Astronomy Cast Ep. 360: Modern Women: Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Join +Fraser Cain and +Pamela Gay for a live episode of Astronomy Cast. We #39;ll record our 30-minute show, and then stick around to answer your questions about space and astronomy. Ep. 360:...
By: Astronomy Cast
Read the original post:
Astronomy Cast Ep. 360: Modern Women: Jocelyn Bell Burnell - Video
Astronomy C12 - 2014-12-02: The Big Bang; Origin of Elements
Astronomy C12, 001 - Fall 2014 The Planets - Geoffrey W. Marcy All Rights Reserved.
By: UCBerkeley
Original post:
Astronomy C12 - 2014-12-02: The Big Bang; Origin of Elements - Video
@SinghRPN Shameful remarks by Minister on Ramzadon vs http://t.co/ASnMDZR2US can BJP leaders reduce Hinduism to just abuse of other communities ? @milinddeora @VIVEKSINGHANIA2 @RAHULNAHIRE thank you @MPNaveenJindal @digvijaya_28 A must read Article "If US had a patent law like ours, they would discover many more drugs: Anand Grover" is http://t.co/Ha8Y0GerGM @thekiranbedi (India climbs up with its leader) @ndtv: PM Narendra Modi regains top position in 'Time Person of the Year' poll http://t.co/UVWEIEo4RS @ajaymaken BJP came to power using half baked and leaked CAG Reports- Now diluting and undermining it:- http://t.co/LThJNOugkp @MPNaveenJindal @VinkalChabra @JSPLCorporate Thanks for sharing Mr Chabra 🙂 @Panda_Jay My Twitter handle changed yesterday to @PandaJay , please follow that.. @ShashiTharoor Link to @rajyasabhatv debate on 6 months of Modi Govt: https://t.co/aYklFUfJTL Will debate NDA's Sanskrit policy on RSTV 9.30pm today @Swamy39 PM made a speech in RS condemning the Sadhvi's use of H---zade but Opp did not lift the blockade? Who is responsible for this double cross? @narendramodi May Justice Krishna Iyer's soul attain eternal peace. My thoughts are with his family during this moment of immense sadness. @abdullah_omar The same rope sports PDP flags along side NC flags. Probably the closest NC & PDP ever come 🙂 #JK2014 http://t.co/eB1Yb0v0R2 @varungandhi80 My article in The Economic Times today: Go Beyond Power Politics. http://t.co/igNWjNbVjk @ArvindKejriwal RT @balakv1970: I donated Rs.1.80 lakhs vide transaction ID NI391277. Wish the #MufflerMan a great success in delhi elections. Honesty fina @PMOIndia The President of India, PM @narendramodi and other dignitaries during the 'At Home' on Navy Day. @RashtrapatiBhvn http://t.co/BZ2XbEIIkM @rajeev_mp I wl meet Home Minister #RajnathSingh seekng Govt's help in extraditing #Paedophile #PaulMeekin,ensure he stands trial #ChildSafeBengaluru @quizderek @Jeet_Kulkarni thanks @ Christie's auction: Will Tyeb Mehta sell for a record? @avantikabhuyan reports: http://t.co/uWUBI00Uhn http://t.co/IeOpNnCcKl @SushmaSwaraj My respectful homage to the memory of the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy. @arunjaitley Today is the birth anniversary of Dr. Rajender Prasad, the first president of our nation. My salutations to this great personality. @MVENKAIAHNAIDU I pay my respect to Sri R Venkataraman on his birth anniversary. He Initiated India's Guided Missile Program as defence Minister. @nitin_gadkari so as to facilitate an integrated approach to Drinking water, River navigation and Inland waterways (2/2) @DVSBJP RT @KarnatakaVarthe: Committee on Public Sectors from Karnataka calls on the Union Minister @DVSBJP http://t.co/IPURqNvGlc @nimmasuresh ht @umasribharti . , . @AnanthKumar_BJP Meeting with the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Karnataka today to discuss pending issues of #Karnataka pertaining to MoCF http://t.co/VoUIJQFbix @smritiirani Addressed BJP election meetings at Ram Nagar and Reasi today @drharshvardhan Best wishes to Maitri Porecha & Shreya Dasgupta Madan on being chosen for 2015 Eureka Alert Fellowship for international science reporters. @Gen_VKSingh RT @narendramodi: Let us all work together to create a world where persons with disabilities can scale new heights of success without any o @Rao_InderjitS RT @mlkhattar: Gurgaon generates the maximum revenue in the state however there is a huge divide between the rich & poor which needs to b @nsitharaman @sankarbe 🙂 @RSSorg It was only recently I had an opportunity of meeting Just: Iyer, which was an invigorating experience for me. Dr Mohan Bhagwat
Read the original here:
NASA grant helps NMSU astronomy student #39;s search for microbial life
New Mexico State University student Kyle Uckert is working on the development of instrumentation to help identify signs of life on bodies of the solar system...
By: nmsunews
Read more from the original source:
NASA grant helps NMSU astronomy student's search for microbial life - Video
Astronomy C12 - 2014-11-25: The Expansion and Acceleration of the Universe
Astronomy C12, 001 - Fall 2014 The Planets - Geoffrey W. Marcy All Rights Reserved.
By: UCBerkeley
Read the original post:
Astronomy C12 - 2014-11-25: The Expansion and Acceleration of the Universe - Video
The White Dwarf :: Astronomy Final Project 2014
Josh Humpherys Emily Heath Group 56.
By: Josh Humpherys
See the article here:
The Minister for Science and Technology of South Africa and the President of the Max-Planck-Society (MPG) today announced that the MPG and the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn will make available a total of 11 million (approximately R150 million) to build and install radio receivers on the South African MeerKAT radio telescope.The receivers will be built by the MPIfR and will operate in the S band of radio frequencies. They will be used primarily for research on pulsars, the rapid spinning neutron star which emit very regular radio pulses and so can be used as highly accurate clocks to test extreme physics. Two other sets of receivers, for the L band and ULF band of frequencies, are already under construction in South Africa.The President of the MPG, Martin Stratmann, said: We consider MeerKAT to be an important undertaking as it is not only a preeminent astronomy project, but also a light-house project for science in Africa in general. The MPG is very pleased to enable close collaboration between its scientists and the South African community and looks forward to see MeerKATs first glimpse of the universe with the receivers of the MPIfR.Welcoming the strong and growing collaboration between South Africa and Germany, Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor said that the investment is an endorsement of the excellence of the MeerKAT and the South African team which designed and is building it. Minister Pandor added that this significant investment by a leading global research organization of prestigious repute, home to several Nobel Prize winners, was an important vote of confidence, in South African science in general and the MeerKAT specifically. South Africa and Germany have a vibrant science and technology partnership, with radio astronomy fast becoming a blossoming flagship area of cooperation, evidence by huge interest in academic and industrial cooperation from both sides. Minister Pandor concluded, MeerKAT is already acclaimed internationally as a world-class instrument -- thanks to our partnership with Max Planck, MeerKATs ability to perform transformational science for the benefit of global knowledge production will be considerably boosted. Awaiting the start of construction of the SKA, South Africa and our international partners such as Max Planck, continue to set the pace for global radio astronomy.MeerKAT will be the most sensitive cm wave radio telescope in the world until the SKA is built. It is expected to do transformational science on pulsars and other areas of astronomy.Contacts:Lorenzo RaynardSKA SA Communication Manager+27 (0)71 454 0658lorenzo@ska.ac.zaLunga NgqengeleleMedia Liaison Officer, Ministry of Science and Technology+27 (0)82 566 0446lunga.ngqengelele@dst.gov.za
Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
Read more:
Germany Invests 11M Euros in South African MeerKAT Radio Telescope
A new radio astronomical receiver project of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has received full funding by the Max Planck Society. The scientific defined frequency range from 1.6 to 3.5 GHz can only be observed under significant sensitivity losses with the 100-m Effelsberg radio telescope due to man-made radio emission, the so-called radio frequency interference. Thus the MeerKAT observatory, currently under construction in South Africa, has been chosen as a host for this receiver system. MeerKAT, will be the most sensitive observatory of the southern hemisphere in the centimeter wavelength regime. Thanks to its unique location at the Karoo semi-desert in South Africa, MeerKAT is hardly influenced by interference. The 11 million euro receiver project will not only grant the Max Planck scientists access to a world-class facility and its unique unrestricted view on our galaxy but also extend the frequency range for all MeerKAT scientists and thus empower MeerKATs scientific potential even further.Radio astronomy provides an independent view of the cosmos. It allows the study of objects and processes that are otherwise not accessible, and enables the study of a wide range of questions in fundamental physics and astrophysics. The discovery space is mostly limited by the sensitivity of the radio telescopes, but other factors like sky access, time and frequency resolution, throughput (or survey speed) and complementarity to existing facilities, are hugely important factors. Currently, major efforts are underway to make progress on all these factors. An upfront development is provided by the MeerKAT observatory in South Africa. When completed it will already be a world-class facility in stand-alone mode.MeerKAT will even be more sensitive than the largest fully-steerable radio telescopes in the northern hemisphere, the 100-m radio telescope at Effelsberg and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. In addition, it will provide a spatial resolution comparable to an 8 km diameter telescope. The science potential of MeerKAT is therefore enormous.The MeerKAT receiver project at our institute provides a receiving system that is finely tuned to the science interests of Max Planck scientists, says Gundolf Wieching, head of the electronics division at MPIfR where the new receiver will be built. This will allow us to exploit this formidable new instrument and to bring Max Planck scientists to an optimal position to harness other future facilities.The funded receiver for a frequency range from 1.6 to 3.5 GHz will enable science that falls into the core interests of the MPIfR. Our research interests include fundamental physics with tests of theories of gravity and gravitational wave detection by means of pulsar observations, states Michael Kramer, Director at MPIfR and Head of its Fundamental Physics research department. The project is actually expected to do transformational science on pulsars and other areas of astronomy. Other areas include the exploration of the dynamic radio sky, for example with the detection of fast cosmological radio bursts, and also highly sensitive molecular spectroscopy of the interstellar medium or high-resolution imaging of radio sources using very long baseline interferometry. Each of these science topics alone makes the exploitation of MeerKAT extremely desirable, but together they provide the most compelling background for an excellent positioning of Max Planck scientists in this highly active research field.In addition to providing the frontend, the complete project also includes the design and the construction of a state-of-the-art digital backend system which will turn MeerKAT into a discovery machine for pulsars and other time-domain phenomena. The receiver system will be designed and constructed by the MPIfR in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Manchester and Oxford The investment is an endorsement of the excellence of the MeerKAT and the South African team which designed and is building it, concludes Bernie Fanaroff, Director of the SKA South Africa project. We welcome the strong and growing collaboration between South African and German scientists in astronomy.PIO Contact;Dr. Norbert JunkesPress and Public OutreachMax-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie, Bonn+49 228-525-399njunkes@mpifr-bonn.mpg.deScience Contacts:Dr. Gundolf Wieching,Max-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie, Bonn+49 228-525-175wieching@mpifr-bonn.mpg.deProf. Dr. Michael Kramer,Director and Head of Research Department Fundamental Physics in Radio AstronomyMax-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie, Bonn+49 228-525-278mkramer@mpifr-bonn.mpg.deMore InformationThe MPIfR MeerKAT Receiver will provide a receiving system, i.e., a frontend plus a backend system for time-domain processing. The detection frequency covers a range from 1.6 to 3.5 GHz, it is a dual polarization system with an analogue to digital converter stability below one pico second (10^-12 s, this is equivalent to a light travel distance less than 0.3 mm). The continuous data rate of 5.5 terabit/sec (1 terabit = 10^12 bit) is equivalent to the content of 147 DVDs per second or 0.5 million DVDs per hour. With such a huge amount of data they have to be reduced online, requiring a calculation power of several petaops (10^15 operations per second). These highly demanding requirements will lead to new technological developments also useful for future instrumentations beyond the scope of radio astronomy.MeerKAT is a fully funded radio observatory under construction in the Northern Cape of South Africa. It will be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the southern hemisphere until its integration into the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in the middle of the next decade. MeerKAT will consist of 64 13.5-m dishes, each with an offset-Gregorian configuration, designed by the German VERTEX company. Such configuration provides an unblocked aperture for increased sensitivity but also facilitating optical, imaging quality and good rejection of unwanted radio frequency interference from satellites and terrestrial transmitters. When completed, MeerKAT will be nearly 5 times more sensitive than the 64-m Parkes radio telescope, the largest radio telescope in the southern hemisphere now.
Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
Visit link:
Opening the African Sky - New Receiver for MeerKAT Telescope
The Two Types of Stars in Globular Clusters | Astronomy Video
More space news and info at: http://www.coconutsciencelab.com - globular clusters are thought to contain two types of stars: a primary group that forms first...
By: CoconutScienceLab
Read the rest here:
The Two Types of Stars in Globular Clusters | Astronomy Video - Video
Bags and cases for Astronomy equipment re edited
Here is a video guide to give you some ideas to protected your telescope and astrophotography equipment. For more further updates on my guides please subscribe to my channel on: https://www.youtu ...
By: Martin Pyott
Read more:
Astronomy - Ch. 17: The Nature of Stars (19 of 35) UBV Photometry: Examples of Stars
Visit http://ilectureonline.com for more math and science lectures! In this video I will explain UBV photometry by using examples of Bellatrix, Regulus, Sirius, Megrez, Altair, Sun, Aldeberan,...
By: Michel van Biezen
See the rest here:
Astronomy - Ch. 17: The Nature of Stars (19 of 35) UBV Photometry: Examples of Stars - Video
Highlights of the Night Sky - December 2014 | Astronomy Space Science Video
More space news and info at: http://www.coconutsciencelab.com - what to look for in the night sky during December 2014. Please rate and comment, thanks! Credits: STScI.
By: CoconutScienceLab
Continued here:
Highlights of the Night Sky - December 2014 | Astronomy Space Science Video - Video
10 hours ago by Duane Hamacher, The Conversation Night sky over Lake Tyrrel in Western Victoria home of the Wergaia people. Credit: Alex Cherney, CC BY-NC-ND
Indigenous Australians have been developing complex knowledge systems for tens of thousands of years. These knowledge systems - which seek to understand, explain, and predict nature - are passed to successive generations through oral tradition.
As Ngarinyin elder David Bungal Mowaljarlai explains: "Everything under creation [] is represented in the ground and in the sky." For this reason, astronomy plays a significant role in these traditions.
Western science and Indigenous knowledge systems both try to make sense of the world around us but tend to be conceptualised rather differently. The origin of a natural feature may be explained the same in Indigenous knowledge systems and Western science, but are couched in very different languages.
A story recounted by Aunty Mavis Malbunka, a custodian of the Western Arrernte people of the Central Desert, tells how long ago in the Dreaming, a group of women took the form of stars and danced a corroboree (ceremony) in the Milky Way.
One of the women put her baby in a wooden basket (coolamon) and placed him on the edge of the Milky Way. As the women danced, the baby slipped off and came tumbling to Earth. When the baby and coolamon fell, they hit the ground, driving the rocks upward. The coolamon covered the baby, hiding him forever, and the baby's parents the Morning and Evening Stars continue to search for their lost child today.
If you look at the evening winter sky, you will see the falling coolamon in the sky, below the Milky Way, as the arch of stars in the Western constellation Corona Australis the Southern Crown.
The place where the baby fell is a ring-shaped mountain range 5km wide and 150m high. The Arrernte people call it Tnorala. It is the remnant of a giant crater that formed 142 million years ago, when a comet or asteroid struck the Earth, driving the rocks upward.
Predicting seasonal change
When the Pleiades star cluster rises just before the morning sun, it signifies the start of winter to the Pitjantjatjara people of the Central Desert and tells them that dingoes are breeding and will soon be giving birth to pups.
See the article here:
North Wales Astronomy buff Brian Woosnam points to the skies again this December, fresh from a trip to the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Manchester.
Here is his guide for the night sky over the next month.
At this time, the southern and eastern sky are much as they have been later on autumn evenings, with the square of Pegasus high to the south, but little else in the way of bright constellations for now.
By 6pm however, Orion is beginning to haul over the eastern horizon, and mid-evenings southern sky will be filled by the striking winter groups.
The winter solstice is on the 21st at 23.03.
The planets
Venus will return to the evening night sky low in the southwestern twilight around an hour after sunset.
During the last week of December the planet Mercury will be just to its lower right but a lot fainter.
Mars will also be in the evening sky but setting in thewest around 19.30.
The bright planet Jupiter will be found in the east around 9pm between Cancer and Leo.
Read more:
STARS: North Wales Astronomy buff Brian Woosnam's tips for December
Data sender: Dr Lisa Harvey-Smith, CSIRO SKA Project Scientist, with new Square Kilometre Array which they are bidding for soon. Photo: Steven Siewert
Wi-Fi, advanced medical imaging and algorithms to detect skin cancer all have one thing in common they were all offshoots of astronomy, CSIRO astronomer Dr Lisa Harvey-Smith says.
While it may primarily be concerned with uncovering the mysteries of the universe, astronomyhas also led to many practical applications, Dr Harvey-Smith said ahead of a talk at the Australian Academy of Science on Tuesday.
Just for ASKAP we've got 72 terabytes per second of data streaming through the antennas.
Dr Harvey-Smith is a part of a team creating the $2 billion international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) billed as the world's largest and most powerful telescope bringing together more than one million separate radio detectors dotted across outback Western Australian and southern Africa.
The SKA telescope will be revolutionary for astronomers allowing them to study millions of galaxies through 10 billion years of cosmic history looking back in time as it reveals how galaxies were formed and challenges the fundamentals of gravity and Einstein's theory, Dr Harvey-Smith said.
Advertisement
But if that wasn't enough, the unprecedented volume of "big data" it will produce at almost incomprehensible speeds will pose an "incredible challenge" for the software world and lead to spin-off technology for wider applications.
"There are lots of ways in which astronomy not only inspires people, but is actually touching their lives in terms of real technology," she said.
Dr Harvey-Smith is the project scientist for the $188 million Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) in Western Australia, one of several prototype telescopes built as a precursor to the SKA.
Read more from the original source:
Hubble Space Telescope Stunning Images : Nasa Astronomy Hubble Photos
a video created from images and visualizations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Photos from the deepest reaches of space in spectacular detail taken by Nasa Hubble telescope, deep space ...
By: Amazing Space
View post:
Hubble Space Telescope Stunning Images : Nasa Astronomy Hubble Photos - Video
Astronomy 101 Project- Black Holes
By: Kali Schwartz
Originally posted here:
Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project - Fundraiser Prize Draw for 2014
Join Stephen W. Ramsden, Kevin Le Gore and Rob Black LIVE on Hangouts and Youtube, for the drawing of the 2014 Fund raiser Raffle.
By: NQ Astronomy
Follow this link:
Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project - Fundraiser Prize Draw for 2014 - Video
Nick Suntzeff's professor profile on Texas A&M's website doesn't list his research awards.
Among the accolades earned by the distinguished professor of physics and astronomy are Science magazine's "Scientific Breakthrough of the Year" in 1998 across all science disciplines, the 2007 Gruber Prize in Cosmology, and his co-founding of a team whose research led to the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics.
It's by choice that he opts not to list these honors, so it comes as no surprise to those who know him that he'll likely leave his latest acknowledgement off: Earlier this month, he was among 50 other scientists to receive the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, which recognizes major insights into the deepest questions of the universe. It comes with a $3 million prize to be shared by the recipients.
All of these distinctions -- each given over the past 14 years -- are tied to a 1998 discovery in which two teams of scientists simultaneously discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than slowing as had been long assumed.
"It's the mysterious substance known as dark energy -- we learned it accounts for 73 percent of all the mass and energy in the universe," said Suntzeff, whose passion for teaching is apparent as he excitedly breaks down the science to a reporter, pointing out that roughly 4 percent of the universe is composed of regular matter -- stars, planets, people -- and the remaining 23 percent is dark matter. "We don't know what the driving force is behind the acceleration -- we only know the cause. It remains the biggest puzzle in physical science and perhaps even all of science."
Suntzeff, who has been at Texas A&M since 2006, co-founded, along with astronomer Brian P. Schmidt of Australian National University, one of the two discovery teams. Theirs was a 21-person group from five continents called the High-Z Supernova Search Team. They used distant exploding stars to trace the expansion of the universe billions of light years away.
The names of Suntzeff and his 18 other teammates aren't on the Nobel Prize; the rules for the 113-year-old honor restrict the number to three living persons. From the beginning, Suntzeff requested his group do what many in research do not: Recognize those who do the most work, even though the role of each was critical to the final result.
For their group, that meant then-post-grad students Schmidt and Adam Riess, with Johns Hopkins University/Space Telescope Science Institute. Saul Perlmutter, with the University of California at Berkley, led the second discovery team.
Later, Schmidt, who was 27 at the time with Suntzeff as his mentor, would emphasize that the efforts were not his alone, rather a part of the team.
"As the [High-Z] group's leader, I tend to get more than my fair share of the credit, but a project like this really represents the blood and sweat of many people," Schmidt wrote on a website devoted to explaining their research and lists the names of all involved.
Read more: