes with the seed of the supermassive black hole at the centre will produce gravitational waves which we expect to see and study with current and future detectors, the scientists explained.

Specifically, the gravitational waves released in the preliminary phaseswhen the central black hole seed is still smallcan be identified using the existing detectors such as Advanced LIGO/Virgo and fully definable by the upcoming Einstein Telescope.

The resultant development phases of the giant black hole can possibly be analyzed due to the upcoming detector LISA, which will be introduced in space around 2034.

In this manner, the process we propose can be validated in its different phases, in a complementary way, by future gravitational wave detectors, explained Boco and Lapi.

This research shows how the students and researchers of our group are fully approaching the new frontier of gravitational waves and multi-messenger astronomy. In particular, our main goal will be to develop theoretical models, like that devised in this case, which serve to capitalise on the information originating from the experiments of current and future gravitational waves, thereby hopefully providing solutions for unresolved issues connected with astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics.

Andrea Lapi, Supervisor and Coordinator, The Astrophysics and Cosmology Group, SISSA

Source: https://www.sissa.it/

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The Mystery of Supermassive Black Hole Formation - AZoQuantum