Monthly Archives: July 2022

Imagine a childhood filled with telescopes, night skies and an ongoing fascination with the stars, planets, and galaxies. Robert Quimby lived it.

Its really all my parents fault. They were both amateur astronomers, so some of my earliest memories growing up are of looking through a telescope, says the professor of astronomy at San Diego State University and director of the Mount Laguna Observatory. We went on lots of star parties, which are basically camping trips with telescopes. I was independently driven, so I learned to star hop around and locate deep sky objects, like galaxies, myself.

On Friday, hell present a lecture highlighting some of the research being done at the observatory, along with some of the nonprofit work being done to reduce local light pollution. His presentation begins at 2 p.m. at the Alpine Library.

Quimby, 45, lives in the College Area with his wife, Mika, and their two girls. Hes received awards for his research and work from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the American Physical Society, and a share of the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics. He took some time to talk about his work, his first impressions of the breathtaking images from NASAs James Webb Space Telescope, and the time he played in a Reel Big Southern California ska band.

Q: In the description for your talk, the San Diego County Librarys website mentions the Hidden Skies Foundation, a nonprofit run by high school students based in Los Angeles, and its work to preserve dark skies for future generations. First, can you talk about light pollution?

A: Any human-made light that shines where it is not needed, is not helpful, or is just generally a waste, is light pollution. This could be a streetlight shining through a bedroom window that gives you a rough night of sleep, although astronomers usually use the term when discussing the light that spills onto the night sky and obscures the stars. No one sets out to hide the stars behind the glare of electric lights, but just as trash collects in our rivers and beaches, the natural beauty of the night sky can be destroyed by light indiscriminately cast by outdoor lighting.

Q: And what is significant about the work to preserve the darkness of night skies? Why does that lack of light in the sky matter?

A: Dark, star-filled skies give us connection to our past and hopefully our future. From a dark site, you might see the same stars that your great-great-great grandparents enjoyed on their first date, or that dazzled our ancient ancestors thousands of years before. Light pollution breaks this connection by hiding the stars. I have seen the thrill of San Diegans glimpsing their first view of the Milky Way while camping in Mount Laguna, and I would say it is worth protecting these views for future generations to enjoy as well.

We have great neighbors where we live in College Area. Several families welcomed us to the neighborhood soon after we moved here, and our kids became fast friends. There are lots of friendly waves when people walk or drive by. And, there are four taco shops within walking distance!

Q: Youve been director of SDSUs Mount Laguna Observatory since 2014. What have you come to learn about the surrounding area over the years and its place in the study of astronomy?

A: The Mount Laguna Observatory sits at 6,100 feet (500 feet higher than our colleagues to the north at Palomar Observatory, but whos counting!), so when the marine layer of clouds sets in in typical May-gray/June-gloom fashion, we are usually in the clear above the clouds. Better yet, the low clouds block some of the light pollution from the cities and make the nights even darker. Being near the coast we also get the gentle ocean breeze, which affords us much sharper views of the stars than the turbulent air further inland.

Q: What drew you to become interested in this area of study?

A: [Astronomy] remained a hobby of mine into college when it came time to decide on a major. I started with engineering since I liked figuring out how things worked, but I gravitated to physics and astronomy, at least in part because I thought the professors were more interesting people. One once plopped down a bunch of rock-climbing gear at the beginning of a lecture then proceeded to talk the whole period without ever mentioning it. He was just doing some rock climbing before class. These extra dimensions of personality really appealed to me.

Q: Why was this something you wanted to pursue professionally?

A: I figured its better than getting a real job. I love solving puzzles, but sometimes, when the puzzle is something you have to do, it can feel a lot like work. As an astronomer, there is a whole universe of puzzles for me to choose from.

Q: Earlier this month, most of us were in awe of the images of galaxies NASA shared from its James Webb Space Telescope. What initially went through your mind as you looked through those images?

A: I was really surprised at how awestruck I was. I have seen Stephans Quintet and the Carina Nebula before, but the James Webb telescope pictures convey them with such power and beauty. They are at once familiar and otherworldly.

Q: And how did you think about what you saw from your perspective as an astronomy professor and researcher?

A: The first images show how much we have been missing. The James Webb telescope offers, quite literally, a new way to look at our universe, and we are starting to see things we have never seen before. It was quite terrifying at times to wonder what would happen to the future of astronomy if this telescope failed; now that it has arrived and is working superbly, I, for one, am elated.

Q: Whats been challenging about your work in this field?

A: Like the universe itself, the field of astronomy is big and growing at an accelerated pace. It takes effort to stay on top of all of the new discoveries rolling in. It is also very competitive at times. Other groups are often working on projects similar to mine, so there is pressure to publish first.

Q: Whats been rewarding about this work?

A: Every once in a while, you make a breakthrough discovery. I discovered a new class of supernovae and later discovered the first supernova magnified by a strong gravitational lens. It is quite a rush when you put the pieces together and realize you have something that no one has ever seen before.

Q: What has this work taught you about yourself?

A: A big part of science is telling the story. We report our findings in scientific journals and give professional and sometimes public talks. I never considered myself particularly good at writing as a student, but I have come to realize that the storytelling is something I enjoy.

Q: What is the best advice youve ever received?

A: For anyone considering getting their Ph.D., take a year off between undergraduate and graduate school and do something totally different. One of my college professors gave me this advice, and it gave me the opportunity to broaden my world view and, ultimately, meet my wife. If, like me, you find academia calling you back, then you will know that graduate school is right for you, and you will be motivated to stick with it even when it gets tough (it will).

Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

A: Before becoming an astronomer, I played trombone in the ska band Reel Big Fish. It has been a while since I last picked up my horn, but I can still say, pick it up pretty fast.

Q: Describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

A: I have never done it before, but I would love to take a staycation at one of the local resorts in San Diego. Ideally, one with entertainment for the kids and relaxation for the parents. Barring that, I would enjoy a weekend featuring a hike in Mission Trails with my family and a trip to a new restaurant one day, followed by a relaxing day at the beach and a barbecue with friends and family the next day.

Original post:

Award-winning researcher and prof has stars in his eyes, will give astronomy talk in Alpine - The San Diego Union-Tribune

New Delhi, Jul 31 (PTI) India is setting up a booth at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly at Busan, South Korea, inviting astronomers from around the world to discover the cosmos from observatories across the country.

The International Astronomical Union General Assembly (IAUGA) is the biggest gathering of astronomers in the world where latest discoveries and cutting edge research is expected to be discussed.

About 1,700 academic presentations are scheduled for a total of 205 sessions at the IAU General Assembly which will be held at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Centre from August 2-11.

The India Booth, put up by the Astronomical Society of India, will also showcase the participation of Indian astronomers in international mega projects such as the Square Kilometer Array Observatory, the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii and the gravitational wave observatory in Maharashtra.

The IAUGA is special for India as a number of PhD students have won the International Astronomy Union PhD prizes and shall be delivering their award lectures at Busan, Dibyendu Nandi, chairperson, Astronomical Society of India Public Outreach and Education Committee told PTI.

India will also highlight the radio observatories at Devasthal near Nainital, the Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle in Ladakh, the Vainu Bappu Observatory in Tamil Nadu and the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope in Maharashtra.

The India booth will also trace the journey from ancient observatories in the country to the first space observatory AstroSat that was launched in 2015.

The upcoming Aditya L-1 mission, Indias first solar observatory, and the X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPOSAT), both expected to be launched next year will also feature prominently in the India pavilion at Busan.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) India, an advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in India as part of the worldwide network, will also feature in the India booth at IAUGA. The facility is coming up at Hingoli in Marathwada region of Maharashtra.

PTI SKU SRY

This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

Read the original here:

India to highlight astronomy initiatives at global astronomers meet in South Korea - ThePrint

What happens when two different kinds of auroras get together? One spills the others secrets.

Amateur astronomers have captured a strange combination of red and green auroras on camera, and physicists who had never seen such a thing before have now used these images to learn what may trigger the more mysterious part of the lightshow.

Photographer Alan Dyer was in his backyard in Strathmore, Canada, when he saw the lights dancing overhead and started filming. I knew I had something interesting, says Dyer, who also writes about astronomy. What he didnt know was that he had just made the most complete recording of this rare phenomenon.

Headlines and summaries of the latest Science News articles, delivered to your inbox

Thank you for signing up!

There was a problem signing you up.

At a glance, Dyers video looks like a celestial watermelon. The rind, a rippling green aurora, is well understood: It appears when the solar wind energizes protons trapped within Earths magnetic field, which then rain down and knock electrons and atoms around (SN: 12/10/03).

The swath of fruity magenta is more mysterious: Though scientists have known about these stable auroral red arcs for decades, theres no widely accepted proof of how they form.One popular theory is that part of Earths magnetic field can heat up the atmosphere and, like proton rain, jostle particles.

But until now, researchers had never seen both of these red and green auroras side by side, says Toshi Nishimura, a space physicist at Boston University.This strange combination, he says, was something beyond our expectations.

Along with satellite observations, Dyers images and similar ones captured by other amateur astronomers in Canada and Finland show that the two phenomena are related, Nishimuras team reports in the July JGR Space Physics. Thin rays in the red aurora are the smoking gun as to how. Those lines trace the paths of electrons as they fall along the Earths magnetic field. So just as proton rain triggers the green aurora, electron rain appears to trigger the red one, with the solar wind powering both at the same time. Since the electrons carry less energy than the protons, they make for a more reddish color.

But electron rain might not be the only way to produce these red glows, cautions Brian Harding, a space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. Either way, he says, the results are exciting because they show whats going on is more complicated than researchers thought.

Those complications are important to understand. The auroras Dyer saw, though beautiful, are danger zones for radio communication and GPS systems (SN: 8/13/17). As Nishimura puts it: If you were driving under a subauroral red arc, your GPS might tell you to veer into a field.

Until scientists better understand these red glows, they wont be able to forecast space weather like they do normal weather, Harding explains. You want to make sure that you can predict stuff like this, he says.

The new results would not have been possible without the citizen scientists who took the photos, Nishimura says. This is a new way of doing research. When they take more and more cool images, they find more and more things that we dont know about.

According to Dyer, more photos are exactly whats coming. We can make a unique contribution to science, he says. After all, you never know whats going to appear.

Read more here:

Amateur astronomers discovered a new kind of double aurora - Science News Magazine

Earlier this month, Hawaiian Governor David Ige signed legislation that transfers control of Mauna Keaone of two large mountains that dominate the Hawaiian landscape and where some of the worlds most powerful observatories call homeaway from the University of Hawaii and back to Native Hawaiians.

The new law declares astronomy as a state policy of Hawaii, which means that in addition to the scientific knowledge it brings, the state sees the field as an important contributor to jobs and the economy. It also establishes the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority, an 11-member voting group that will now have majority authority over how the land is managed. According to the bill, the groups responsibilities will also include building a new framework for the development of astronomy research on the islands, limiting commercial use and activities on Mauna Keas land, and requiring the timely decommissioning of certain telescopes.

The governor is expected to select members of the new authority soon: The deadline for the public to submit their names into the application pool for a seat is July 28, but the law includes that the group must include one member who is a lineal descendant of a practitioner of Native Hawaiian traditions associated with the mountain, and another who is currently a recognized practitioner of those Native Hawaiian traditional practices. That stipulation is especially important as its the first time community experts and practitioners will be able to make those kinds of decisions for their community.

While the University of Hawaii has until 2028 to officially hand off its management duties to the group, locals like native activist Noe Noe Wong-Wilson are optimistic about the change. She and others note that it feels like policy makers are finally listening to Native Hawaiians voices regarding the stewardship and care of their own community.

This is the first time with the new authority that cultural practitioners and community members will actually have seats in the governing organization, says Wong-Wilson, who is the executive director of the Llkea Foundation, a nonprofit Native Hawaiian cultural organization. Wong-Wilson, who is a member of the working group that helped develop the bill proposal, says that the choice to bring in people and ideas from all over the community is what helped make the new law a reality.

She adds that the laws mutual stewardship model takes into account all human activities on the mountain, and is designed to help protect Mauna Kea for future generations, as Native Hawaiians believe the mountain is a sacred placea part of their spirituality as well as their culture. But years of mismanagement has created a mistrust in the states stakeholders, which included the University and Hawaiian government officials, and deepened a rift between Indigenous culture and western science.

[Related: Theres a viable alternative to building a giant telescope on sacred Hawaiian land]

Mauna Kea has been a hot spot for astronomical research since the first large telescopes broke ground on the summit in the early 1970s. The height of the mountain, the torrid atmosphere, and the natural lack of light pollution make the dormant volcano an exquisite location for observing the sky. But Native Hawaiians say that placing too many facilities on the land, including large observatories, draws in activity that puts an immense strain on the environment and its fragile ecosystem. In Hawaii, theres always tension about tourism, and overuse of some of our environmentally sensitive spaces for recreational use, Wong-Wilson says.

Thirteen telescopes already operate atop Mauna Kea, with a fourteenth that, if and when completed, will sit about 18 stories tall. The long-planned Thirty Meter Telescope, is in its own way, poised to have a comparable impact as the James Webb Space Telescope, says Doug Simons, the director of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. Although it was proposed nearly a decade ago, its construction has been repeatedly halted by protestors who have blocked access to the mountain.

While the TMT would be able to help scientists study distant supernovae and teach us more about how stars and planets form, Simons says that local researchers within the observatory community need to be prepared for several outcomes when it comes to astronomys fate on the mountain. This is essentially a big experiment, Simons says. Theres a tremendous amount of hard work ahead, and a constrained amount of time to achieve what this new authority needs to achieve.

[Related: With the arrival of Africas next radio telescope, Namibia sees a new dawn in astronomy]

In the current land use agreements made by the University, all of the mountains telescopes are committed to cease operations and come down by 2033. The TMT could still continue construction until then, but as of now, the new bill includes a moratorium on any new leases or lease extensions. Its unclear whether that could stymie the TMTs future science goals or if the new authority will choose to issue new leases, but Robert Kirshner, executive director for the TMT International Observatory (TIO), says the team behind the observatory supports the new bill.

TIO welcomes this community-based stewardship model for Maunakeas management, wrote Kirshner in an email to Popular Science. We value the respect, responsibility, caring, and inclusivity that this act is intended to foster. He added that the observatory will work with the new authority to support astronomy and education programs that are in harmony with the culture and environment on the mountain.

Trisha Kehaulani Watson, a Native Hawaiian and the vice president of Aina Momona, a non-profit dedicated to achieving environmental sustainability on the islands, says while its still too early to tell if the new law is truly a victory, she hopes people understand the value of involving Indigenous communities in the conversation before taking advantage of their resources.

I strongly believe that had the University better engaged and invited people with different viewpoints into the fold from the start in regards to management, we wouldnt be here today, says Watson. How [the law] will sort out for the community, I think time will tell, but I certainly think its a step in the right direction.

Follow this link:

A new law is putting astronomy back in the hands of Native Hawaiians - Popular Science

Since the early days of the internet, and even computers more generally, there has been a push to collect all of the worlds information, built up over thousands of years, into a digital form so it can at least theoretically latest indefinitely. It also makes that information much more accessible to people interested in it. That was the motto of the original Google search engine, and specialists in various historical fields have been making slow but steady progress in doing just that over the past few decades. Now astronomy has gained one of its largest hauls of historical data as the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg has digitized 40,000 of its historical astronomical plates, along with 54,090 plates from other sources.

The earliest of these plates goes back 129 years. While that does not seem like much in astronomical terms, data contained even that short of a time back is valuable for watching the variability in some stars.

For example, the star HD49798 varied wildly back in the 1960s and 70s. But noone was able to easily quantify by how much and when until the plates were digitally uploaded. Combined with satellite images taken in the late 1990s, scientists now think that a neutron star companion was the cause of this variability, and the variability seen in the plates seems to confirm that idea.

Not only do the plates offer valuable historical takes on specifically interesting stars, but they also provide insight into regions of the sky that had not yet been digitized during a certain time period. For example, a series of plates were taken in the Southern hemisphere between 1963 and 1976. They were released a few years ago as part of the ongoing process of uploading and stand as the other digitized examples of the sky in the southern hemisphere for that period of history.

Additional software improvements managed to fix some issues on the plates themselves, such as scratches or blotches. While the data underlying them might have been lost, at least they are corrected to a point where they wont necessarily screw up any algorithms run on the data set.

This isnt the only effort to collect old astronomical plates, as weve reported before. The Digital Access to the Sky Century at Harvard (DASCH) is one of the more prominent, as well as the currently completed project of The Archives of Photographic Plates for Astronomical USE (APPLAUSE). In total, there are around 400,000 plates that have been digitized so far, and researchers are constantly searching for more and developing better techniques to analyze them.

Potentially there could be an end in sight for these sorts of projects when all known historical astronomical plates have been uploaded to the internet. But for now, theres undoubtedly more that havent been, though the APPLAUSE team recently received requests from both the Vaticans observatory and the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory, which served as the main observatory for the German Democratical Republic during its time as a Soviet satellite.

With more plates comes more information and chances that a novel discovery could be in the offing. Astronomers are well known for their collaboration, and projects such as APPLAUSE are perfect examples of how that can work well. Eventually, it might reach the end goal of having all of the pre-internet astronomy data collected and searchable by future generations in their profession.

Learn More:FAU Web archive with astronomical photographic plates goes onlineUT Low-Cost Approach to Scanning Historic Glass Plates Yields an Astronomical SurpriseUT Calling All Volunteers to Help Digitize Astronomical HistoryUT Using 19th Century Technology to Time Travel to the Stars

Lead Image:Negative plate of the Chamaeleon constellation in the southern hemisphere.Credit Dr. Karl-Remeis-Sternwarte Bamberg

Like Loading...

View original post here:

Astronomers Have Digitized 94000 Photographic Plates of the Night sky, Going Back 129 Years - Universe Today

On July 12, NASAs James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) released its first full-color scientific images and spectroscopic data, marking what NASA describes as the dawn of a new era of astronomy. According to NASA, the Webb is the worlds premier space science observatory, geared at solving the mysteries in our solar system, and is an international program conducted in partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

The glittery, multicolored images offer a glimpse into the vastness of space, said San Jos State Universitys Thomas Madura, associate professor of physics and astronomy. Madura is a member of NASAs Early Release Science (ERS) program assigned to observing JWST images to investigate space dust, a key ingredient in the formation of stars and planets.

A theoretical and computational astrophysicist, Madura specializes in the study of massive stars, specifically their late-stage evolution and how these stars lose mass before exploding as powerful supernovae. He received the Early Career Investigator Award from the SJSU Research Foundation in 2020 and leads a $1.5 million National Science Foundation Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers grant that uses 3D printing technologies to help motivate students with blindness or visual impairments to pursue higher education and careers in STEM.

Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Thomas Madura hopes to find new ways to make STEM available to blind and visually impaired students. Photo by David Schmitz.

We sat down with Thomas to learn more about the significance of this new data and what he hopes to achieve with the images he is creating based on these extraordinary findings.

Tell us about the images from NASAs JWST. Why are they significant?

Thomas Madura: The new JWST images are significant because they represent the dawn of a new age of astronomy. They are the first look at the full capabilities of NASAs newest flagship space observatory, both in terms of imaging and spectroscopy.

These images are the official beginning of JWSTs science operations and provide just a taste of what is to come over the next few years.

What do you see when you look at these pictures?

TM: There is a lot to digest in these first images, ranging from the birth of stars in a young, nearby star forming region to the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. There are signs of galaxy interactions and clearly visible gravitational lensing in some images. There is the direct detection of dust in the planetary nebula around a dying star and signatures of water and clouds in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet orbiting a distant sun-like star.

These pictures are exciting not just because they are pretty to look at but because they demonstrate the technical capabilities of JWST.

As part of your research, you 3D print images for people with visual impairments. How do you plan to incorporate these new images into your existing curriculum or research?

TM: We hope to create tactile versions of JWSTs images in the near future so that we can share JWSTs discoveries with everyone, including those with blindness/visual impairments. We hope to incorporate tactile images into our National Science Foundation-funded program that helps teach astronomy to students with visual impairments around the country.

What got you interested in physics and astronomy?

TM: I have always been fascinated by astronomy and astrophysics and tried to understand where we came from, and where we are going in the universe. I started when I was young, buying my first simple backyard telescope when I was around 12. I also read a lot of books on astronomy and watched a lot of documentaries like NOVA on television.

It wasnt until high school that I discovered that one can actually have a career in astronomy and get paid to study the stars. That was when I decided to go to college and major in physics with a concentration in astronomy/astrophysics.

What message do you want to share with members of the SJSU community about the importance of understanding space?

TM: Simply put, we are the universe trying to understand itself. All of us and nearly everything on our planet, including the planet itself, comes from dead star stuff.

If we are to understand where we came from, where we are going, and if there is other intelligent life in the universe, we need to understand space. There is also the practical everyday aspect of space. Space weather influences our climate and affects our technologies.

The technologies developed to study and understand space also eventually work their way down into technologies we use every day. A great example is the camera in your cell phone.

Learn more about Maduras work.

Visit link:

We Are the Universe Trying to Understand Itself: A Q&A with Astrophysicist Thomas Madura | SJSU NewsCenter - SJSU Today

Following a generous grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), the National Science Foundations National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) will soon launch a two-year project to engage BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students in learning about the electromagnetic spectrum and the excitement of amateur also called ham radio. The new project, Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS), is expected to offer its first student-facing trainings in January 2023.

ARDC selected EMS because of NRAOs proven track record in supporting underrepresented minority students in the sciences by combining mentoring and instruction from content experts with best practices in equity.

As a part of NRAOs broader impacts-focused SuperKnova learning platform, EMS will combine the expertise of NRAO staff, amateur radio enthusiasts, and other subject matter experts to develop a scalable and shareable curriculum, introduce students to EMS and radio technologies through hands-on activities, and support students in attaining technical and general class licenses in amateur radio.

Amateur radio provides a hands-on entry point to understanding the radio spectrum and its practical uses, including communications, astronomy, and community emergency infrastructure and response. Early support and engagement with amateur radio has the potential to create pathways for students to a future career or lifelong hobby in the sciences. The $315,123 ARDC grant will allow NRAO to develop and execute the program for two cohorts of students. It will also result in the development of a nine-month EMS curriculum that will be freely available to school groups, community clubs, and educational institutions.

NRAO Director Tony Beasley said, Amateur radio continues to be incredibly important to the nation and global communications, and NRAO is excited to be working with ARDC to bring a new generation and diverse communities to the field.

About NRAOThe National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Furthering NSFs mission to advance the progress of science, the NRAO enables research into the Universe at radio wavelengths and provides world-class telescopes, instrumentation, and expertise to the scientific community. NRAOs mission includes a commitment to broader, equitable, inclusive participation in science and engineering, training the next generation of scientists and engineers, and promoting astronomy to foster a more scientifically literate society. NRAO operates three research facilities: the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), which are available for use by scientists from around the globe, regardless of institutional or national affiliation. NRAO welcomes applicants who bring diverse and innovative dimensions to the Observatory and to the field of radio astronomy. For more information about NRAO, go to https://public.nrao.edu.

About ARDCAmateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) is a California-based foundation with roots in amateur radio and the technology of internet communication. The organization got its start by managing the AMPRNet address space, which is reserved for licensed amateur radio operators worldwide. Additionally, ARDC makes grants to projects and organizations that follow amateur radios practice and tradition of technical experimentation in both amateur radio and digital communication science. Such experimentation has led to advances that benefit the general public, including the mobile phone and wireless internet technology. ARDC envisions a world where all such technology is available through open source hardware and software, and where anyone has the ability to innovate upon it. To learn more about ARDC, please visit https://www.ampr.org.

Media Contact:

Amy C. OliverPublic Information & News Manager, NRAO434-242-9584aoliver@nrao.edu

Dan Romanchik, KB6NUARDC Communications Manager858-477-9903dan@ardc.net

The rest is here:

NRAO to Launch New Amateur Radio Learning Program for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ Students with Support from ARDC - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

The ingredients for life are spread throughout the universe. While Earth is the only known place in the universe with life, detecting life beyond Earth is a major goal of modern astronomy and planetary science.

We are two scientists who study exoplanets and astrobiology. Thanks in large part to next-generation telescopes like Webb, researchers like us will soon be able to measure the chemical makeup of atmospheres of planets around other stars. The hope is that one or more of these planets will have a chemical signature of life.

Life might exist in the Solar System where there is liquid water like the subsurface aquifers on Mars or in the oceans of Jupiters moon Europa. However, searching for life in these places is incredibly difficult, as they are hard to reach, and detecting life would require sending a probe to return physical samples.

Many astronomers believe theres a good chance that life exists on planets orbiting other stars, and its possible thats where life will first be found.

Theoretical calculations suggest that there are around 300 million potentially habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone and several habitable Earth-sized planets within only 30 light-years of Earth essentially humanitys galactic neighbors. So far, astronomers have discovered over 5,000 exoplanets, including hundreds of potentially habitable ones, using indirect methods that measure how a planet affects its nearby star. These measurements can give astronomers information on the mass and size of an exoplanet, but not much else.

To detect life on a distant planet, astrobiologists will study starlight that has interacted with a planets surface or atmosphere. If the atmosphere or surface was transformed by life, the light might carry a clue called a biosignature.

For the first half of its existence, Earth sported an atmosphere without oxygen, even though it hosted simple, single-celled life. Earths biosignature was very faint during this early era.

That changed abruptly 2.4 billion years ago when a new family of algae evolved. The algae used a process of photosynthesis that produces free oxygen oxygen that isnt chemically bonded to any other element. From that time on, Earths oxygen-filled atmosphere has left a strong and easily detectable biosignature on the light that passes through it.

When light bounces off the surface of a material or passes through a gas, certain wavelengths of the light are more likely to remain trapped in the gas or materials surface than others. This selective trapping of wavelengths of light is why objects are different colors. Leaves are green because chlorophyll is particularly good at absorbing light in the red and blue wavelengths. As light hits a leaf, the red and blue wavelengths are absorbed, leaving mostly green light to bounce back into your eyes.

The pattern of missing light is determined by the specific composition of the material the light interacts with. Because of this, astronomers can learn something about the composition of an exoplanets atmosphere or surface by, in essence, measuring the specific color of light that comes from a planet.

This method can be used to recognize the presence of certain atmospheric gases that are associated with life such as oxygen or methane because these gasses leave very specific signatures in light. It could also be used to detect peculiar colors on the surface of a planet.

On Earth, for example, the chlorophyll and other pigments plants and algae use for photosynthesis capture specific wavelengths of light. These pigments produce characteristic colors that can be detected by using a sensitive infrared camera. If you were to see this color reflecting off the surface of a distant planet, it would potentially signify the presence of chlorophyll.

It takes an incredibly powerful telescope to detect these subtle changes to the light coming from a potentially habitable exoplanet. For now, the only telescope capable of such a feat is the new James Webb Space Telescope. As it began science operations in July 2022, Webb took a reading of the spectrum of the gas giant exoplanet WASP-96b. The spectrum showed the presence of water and clouds, but a planet as large and hot as WASP-96b is unlikely to host life.

However, this early data shows that Webb is capable of detecting faint chemical signatures in the light coming from exoplanets. In the coming months, Webb is set to turn its mirrors toward TRAPPIST-1e, a potentially habitable Earth-sized planet a mere 39 light-years from Earth.

Webb can look for biosignatures by studying planets as they pass in front of their host stars and capturing starlight that filters through the planets atmosphere. But Webb was not designed to search for life, so the telescope is only able to scrutinize a few of the nearest potentially habitable worlds. It also can only detect changes to atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor. While certain combinations of these gasses may suggest life, Webb is not able to detect the presence of unbonded oxygen, which is the strongest signal for life.

Leading concepts for future, even more, powerful space telescopes include plans to block the bright light of a planets host star to reveal starlight reflected back from the planet. This idea is similar to using your hand to block sunlight to better see something in the distance. Future space telescopes could use small, internal masks or large, external, umbrella-like spacecraft to do this. Once the starlight is blocked, it becomes much easier to study light bouncing off a planet.

There are also three enormous, ground-based telescopes currently under construction that will be able to search for biosignatures: the Giant Magellen Telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope, and the European Extremely Large Telescope. Each is far more powerful than existing telescopes on Earth, and despite the handicap of Earths atmosphere distorting starlight, these telescopes might be able to probe the atmospheres of the closest worlds for oxygen.

Even using the most powerful telescopes of the coming decades, astrobiologists will only be able to detect strong biosignatures produced by worlds that have been completely transformed by life.

Unfortunately, most gases released by terrestrial life can also be produced by nonbiological processes cows and volcanoes both release methane. Photosynthesis produces oxygen, but sunlight does, too, when it splits water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. There is a good chance astronomers will detect some false positives when looking for distant life. To help rule out false positives, astronomers will need to understand a planet of interest well enough to understand whether its geologic or atmospheric processes could mimic a biosignature.

The next generation of exoplanet studies has the potential to pass the bar of the extraordinary evidence needed to prove the existence of life. The first data release from the James Webb Space Telescope gives us a sense of the exciting progress thats coming soon.

This article was originally published on The Conversation by Chris Impey and Daniel Apai at the University of Arizona. Read the original article here.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY.

Read the original:

The best ways to find life using the Webb telescope, according to two astronomers - Inverse

There is a massive monster lurking at the beginning of the universe, 10 billion times the mass of our Sun. And one of the James Webb Space Telescopes (JWST) first tasks will be piercing through the shroud of incredible distance and time to help astronomers determine if it is what it seems to be: a supermassive black hole, one out of a handful of the largest yet found, from the earliest moments of star formation.

The search, part of JWSTs first cycle of observations, is being led by Jinyi Yang, an astronomer and the Peter Strittmatter Fellow at the University of Arizonas Steward Observatory. Her team will be one of the first to use the new instruments available on JWST to observe the formation of a quasar the ultra-bright core of a galactic nucleus with a supermassive black hole at its center in the epoch where stars and galaxies were only just beginning to form.

WHATS NEW As JWST has begun to release its first images to the public, this is one of the Cycle 1 General Observers (or GO) targets. Over the next year, 6000 hours of the new space telescopes time will be spent on projects selected from proposals from astronomers and physicists from around the world 286 projects were selected out of over 1000 proposals from 44 countries, and the majority are relatively short, like this proposal. The total time Webb will spend on these measurements is less than six hours, but the gains will be like nothing astronomers have seen before.

Speaking with Inverse, Yang noted that the sensitivity and resolution of the Webb telescopes Near Infrared Spectrograph (or NIRSpec) means that astronomers will be able to see what we have never seen. The ability to get high-resolution data from spectra in the mid-infrared wavelengths (30-50 micrometers) will allow astronomers to catch a glimpse of a monster black hole from the very beginning of the formation of stars, galaxies, and black holes.

An illustration of a quasar.Shutterstock

WHY IT MATTERS The quasar that Webb will target for this research, J0038-0653, is one of the very oldest that we know about. Its infrared waves are from the first 800 million years of the universes existence, and the inflation of the universe means it has been traveling 13 billion years to reach us. Because of this vast distance, even the most powerful instruments could do little more than confirm its existence. In fact, the first quasars from this early in the formation of stars, galaxies, and black holes were only found a little over a decade ago, a discover Yang credits with the direction of her career.

Because it is so old, the quasar is moving away from Earth that it appears in such high redshift that it can only be observed at high resolution with instruments that can cover the mid-infrared spectrum. Webbs NIRSpec will be able to observe a tiny slice of sky to measure the mass of the supermassive black hole within the quasar. Right now, astronomers only have a general sense of the mass of the black holes mass.

Having a much more precise measurement would help to clarify how black holes began to grow in the early universe. If the James Webb Space Telescope can confirm this quasar really is this massive, it would mean that early black holes were especially massiveor grew much more quickly than their modern counterparts.

Dr. Yang also notes that because high-redshift quasars like this one are so bright and so distant, observations of them and their spectra provide direct information about the state of the intergalactic mediumthe extremely diffuse plasma that isnt gathered into galaxiesas galaxies formed. The quasars illuminate the process by which the earliest galaxies formed during the epoch of reionization.

WHATS NEXT Right now, GO projects like this one are going to be using a little over half the James Webb Space Telescopes time over the next year as the program begins to work through its first observation objectives. Right now, this is one of 29 small projects focusing on supermassive black holes and other active galactic nuclei, which Dr. Yang notes are going to start a whole new generation in astronomy. But for the time being, she adds, its a little nervous to wait for the data but very exciting.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY.

See original here:

This behemoth black hole got too big too early the Webb Telescope could find out why - Inverse