Daily Archives: January 27, 2022

Learn more about the James Webb Telescope

Scientists across the UC system have played a major part in the James Webb Telescope project. Learn more about the role of UC Santa Cruz astronomers and project adviser UC Santa Cruz distinguished professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics Garth Illingworth here.

NASAs latest and snazziest mission, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched on Christmas Day, deployed its 21-foot-wide mirror a mere two weeks ago and reached its orbital destination earlier this week. With a flashy new telescope now nearly a reality, astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, are chomping at the bit to start observing.

After months of anxiety about whether the $10 billion telescope 25 years in the making and the successor to the highly successful Hubble Space Telescope would even survive launch, let alone unfold from its chrysalis into a gold-blinged telescope, these astronomers feel confident enough to plan summertime observations of nearby galaxies and of some of our closest neighbors in the solar system.

Im so thankful that it launched and everything appears to be working. I think its going to be just incredible, said Ned Molter, a UC Berkeley doctoral student working with campus astronomer Imke de Pater, who leads one of 13 teams given the chance to make early observations with the JWST. I speak for many of us to say were over the moon about the launch.

What a beautiful Christmas present to have the James Webb Space Telescope launch on Christmas Day, echoed Dan Weisz, a UC Berkeley associate professor of astronomy who leads another team awarded observing time as part of the early release science program. The whole of 2022 is going to be a Webb extravaganza. The first part of the year well get the telescope up to speed and commissioned, and in early summer and fall well start observing and then publishing a slew of papers about the first results. It is going to be the year of Webb. Its fantastic.

After its launch exactly one month ago, on Dec. 25, the JWST began coasting through space to its final destination, a point referred to as L2: a special place in the solar system a Lagrange point where the gravitational pull on the telescope by Earth is exactly balanced by the gravitational pull of the sun. The JWST settled into orbit around L2 on Monday, Jan. 24, where it will remain forever, looking outward into the cosmos from the side of Earth that is opposite the sun.

As the telescope transited to that point 945,000 miles from Earth and four times farther from Earth than the moon scientists began aligning the primary mirror, which is a cluster of 18 smaller, gold-plated hexagonal mirrors, with the secondary mirror to get the sharpest images possible. Other scientists tested the many instruments onboard to make sure they work properly to record infrared light from objects in space.

Following the six-month-long commissioning phase, 13 teams chosen by NASA will take the new telescope for a spin, putting its instruments through their paces by targeting astronomical objects that will be the major focus of scientists during the telescopes planned 10 years of operation, and probably much longer.

To have two of the 13 led by people at Berkeley was pretty exceptional, said de Pater, a Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School and Distinguished Professor Emerita of astronomy and earth and planetary science who wrote her proposal in 2017 before her retirement from teaching last year.

Given the JWSTs primary mission to study dim, distant galaxies and faint exoplanets, the observations planned by de Pater and her team of about 50 astronomers may seem out of character: They will turn the telescope on one of the brightest objects in the sky, Jupiter.

They (NASA) wanted to get involvement from the astronomy community to see what is feasible, what Webb can do, and really pushing it to the limits, de Pater said. We came up with the idea to look at the Jovian system, because Jupiter is extremely bright, but next to Jupiter, you have these really faint rings and some really faint satellites. Moreover, we will look at faint spectral features on Io and Ganymede while they are eclipsed in Jupiters shadow, a quite challenging experiment since the two bodies will be very close to Jupiter and invisible at visible wavelengths. We thought it would make a really nice proposal to look at these large differences in brightness.

During her decades-long career, de Pater has used radio telescopes and optical and infrared telescopes, such as the pair at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope, to study the atmospheres of our solar systems large planets, with particular attention to Jupiters large storm, the Great Red Spot; the volcanoes of Jupiters moon, Io; the icy surface of another Jovian moon, Ganymede; and Jupiters rings. She is particularly eager to take advantage of the JWSTs ability to detect mid-infrared light, which will give her access to different layers of Jupiters atmosphere, ones she has not been able to explore using earthbound telescopes.

We hope to find out more about the dynamics in the Great Red Spot and the aurora over the South Pole, and the chemistry and physics of the troposphere and into the stratosphere, she said.

Molter, who expects to graduate in August and remain with de Pater as a postdoctoral fellow to work with the JWST, plans to use the telescopes Aperture Masking Interferometer to study the individual volcanoes on Io. With new mid-infrared data, he hopes to accurately measure the temperatures of the volcanoes, which will allow comparison with volcanoes on Earth.

As a new graduate student back in 2017, he had hoped to write his thesis using JWST observations of Ios volcanoes, but as the launch date was pushed further and further out, he elected to study the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune instead.

We sort of pivoted away from the Io science when Webb was being delayed so much, Molter laughed. I had to graduate in a certain amount of time, so I found other projects.

Weisz, an associate professor of astronomy, and his team will use their allotted time with the JWST to observe the Milky Way Galaxy and its nearby satellite galaxies. Weiszs main interest is galaxy formation, and in particular, the role of dark matter the still mysterious stuff that makes up 85% of the matter in the universe in galaxy formation.

He and his team of about 50 astronomers are focused on three different targets. One is M-92, one of the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way and one of the most photographed by Hubble. The hope is that the JWST can detect the oldest and faintest stars and thus provide a more precise age for the cluster previewing what the JWST could do for all of the 100 or so globular clusters in the Milky Way.

Another target is an ultrafaint dwarf galaxy a satellite of the Milky Way 98,000 light years from Earth that has surprisingly little normal, visible matter, but instead appears to be mostly dark matter. The JWST should be able to detect the galaxys very faint stars and, with data from Hubble, map their motions in 3D, allowing astronomers to precisely weigh the dark matter and plot its distribution, constraining some of the theories of what dark matter may actually be.

Even farther away 3.26 million light years is a star-forming galaxy that Weisz hopes will test the resolution of the JWST, and perhaps improve the cosmic distance ladder used to measure the expansion of the universe. All three targets will require exploring the capabilities not only of the telescope, but of the detectors that produce the data.

Were building the software needed to basically take the JWST images and turn them into scientifically useful data products, like radiation fluxes, luminosities of individual stars, and galaxies and star clusters in our Milky Way and nearby universe, he said. And then, were releasing all the analysis software, the pipelines used to reduce it, the catalogs were making all of that stuff is just going to be made public as soon as were done, so the community can immediately take it and apply it to their use observing or use it to plan future proposals.

While Weisz expects the JWST to help advance his field of galaxy formation in the local universe and refine distance measurements in the cosmos, he predicts the greatest discoveries will be about the very early universe and the conditions on planets around other stars, which were NASAs primary goals for the JWST. Some key questions about the history of the universe and of life in the universe could be answered in the next few years all potentially worth the price of the JWST.

I think Webb has gotten a lot of negative attention because of its $10 billion price tag when it was only supposed to be a couple billion, Weisz said. But at the end of the day, you look at this and you say, Boy, if this is now going to last 10, 15 years, and its going to open windows onto planets and ancient stars in the early universe and tell us about how we got here, it really is just kind of in line with all the other amazing things that NASA has done. You look at it in terms of its discovery potential, and I really think its a great value.

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Astronomers to put new space telescope through its paces - University of California

Are you actively engaged in, or interested in learning more about recent advances in quantum science and technology? The race to a quantum future is on. Across the globe, countries, and governments are competing to establish and grow their commercialization of quantum technologies. There is an imminent concern by experts in the field that the U.S. may not be able to lead the quantum race due to lack of trained quantum scientists and engineers. This journal club aims to address this concern and introduce engineers and scientists at the University of Iowa to quantum computing, sensing, and communication technologies that have powerful applications in many industries, including medicine, defense, financial services, and natural resources.

The Jumpstarting a Quantum Simulation Program team at the University of Iowa are organizing a Journal Club to bring together a community of interested graduate students, research staff, and faculty learn about research ongoing across campus as well as around the world. The Journal club will be held biweekly on Wednesdays in IATL 334, with a hybrid online option available. The time will alternate between 4 pm and 9 am on Wednesdays to accommodate a wider range of schedules.

Each week one speakers selected from the attendees will present a seminal paper from their field.

The first week (2nd of February 4 pm) we will start with Prof. Ravi Uppu, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy and PI of the Jumpstarting team.

The second week (16th of February 9 am), Prof Fatima Toor, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and team member will present.

If you would like to learn more, please email thomas-folland@uiowa.edu, with Quantum Literature in the subject to be added into the outlook group to learn more and receive updates to scheduling throughout the semester.

Excerpt from:

Literature Group - Professor Ravitej Uppu | Physics and Astronomy | The University of Iowa - Iowa Now

Next time you are in Uttarakhand, look up Starscapes: Indias only chain of astronomical observatories that lets you have a date with the night sky.

Paul Savio, Co-Founder and CEO of the venture talks about the inception, offerings, and future plans of this unique endeavour.

Paul Savio: Starscapes was born out of a passion project that started in 2015. Ramashish Ray, who is the founder, had a cottage in Kausani, Uttarakhand, which had a telescope. Tourists and guests enjoyed the dark skies there. This led to us setting up a small observatory at Kausani with ticketed shows. Initially, none of those who came to the observatory came looking for an astro-tourist experience they just happened to discover it when in Kausani. But the responses of those who did visit us ranged from a wholesome delightful session to being quite overwhelmed by it all. This was the primary insight we gathered theres a huge base of tourists who delight in finding new experiences wherever they go, especially linked to nature. While theres plenty of avenues to discover wildlife, mountains and oceans, there isnt much for those who would enjoy exploring the skies. And more significantly, most people dont know that they would enjoy this experience till they go through it.

Our goal was to create a platform for such people, who can get to experience something new, and find a unique connect with nature, while satiating their curiosity about the cosmos.

Paul Savio: While the experience started in 2015, it became a business around 2017, known as Stargate Observatories (now called Starscapes). For the next three years, we experimented with various products, some of which became a staple offering. We conducted astro-tours to Spiti Valley and Narkanda, conducted astrophotography workshops at our observatory in Kausani and other remote dark sky locations like the Sandhan Valley in Maharashtra, and held multiple school and college workshops. During the annular solar eclipse in 2019, we conducted an online photography contest which saw participation from places like Sri Lanka and the Middle East. However, we had to cease operations in 2020 as tourism dropped to zero. Over the last two years, we focused on rebuilding the company base-up, with a focus on going to the customer with a value proposition comprising varied experiences related to astronomy. We rebranded as Starscapes Experiences in 2021, and opened up observatories in Bhimtal and Jaipur. (We have also partnered with Club Mahindra, currently at their property in Madikeri (Coorg).) In December 2021, we partnered with the Government of Uttarakhand in conducting an Astro Party at Benital Astro Village, a location designated to become Indias first astro-tourism spot.

Paul Savio: Starscapes has observatories in Kausani and Bhimtal in Uttarakhand. We have recently launched a mobile observatory in Jaipur.

By May 2022, we plan to launch observatories in Coorg and Ooty. By the end of the year, we plan to have operations at Munnar, Pondicherry, Shimla and Goa.

Our locations are all tourist spots, chosen based on light pollution (darkness of the sky), weather (number of cloudless days) and accessibility (how well connected the place is). Since our objective is to reach out to casual astronomy enthusiasts, we find it is critical to our business model to be present at locations which are a drive away from big towns. The locations we finalise have fairly dark skies, measuring four or lesser on the Bortle Scale (a measure of night-sky darkness, one being extreme remote locations and nine being inner cities). The locations are also importantly tourist spots, since novel experiences are sought out and best enjoyed by tourists.

Paul Savio: Our business is designed to reach out to people looking for new experiences, and not just those who seek out astronomy experiences. Thus, we aim to introduce many people to this field.

Our offerings have a particular inclination towards younger audiences. Rocket-building, modelling a sundial, and many other activities get children to experientially understand things that are normally taught theoretically in school. Our observatory shows too are structured as discussions, and not as lectures. And children dont hesitate in asking questions, without any fear of sounding inane. This always increases the entire groups engagement and enthusiasm.

Children lead the conversation today, and set the trend for tomorrow. Helping them experience the universe and the science that goes into exploring it, in a fun way, will help grow their interest in astronomy. Their friends, parents, and eventually the rest of society will follow.

Paul Savio: Ironically, the act of physically setting up the observatory is the easy part. Once the location is finalised based on light pollution (dust pollution is usually inconsequential in places where light pollution is low) and weather, we need to identify a spot that has maximum visibility of the sky.

The difficult part is getting in place the team that conducts the shows. Our observatories are not just places where one can come and look at certain objects in the sky. There are detailed shows at set timings. You buy a ticket for a 45 minute show, during which our expert StarGuide takes you on a journey across the night sky, blending science, history and mythology into a thrilling storytelling session. You will learn to identify stars and constellations, and various other celestial objects. And then you would get to look at some of them through a state-of-the-art telescope, which the StarGuide undergoes over a months worth of training to be able to effectively use.

We are particular about choosing StarGuides from the vicinity of the observatory, thus lending a local flavour to our shows. Also, our StarGuides are primary conversationalists, and most of them do not have a science background. Since our shows are structured to be discussive, the guests feel like theyre having a fireside chat with an equal, and not attending a lecture from someone who is an expert. All our StarGuides have learnt how to conduct shows during their month-long induction, and constantly get refresher-training sessions from our team of trainers. Our very first StarGuide was a teacher at an ashram for girls in Kausani. With absolutely no knowledge of astronomy, he picked up everything on the job and is today a trainer of others. He incidentally still teaches at the ashram.

Herein lies our biggest challenge identifying individuals living in the small towns or villages where our observatory is, selecting them for their skills in having conversations with guests and working with children, and training them on the subject about which they may possibly have no clue. By the end of the training, they will know how to operate telescopes, identify deep sky objects, read the sky with ease, conduct workshops for children, and click photos of celestial objects as well as any astrophotographer would. They are our biggest assets.

Paul Savio: Our offerings are primarily focused on getting you out of your home and becoming one with nature. Having said that, we do have some and soon will be ranging other services that can be accessible anytime anywhere. We conduct photography contests that can be participated in remotely. We will soon be bringing mobile observatories in towns, where we can put up a temporary setup at your condominium and conduct workshops and activities, along with a sky show through a telescope. And well soon launch an online community where astronomy enthusiasts can avail services such as setting up your own backyard observatories, buying telescopes, planning astronomy themed parties, and many more.

Paul Savio: Starscapes will regularly host a number of engaging sessions related to stargazing. Some of the activities include

Paul Savio: It is possibly the first memory of stargazing I have, as a child in primary school. I had already learned to identify stars before this moment. On this day we were at a village in Kerala, and it was a clear summer sky. Having lived in a city all along, seeing so many stars in the sky was a novel experience. The sky was absolutely cloudless, except for one wispy trail. I mentioned this to my father who was also there with me, and his response was thats not a cloud. Thats the Milky Way. Discovering in a flash that what I was staring at was not many droplets of water, but millions of stars, was a humbling experience like never before.

Paul Savio: The pandemic has certainly made people miss the outdoors. This has spurred travel in the interludes between the waves, and made people look for something new to do. Having said that, conversation around astronomy has been growing for the last 10 years. Space has been in the news for all the good reasons: ISRO has faced repeated successes and will soon be sending humans to space, NASA is going back to the Moon, and private players have entered space travel, bringing with them a fair amount of glamour. All these have piqued the interest of the rest of us into identifying and taking part in conversations related to astronomy.

Paul Savio: The star-studded skies over the Himalayan peaks at the Pangong Lake would definitely be among my favourite spots that I have visited. But if we would like to talk about accessible locations, Kausani (a small hill station 10 hours drive from Delhi) is a stellar location, in every sense of the word. Its altitude and remoteness yield clean air and dark skies, that make it a worthy location for idyllic stargazing. Recently, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Madikeri in Coorg (just six hours from Bengaluru) has a brilliant night sky. In fact, it falls in the same Bortle Scale class as Kausani.

Paul Savio: Two events I am really looking forward to in the next couple of years are incidentally two that I have wanted to experience ever since I was a child. The first is to be at the beach at Sri Harikota, when Gaganyaan III lifts off with the first completely Indian space crew ever. It is expected to happen by August 2023. The second will be to visit the USA and experience first-hand the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. This will be the next total solar eclipse over easily accessible land (theres one in 2023 over Papua and a few other islands of Indonesia but getting there wont be easy). This is especially significant considering that from India, the next total solar eclipse visible wont be till March 2034 in Kashmir, and the one following that will be in June 2114!

Related: Check Out 9 Of The Best Hotels Around The World For Stargazing!

This story first appeared in Travel and Leisure India

Original post:

This start-up will inspire you to go stargazing in Uttarakhand - Prestige Online

MeerKATs radio view of the central regions of the Milky Way, highlighted by glowing red emissions surrounding the galaxys central black hole. Image: I. Heywood, SARAO.

Ever wonder what you might see if your eyes were sensitive to radio waves instead of visible light? Then check out the latest images from the 64-antenna MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, revealing the heart of the Milky Way as as it appears in radio emissions.

The stunning imagery shows previously known and newly-discovered features, including supernova remnants, huge magnetised radio filaments and the blazing inferno surrounding the 4-million-solar-mass black hole at the core of the galaxy.

The imagery is based on detailed analysis of a survey carried out during the telescopes commissioning, resulting in a mosaic of 20 observations captured during 200 hours of telescope time. The result is a 100-megapixel mosaic with a resolution of 4 arc seconds.

The images reveal never-before-seen supernova remnants, including a rare, almost perfectly spherical example, along with numerous stellar nurseries, cirrus-like emissions made up of many parallel radio filaments and a mesmerising view of the mouse, a runaway pulsar possibly ejected in a supernova blast.

At the heart of the mosaic is the supermassive black hole at the core of the Milky Way, shining like a giant red eye embedded in a vast cloud of less powerful emissions.

Ive spent a lot of time looking at this (mosaic) in the process of working on it, and I never get tired of it, says Ian Heywood from the University of Oxford, Rhodes University and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory. Hes the lead author of a study in The Astrophysical Journal.

When I show this image to people who might be new to radio astronomy, or otherwise unfamiliar with it, I always try to emphasise that radio imaging hasnt always been this way, and what a leap forward MeerKAT really is in terms of its capabilities, he said. Its been a true privilege to work over the years with colleagues from SARAO who built this fantastic telescope.

Isabella Rammala, a Rhodes/SARAO doctoral student, assisted with imaging and data processing.

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MeerKAT paints a mesmerising portrait of the Milky Way Astronomy Now - Astronomy Now Online

Classification: Academic Level ASalary package: $76,271 - $95,732 per annum plus 17% superannuationTerm: Full time, Fixed Term (2 years)Position Description & Selection Criteria:PD and PEWER - Postdoctoral Fellow_updated.pdf

Closing Date: 21 February 2022

The Area

TheANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics(RSAA) operates Australias largest optical observatory and has access to the worlds largest optical telescopes.

Our staff and students have made major contributions to astronomy, mapping the structure and formation of the Milky Way, discovering planets orbiting other stars, measuring dark matter both within our Galaxy and in the wider Universe, and discovering the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

Our astronomers include winners of the Prime Ministers Prize for Science and the Nobel Prize.

At our administrative home at theMount Stromlo Observatorywe host theAdvanced Instrumentation and Technology Centrewhich is a national facility established to support the development of the next generation of instruments for astronomy and space science.

Our research telescopes are situated in the ANUSiding Spring Observatory, located in the Warrumbungle region of New South Wales. The observatory began as a field station for the Mount Stromlo Observatory and has since become Australias premier optical and infrared observatory, housing the state-of-artSkyMappertelescope.

The Position

The Postdoctoral Fellow will join the Astro-Machine-Learning group that specialises in the study of wide range topics (Galactic Archaeology, star formation and cosmology) in big-data astronomy through lens of statistics and machine learning.

The Person

To excel in this role you will have:

The Australian National University is a world-leading institution and provides a range of lifestyle, financial and non-financial rewards and programs to support staff in maintaining a healthy work/life balance whilst encouraging success in reaching their full career potential. For more information, please click here.

To see what the Science at ANU community is like, we invite you to follow us on social media at Instagram and Facebook.

For more information about the position please contact Associate Professor Yuan-Sen Ting on E: yuan-sen.ting@anu.edu.au.

ANU Values diversity and inclusion and is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to those of all backgrounds and identities. People with a disability are encouraged to apply. For more information about staff equity at ANU, click here.

Application information

In order to apply for his role, please make sure that you upload the following documents:

Applications which do not address the selection criteria may not be considered for the position.

The successful candidate will be required to undergo a background check during the recruitment process. An offer of employment is conditional on satisfactory results.

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Postdoctoral Fellow, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics job with AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY (ANU) | 278733 - Times Higher Education...