Daily Archives: February 1, 2024

One of CSUNs two observatoriespeeks through the trees in the Orange Grove. Photo by Lee Choo.

Did you know that CSUN students can set their sights on the stars AND the sun with two on-campus observatories? If youve walked through the Orange Grove, youve likely seen the bright white half-domes of the stellar and solar observatories nestled among the trees. These two important resources offer a gateway to remarkable data and views for students, faculty and researchers.

The stellar observatory houses a 14-inch Celestron telescope that was installed in 2016. The observatory, closest to the duck pond facing Nordhoff Street, is open to CSUN physics and astronomy students in the College of Science and Mathematics for telescope training with faculty members. In the 1990s, the department hosted open houses at the facility, and faculty hope to bring back public open houses this spring.

Over the years, the telescope has been used to observe planets transiting their host star and gather information about comets and our solar systems planets.

The solar observatory, also known as the San Fernando Observatory, was originally built by The Aerospace Corporation in the 1960s to support NASA research. It was damaged in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and required extensive repair. In the 1970s, the company donated the facility (located on land owned by the Metropolitan Water District) to CSUN which used the site for decades of research. In 2016, with the help of donors, the university moved the observatory to the Orange Grove when the district found other uses for the original site. Today, it sitsadjacentto the stellar observatory, for student and faculty use.

Solar researcher Angela Cookson 86 (Biology), 90 (Applied Physics & Astronomy) collects data from the observatory on a daily basis that contributes to important ongoing research on the suns activity.

Because the sun is ever-changing, its always cool to look at our own daily images, to watch and record how the surface of the sun changes day to day, then adding that information to the multi-year data record to eventually understand how the sun works, said Cookson, the longtime research associate for the observatory.

The observatory is used for photometry, which is basically a photograph of the sun in a particular wavelength, she said. The different wavelengths give you different information about the sun.

The solar observatory also feeds data to outside solar and climate researchers. Studying the sun and its radiation allows them to better understand our nearest stars effects on the Earths climate. Many scientists are particularly interested in the observatorys data on an ultraviolet light known as the Calcium K line.

The observatories are not open to the public, but student tours are available upon request. Physics and astronomy majors are welcome to contact Angela Cooksonor Gary Chapman, professor emeritus of physics and astronomy and solar observatory director, to receive training, ranging from opening up and aligning the telescopes to operating systems, studying data and understanding how different processes on the sun contribute to changes in the amount of energy.

The small solar observatory provides students a unique opportunity to experience hands-on aspects of astronomy, Cookson said.To have a student look at [observatory] images for the first time and say, Wow, I never knew that about sunspot activity, is always fun, she said.

Astronomy, College of Mathematics and Science, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Physics & Astronomy, San Fernando Observatory, solar observatory, Stellar Observatory

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Did You Know? Stars Near and Far Reveal Their Secrets to CSUN Scientists - California State University, Northridge

Before researchers could open OSIRIS-RExs TAGSAM sample collector, they first had to gather and catalog the copious bonus material outside the canister, whose still-sealed lid is shown here. Credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold

New tools and techniques can be transformative. Last year proved this time and again, as researchers took the first picture of the Milky Way Galaxy with particles instead of photons and an innovative team turned stellar corpses across the galaxy into one big gravitational-wave detector capable of tuning into the background hum of our cosmos. Among the many stunning results from the groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope, new finds began to challenge astronomers picture of the early universe.

There was plenty of excitement closer to home, too. Numerous comets sent skywatchers and astrophotographers rushing outside, while eager planetary scientists finally got their hands on the largest sample ever returned to Earth from a carbon-rich asteroid. And an annular eclipse across the Americas set the stage for totality in April 2024. Overall, 2023 was an exciting year of discovery that proved that patience, ingenuity, and vision can offer amazing payoffs.

Our February 2022 Top 10 list notes that on May 10, 2021, NASAs Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission had turned toward home following its collection of material from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

Last year, that effort came to fruition. Just before 9 a.m. MDT on Sept. 24, 2023, a beautiful sight appeared in the skies above Utah: the crafts sample-return capsule (SRC) safely falling to Earth beneath its broad, orange-and-white striped parachute. The capsule, which had been released just hours earlier when the spacecraft was 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) from Earth, landed on target at the U.S. Air Forces Utah Test and Training Range.

The next day, the SRC flew via cargo plane to NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, where a team waited to catalog and disassemble the canister and its attached sampling mechanism, called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM). These were first placed inside sealed gloveboxes, preventing the samples from being exposed to Earths atmosphere.

It was slow going: The TAGSAM and canister lid were coated in so much extra material that collecting and cataloging it before the canister itself could be accessed required exquisite care. It was the very best problem to have, said deputy OSIRIS-REx curation lead Christopher Snead in a statement. Its also a problem that researchers had anticipated, given the material seen overflowing from the TAGSAM head following the collection maneuver Oct. 20, 2020, when the TAGSAM sank some 20 inches (50 centimeters) into the asteroid.

By Oct. 11, 2023, NASA hadnt yet opened the canister. But the agency revealed the results of an initial analysis of the excess material: Bennu is rich in carbon and hydrated clays, compounds that contain significant water. This means organic molecules the building blocks of life may also be present. Researchers also found sulfides, a necessary component of amino acids. These results bode well for scientists interested in the abundance and role of such materials in the early solar system and the development of life on Earth and potentially elsewhere. Asteroids provide the perfect starting point for study, as they both contain pristine material that dates to the solar systems birth and are thought to be the main vehicle for delivering many elements, including water, to the young Earth.

NASA collected 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) from the hardware alone, exceeding the missions goal of retrieving 2.12 ounces (60 g) from Bennu before the sample proper was ever accessed. And with its precious cargo dropped off, the spacecraft is now headed to the near-Earth asteroid Apophis, which it will study up close starting in April 2029. Accordingly, the craft has a new name: OSIRIS-APEX, for APophis EXplorer.

Planetary scientists are looking forward to the wealth of future data from Venus, with several missions preparing to visit the world in the coming years. But new discoveries are still hiding within older, existing data, as a March 15 Science study proved.

In it, researchers examined some 200 hours of radar observations of Venus surface taken by the Magellan spacecraft, which orbited the world from 1990 to 1994, mapping the entire surface. By looking for changes between different orbits, the team spotted direct evidence the first ever seen of recent volcanic activity on Venus.

I saw two images of the same region taken eight months apart exhibiting telltale geological changes caused by an eruption, explained Robert Herrick of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the study, in a press release.

The images featured a region near Venus equator that hosts some of the planets largest volcanoes, including Maat Mons. Herrick spotted changes that occurred between February and October 1991 in a vent on the volcanos lower slopes. When compared with the earlier images, the October data showed that the previously circular vent had roughly doubled in size and become distorted in shape. It also seemed to have filled with lava, with some even flowing downhill, away from the vent.

This analysis was no simple task. The data resolution was low and the images had been taken from different angles. Comparing them required modeling the vent to explore all possible explanations, including passive landslides. But ultimately, only a couple of the simulations matched the imagery, and the most likely scenario is that volcanic activity occurred on Venus surface during Magellans mission, said study co-author Scott Hensley of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an expert in analyzing radar data. Provided their interpretation is correct, then, it confirms there is modern geological activity on Venus, he said.

The idea has far-reaching implications. Venus has more volcanoes than any other planet, but scientists previously believed none were active over the past billion years. If one volcano is still active, why not more? The more we study Earths twin, the more we find there is still much to learn about how rocky planets form and evolve.

Magnetars are objects with magnetic fields a thousand trillion times stronger than Earths. They are a subclass of neutron stars, the remnants of massive stars. But while astronomers known how run-of-the-mill neutron stars are formed, they arent sure yet of the specific conditions that create a magnetar, whose magnetic field is some 100 to 1,000 times stronger than a neutron stars.

At least part of the answer might lie in a star called HD 45166, the subject of a paper published Aug. 17 in Science. HD 45166 is a Wolf-Rayet star; these massive, helium-rich stars typically weigh 25 times the mass of the Sun and blast out powerful winds of charged particles. Because of their high mass, they rapidly fuse hydrogen into helium in their cores, living for a fraction of the Suns lifetime before exploding as supernovae and leaving behind neutron stars or black holes.

But HD 45166 is an oddball among Wolf-Rayets at only 2 solar masses a real lightweight. And its magnetic field has a strength of 43 kilogauss, or 100,000 times stronger than Earths magnetic field. That makes it the most magnetic massive star ever found.

Weve never detected a magnetic field in a massive helium star that will undergo core collapse [a type of supernova], says study leader Tomer Shenar of the University of Amsterdam. Its really a new type of star. Shenar and his colleagues think HD 45166 didnt evolve the way other Wolf-Rayets do (as part of some massive stars life cycles), but perhaps as the product of a merger between two other more intermediate-mass helium-rich stars.

Despite the staggering strength of HD 45166s magnetic field, it is still 10 billion times below that of a magnetar. But in a few million years, when HD 45166 explodes as a supernova and leaves behind a neutron star, its magnetic field will be confined to a region just 12 miles (20 km) across the size of a typical neutron star. Because magnetic flux is conserved, compressing the field will boost its strength by about 10 billion times, creating a magnetar.

We thought that the most likely magnetar candidates would come from the most massive of stars, said study co-author Andr-Nicolas Chen of the National Science Foundations National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Hilo, Hawaii, in a statement. What this research shows us is that stars that are much less massive can still become a magnetar, if the conditions are just right.

Comets are notoriously unpredictable. In 2023, that worked in our favor, with three particularly notable comets stealing attention.

The year opened with what we expected to be its best comet: C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which reached perihelion the closest point to the Sun in its orbit on Jan. 12. On Feb. 1, ZTF passed closest to Earth, coming within about 0.3 astronomical unit of our planet. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun distance.) During its visit, ZTF ultimately reached magnitude 4.5 and developed a well-defined anti-tail seen in many photographs.

Magnitude 4.5 is also the brightness our next visitor, 12P/Pons-Brooks, is expected to reach in April this year, weeks before perihelion. Thats when, as first noted by amateur astronomer Dave Weixelman, it will appear some 24.5 from the Sun during the total solar eclipse April 8.

But Pons-Brooks wasnt willing to wait for fame. On July 20, 2023, observer Elek Tams went looking for the then-magnitude 16.6 comet and discovered an outburst had catapulted it to magnitude 11.6. By early October, the comet had faded only slightly and underwent a second outburst Oct. 5, reaching roughly the same magnitude as in July. Both times, the comet displayed a unique horned or horseshoe shape, earning it the nickname devil comet. According to comet researcher Richard Miles (who spotted the second outburst), Pons-Brooks has had similar flare-ups during past visits to the inner solar system. Perhaps its had yet another since this issue went to press!

Avid skywatchers already know weve saved the best for last: Comet ZTF was not 2023s best. That title goes to C/2023 P1 (Nishimura), which burst onto the scene Aug. 12 when Japanese amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura of Kakegawa, Japan, spotted it in Gemini, already at magnitude 10.4 and 1 AU from the Sun. Nishimura passed closest to Earth a month later, before rounding the Sun at a perihelion distance of just 0.23 AU on Sept. 17, peaking at an impressive magnitude 2.5. After perihelion, it disappeared from Northern Hemisphere skies and could only be picked up below the equator as it faded quickly on its way back to the outer solar system.

Its appearance was brief and it was never an easy naked-eye object due to its low elevation. Nonetheless, Nishimura was the definitive winner of 2023s cometary crown.

On Oct. 14, an annular solar eclipse crossed parts of North, Central, and South America. Although many considered the event a preview of 2024s total eclipse, Octobers annular eclipse was more than just a prelude. It was stunning in its own right, a once-in-a-lifetime event for millions of people that offered its own unique reward.

While a total solar eclipse lets earthbound observers glimpse the Suns outer atmosphere, called the corona, an annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is too far from Earth to cover the Suns disk completely. A thin sliver of the solar disk is left around the Moon, often called the ring of fire.

Octobers ring of fire began in the Pacific Ocean before moving from Oregon through Texas as the first U.S. annular eclipse in more than a decade. The next will not occur until 2041. Some 6.6 million Americans lived in the path of annularity, with roughly half that number in Texas alone. Millions more lived within just a few hundred miles of the center line. Observers beneath the shadow experienced some four-plus minutes of annularity, with parts of Texas seeing nearly five minutes.

After leaving Texas, the eclipse passed through parts of Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Brazil, finally ending over the Atlantic Ocean.

Eclipses offer unique opportunities for science, both on the ground and above it. For instance, NASA launched three sounding rockets from New Mexico one before, one during, and one after the eclipse as part of the Atmospheric Perturbations around the Eclipse Path mission to study how eclipses affect Earths upper atmosphere, particularly the ionosphere. This region is affected by variations in sunlight when the Sun naturally sets or rises, changing the amount of incoming ultraviolet radiation that can alter the properties of the atoms there.

If Octobers annular eclipse whetted your appetite, youre in luck a total solar eclipse will soon cross North America, bringing the Moons shadow back to Earth along a path that includes the homes and businesses of 31.6 million Americans. With millions more again within driving distance, April 8 is sure to be one of 2024s most noteworthy dates.

Headlines in 2023 were often dominated by the way AI is changing our world. And although the use of machine-learning tools in astronomy isnt new, the practice began to see more attention in 2023 (including a feature in our July issue).

A Jan. 30, 2023, paper in Nature Astronomy showed how scientists searching for alien civilizations used AI to sift through nearly 500 hours of radio signals from over 800 stars. They were looking for patterns that couldnt be natural, while throwing out interference from human technology. The algorithm pared down nearly 3 million events to just 20,515, which were examined by eye to ultimately identify eight possible technosignatures signs of a technologically advanced civilization from five stars. The signals were not seen when these stars were re-observed so we havent found aliens yet. But the researchers noted the technique had fulfilled its purpose by identifying specific signals for follow-up.

An April 21 paper in The Astrophysical Journal showed that machine-learning tools can identify planets forming in the disk of dust and gas around a star. A team led by Jason Terry of the University of Georgia in Athens developed an algorithm to search images for the subtle signs of fledgling planets, which affect the orbit of nearby material and eventually carve out gaps in the disk. Not only did their model rediscover known planets, it also flagged a planet around the star HD 142666 that researchers hadnt spotted. Terrys team followed up and confirmed a likely forming planet there, demonstrating the models potential. We think there will be an important place for these types of techniques as our datasets get even larger, Terry said in a press release.

On Sept. 25, a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presented a machine-learning algorithm that could determine whether a sample of material was produced by life or through natural (abiotic) processes. And it could do so with 90 percent accuracy. The technique can be applied with existing technology and used on future space missions or trace the history of ancient life on Earth.

These are just highlights from a year filled with AI-assisted discoveries. There will doubtless be many more in the years to come.

In late 2022, NASAs uncrewed Artemis I successfully completed its trip around the Moon, splashing down Dec. 11 that year. Spending about a month in flight, the mission largely served as a test of the new Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew spacecraft. Now, NASA is gearing up for Artemis II, scheduled to launch in November 2024 for a 10-day round-the-Moon flight. On April 3, 2023, the agency announced the missions crew: NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

But the U.S. isnt the only one with eyes on the lunar prize. On Aug. 23, 2023, India became the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon when its Chandrayaan-3 mission touched down some 370 miles (600 km) from the lunar south pole, the closest landing to the pole to date. NASA is targeting this coveted region for its crewed Artemis III landing, as the terrain there may contain water ice useful for fuel and other needs.

One day after landing, Indias 3-foot-long (90 centimeters), 60-pound (27 kilograms), solar-powered Pragyan rover rolled out of the Vikram lander. For two weeks, the pair studied the lunar surface, even detecting a possible moonquake Aug. 26. Both went into sleep mode for the coming lunar night, also two weeks long. Neither craft had been designed to withstand the frigid temperatures of nighttime on the Moon; nonetheless, the mission team hoped they would reawaken when day broke over the landing site Sept. 22. But by Oct. 6, the team had received no communications, and back-burnered further attempts at contact. Nonetheless, the mission was a rousing success for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Not all lunar stories last year were successes. Russias Luna 25 lander, also targeting the lunar pole, crashed into the Moon Aug. 19. A few days later, Roscosmos cited an engine malfunction that caused the engines to burn too long while orienting the craft for landing. The lander was Russias first lunar mission in nearly five decades. The agency said it planned to accelerate its next two lunar missions, Luna 26 and 27, in response to the failure. Both are set to launch later this decade. And earlier in the year, Japanese startup ispace attempted the first commercial lunar soft landing, targeting Mare Frigoris Atlas Crater with the HAKUTO-R Mission 1 Lunar Lander. Although the craft was in good shape on approach, it did not send confirmation of touchdown after the scheduled landing time on April 25. Shortly after, mission engineers determined its propellant likely ran out, causing the lander to crash.

All this goes to show that landing even uncrewed craft on the Moon is far from easy or routine, and many challenges still await both robotic and human explorers.

Shortly after Chandrayaan-3s landing, India successfully launched its Aditya-L1 mission to study the Sun on Sept. 2. Originally conceived in 2008 as a small Earth-orbiting satellite, the craft evolved into a five-year-long mission that will orbit the Sun at Lagrange point 1 (also called L1), about 900,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. There, it will continuously monitor our star with a payload of seven instruments, providing unique views not available on other solar missions, such as multiwavelength observations near the solar limb and images in previously unobserved ultraviolet wavelengths. Overall, Aditya-L1 aims to answer questions about the Suns super-hot outer atmosphere, the corona, as well as how the stars magnetic field generates space weather and affects our atmosphere here on Earth.

Both Aditya-L1 and Chandrayaan-3 are testaments to the countrys efforts in recent years to ramp up its space program and become a major player capable of interplanetary missions for new discoveries.

Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time that arise from extremely energetic events, such as the collisions of neutron stars or black holes. Since their first detection in 2016 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), gravitational waves have given us a new way to study the universe and 2023 brought a fresh twist.

Scientists are limited to studying a narrow range of gravitational waves. Thats because their wavelength, or the distance between successive crests of each wave, is proportional to the masses of and the distance between the objects creating them. This means a pair of stars orbiting in a tight binary create shorter-wavelength gravitational waves than do merging supermassive black holes with millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun. In fact, supermassive black hole mergers can create gravitational waves with crests tens of light-years apart.

Detecting such long-wavelength gravitational waves is beyond current observatories like LIGO and Virgo, which only catch the high-pitched chirps of binary objects a few to about 100 times the Suns mass. These signals represent the last minutes or seconds of a merger, as the objects circle ever closer before slamming together, all the while releasing angular momentum as gravitational waves.

For supermassive black holes, this process plays out over a much greater span of time. When galaxies merge, their individual supermassive black holes sink to the center and eventually merge over some 100 million to 200 million years. During that time, other galaxies elsewhere in the universe will merge as well, and their black holes will begin their own hundred-million-year inward spiral.

If theres a lot of these [long-wavelength] gravitational-wave signals, they can add together and give you a gravitational-wave background, said Yale University Assistant Professor of Physics Chiara Mingarelli in a video release. Mingarelli is part of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) collaboration, which announced the first-ever detection of this background June 29 in several papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Without instruments tuned to long wavelengths, the NANOGrav collaboration looked to fast-rotating neutron stars called pulsars. As a pulsar spins, it shoots beams of radiation from its poles; every revolution, these beams sweep over Earth like light from a lighthouse. The beams arrival is incredibly regular, down to a fraction of a second, turning each pulsar into its own highly accurate cosmic clock.

NANOGrav monitored a network of 67 pulsars throughout the Milky Way for 15 years, looking for tiny shifts in the timing of the arrival of their beams. These occur when a gravitational wave passes by, subtly squeezing or stretching the space-time between the pulsar and Earth, causing the signals to arrive slightly sooner or later than expected, respectively. Like a huge ocean swell, the stars in our galaxy are all moving in concert to waves in space-time that take more than a decade just to complete one cycle of the wave, says Kelly Holley-Bockelmann of Vanderbilt University, a gravitational-wave researcher who is not part of NANOGrav.

Thats why NANOGrav had to monitor the pulsars for so long. And it was worth it. The resulting pattern of timing disruptions matches exactly what is expected if there is a background of gravitational waves humming throughout the cosmos. After years of work, NANOGrav is opening an entirely new window on the gravitational-wave universe, said NANOGrav collaborator Stephen Taylor, also of Vanderbilt, in a statement.

The detection has now clinched the case that supermassive black holes do merge previously a long-standing question in astrophysics. It has also revealed surprises: The gravitational-wave background is twice as loud as expected. Perhaps supermassive black holes are larger or more numerous than current estimates. But perhaps something previously unimagined is contributing to the volume as well. Well need to keep observing to reveal the true nature of these gravitational waves, says Holley-Bockelmann.

It should be no surprise that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), last years top story, has yet again made our list. With more than a full year of science under its belt, JWST has truly begun revolutionizing astronomy.

And it didnt start small. Scientists analyzing JWSTs early images announced Feb. 22 in Nature that theyd identified some of the youngest galaxies now known: six of them, shining roughly 540 million to 770 million years after the Big Bang.

But these young galaxies didnt look like they should. They were massive. Too massive, housing some 10 billion to 100 billion solar masses worth of stars. These galaxies should not have had time to form, based on our current understanding of how quickly matter in the early universe could conglomerate and form new suns, said study co-author Erica Nelson of the University of Colorado Boulder in a press release. You just dont expect the early universe to be able to organize itself that quickly.

The revelation that massive galaxy formation began extremely early in the history of the universe upends what many of us had thought was settled science, added co-author Joel Leja of Penn State. Weve been informally calling these objects universe breakers.

Is that it, then? Did JWST break the universe? Various groups have presented alternative explanations that rescue our current understanding of the cosmos. One, led by researchers at Saint Marys University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, argued that the galaxies redshifts, or distances, may not be as high as originally thought. Thats because the initial team didnt look at the objects spectral features across all wavelengths, but instead took images in various filters at discrete wavelengths a common alternate technique, but one prone to bias. The technique may also have picked out only the very biggest and brightest galaxies, which are not representative of the general population. And the Saint Marys University study warned against making broad statements about the early universe as a whole based on just a handful of examples. The work had been submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society but not yet peer-reviewed at the time of this writing.

Another study, published Oct. 3 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, used simulations to show that brief, irregular bursts of furious star formation can temporarily make galaxies appear brighter. In other words, JWST may have imaged these galaxies during a short period when they were birthing lots of stars before calming down again. If this were the case, astronomers assuming a steady rate of star formation would overestimate the amount of stars these galaxies had created over time based on their artificially enhanced brightness. But such an effect has not yet been observed in real galaxies, so further investigation is still needed.

As for the original team, Leja noted that not all the objects officially labeled galaxy candidates in the paper might truly be galaxies after all. Instead, he proposed some may be accreting supermassive black holes called quasars, which can shine more brightly than the galaxy around them and confuse astronomers estimates for brightness, size, and mass. And initial follow-up studies did discover one of the six candidates is indeed a young quasar. Only additional work to characterize the remaining candidates will tell whether they are truly young, massive galaxies forming lots of stars when they shouldnt be, or something else masquerading as such.

Still, said Nelson, if even one of these galaxies is real, it will push against the limits of our understanding of cosmology.

The mottled Milky Way is a familiar sight in the night sky. And whether viewed in visible light, with a radio telescope, or even with high-energy gamma rays, the image comes to us via photons of light. But last year, astronomers finally saw our galaxy in an entirely different way: not with light, but with neutrinos. Their accomplishment was published June 29 in Science.

Sometimes called ghost particles because they rarely interact with other matter, neutrinos reveal where high-energy events are taking place. One region astronomers expected them to come from is the plane of the Milky Way. There, cosmic rays (themselves hallmarks of high-energy events) slamming into gas and dust produce gamma rays that have been previously spotted. Researchers believed these interactions should also produce neutrinos.

But spotting neutrinos takes a special setup. For that, theres the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, with 5,000-plus sensors buried beneath the ultra-pure Antarctic ice. Arrayed over roughly 0.24 cubic mile (1 cubic kilometer), these detectors dont see neutrinos directly, but instead key into the reaction that occurs when a neutrino does occasionally slam into an atom in the ice. The collision produces a slew of charged particles that cascade through the ice, generating a glow called Cherenkov radiation. Based on where and when each detector registers this glow, researchers can work backward to determine where on the sky the neutrino came from.

Although IceCube had previously detected neutrinos from outside our galaxy, finding those originating within the Milky Way has been difficult. Thats because neutrinos from far-off galaxies leave straight, easy-to-trace showers of light when they smack into the ice. To detect neutrinos produced inside the Milky Way, the team instead focused on tracks that were more like spherical blobs; these are harder to trace back to their origin and had typically gone ignored. That is, until a team developed a machine-learning algorithm to comb through a decade of readings, analyzing more than 60,000 detections for details such as position and energy. This helped differentiate between neutrinos produced in galactic dust and gas, and those commonly created when cosmic rays hit Earths atmosphere.

The result was a map of the Milky Way in neutrinos our first glimpse of our galaxy in anything other than light.

That map matches well those produced using gamma rays, as astronomers hoped. And within that map, there are hints of not only neutrinos from gas and dust, but possibly smaller sources such as black holes and neutron stars as well. Teasing out those sources is one of the teams future goals.

Observing our own galaxy for the first time using particles instead of light is a huge step, said Naoko Kurahashi Neilson, an IceCube team member at Drexel University in Philadelphia, in a release. As neutrino astronomy evolves, we will get a new lens with which to observe the universe.

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The Milky Way is no ordinary spiral galaxy, but instead features an elongated bar of stars at its center with mysteries that astronomers are still trying to unlock.

The Milky Way's central region has not just a spherical core but an elongated bar of stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech)

Its difficult to see the shape of something from inside of it and nowhere is that truer than in our own Milky Way Galaxy. It wasnt until 1923 that Edwin Hubble found definitive evidence that the Milky Way was just one of many other galaxies. And even after that, for decades, the shape of Milky Way was assumed to be a normal spiral galaxy.

But in 2005, a team led by astronomers from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater found strong evidence that the Milky Way is in fact a barred spiral galaxy. The team used data from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope, an infrared telescope that was a forerunner to the current James Webb Space Telescope. Observing in infrared light allowed Spitzer to peer through interstellar dust and survey 30 million stars in the plane of the Milky Way in a project named the Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire, or GLIMPSE. That survey indicated that there was a long bar of stars extending from the galactic core a feature seen in many other galaxies.

Today, we know that the Milky Way is indeed a barred spiral galaxy. But astronomers still havent gained a complete picture of the bar, making it difficult to know precisely how large it is. But the European Space Agencys Gaia spacecraft which is making the largest ever 3D map of the stars in the Milky Way is starting to directly measure the galactic bar for the first time.

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Astronomy contributing author Alister Ling views Comet Lemmon under a clear sky. Credit: Alister Ling

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The fusion of traditional stargazing with modern technology has opened up new horizons in the field of astronomy. For example, the ability to connect almost any smartphone or tablet to a high-quality telescope has revolutionized how we view, capture, and share the night sky.

Smartphone-enabled telescopes are not just sophisticated tools for observing the stars; many of these scopes also allow you to share photos of your cosmic journey with friends and family or even on social media.

In this guide, well explore some of the best telescopes that can be used with a smartphone, which will help you bring the wonders of the cosmos directly to your fingertips.

Factors to consider when buying a telescope to use with a smartphone

We know that selecting the right telescope can be an overwhelming experience, especially considering the investment involved in purchasing a high-end model. Thats why our goal here is to provide you with a detailed and user-friendly guide that will help you make an informed decision.

But before we jump into our top picks, its important to understand what factors make a telescope ideal for smartphone use. Here are the most important things you should consider:

How we determined our top picks

To make our selections, we considered real-world insights from user reviews, as well as expert opinions from the Astronomy staff, who together have decades of stargazing experience. In particular, we considered factors such as ease of use, optical quality, smartphone compatibility, and overall value for your money.

Best telescopes to use with a smartphone

Care and Maintenance of Your Telescope

Here are some essential tips for taking care of your telescope:

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These fiery images show where dust and stars are located, helping astronomers learn more about how galaxies are born and evolve over time.

A composite showing 19 JWST photos of spiral galaxies.

Appearing like twisted fireballs painting the sky, images of 19 face-on spiral galaxies in 11 constellations were captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and publicly released this week. This collection offers a detailed look at one of the most common types of galaxy and may reveal how such objects are born and evolve through time.

As part of Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, JWST used the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to capture the delicate webbing of warm dust (colored crimson and gold) within these galaxies. Meanwhile, JWSTs Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) images show stars and clusters, colored blue, according to a European Space Agency (ESA)news release.

Because galaxies grow from the inside out, the farther along the gaseous arms a star is located, the younger that stars age. The bright blue centers visible in some of these galaxies hold very old stars.

Some images even have features resembling the Eye of Sauron fromLord of the Rings in some of the images. These pink and white spotlights which show diffraction spikes are either indications of an active supermassive black hole or a dense central cluster of stars.

Ultimately, researchers hope to combine these new data with the rest of the PHANGS database to glean why spiral galaxies form various patterns, as well as how stars form throughout them.

(Credit for all photos: James Webb Space Telescope)

PHANGS is a huge collaboration of 150 international researchers that combines data in multiple wavelengths from JWST, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.

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JWST releases 19 awe-inspiring images of spiral galaxies - Astronomy Magazine

Conny Aerts and Jrgen Christensen-Dalsgaard both ERC grantees and Douglas Gough won the Prize for their techniques that unveiled the hidden intricacies within the sun and stars. Claire Voisin, also an ERC grantee, has been recognised for her work in algebraic geometry, which enables the description of shapes that defy visualisation.

The Crafoord Prize in Astronomy 2024 has been awarded to Douglas Gough from University of Cambridge in the UK, Jrgen Christensen-Dalsgaard from Aarhus University in Denmark, and Conny Aerts from KU Leuven in Belgium for developing the methods of asteroseismology and their application to the study of the interior of the Sun and of other stars. The awards were announced on 31 January 2024.

Conny Aerts had previously received two ERC Advanced Grants exploring asteroseismology (2009) and researching massive stars (2016). In 2023, together with three other researchers she won an ERC Synergy Grant and is now working on massive star modelling. In that project she took on one of the biggest challenges in astrophysics: accurately measuring the age of stars.

Jrgen Christensen-Dalsgaard received an ERC grant in 2011 and played a major role in the first-generation development of asteroseismology. He combined advanced observations of stellar oscillations with state-of-the-art modelling of stars and then added in research low-mass cool stars.

The Crafoord Prize in Mathematics 2024 has been awarded to Claire Voisin from Institut de Mathmatiques de Jussieu in France for outstanding contributions to complex and algebraic geometry, including Hodge theory, algebraic cycles, and hyperkhler geometry. Professor Voisin is the first woman to receive the Prize in Mathematics.

Claire Voisin, together with three other researchers, received an ERC Synergy Grant in 2020. She has provided important and highly acclaimed contributions in the field of algebraic geometry, through both counterexamples and strongly positive results for some of the most famous unsolved problems.

The Crafoord Prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foundation in Lund, Sweden. The disciplines, which change every year, are mathematics and astronomy, geosciences, biosciences, and polyarthritis. The Academy is responsible for selecting the Crafoord Laureates. The prize sum of 6 million Swedish Krona makes the Crafoord Prize one of the worlds largest scientific prizes. The Crafoord Prize in Mathematics and Astronomy was first awarded in 1982.. Apart from this years laureates, two other ERC grantees won Crafoord Prizes in 2011 and 2013.

About the ERC

The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes:Starting Grants,Consolidator Grants,Advanced GrantsandSynergy Grants. With its additionalProof of ConceptGrant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, theScientific Council. Since November 2021, Maria Leptin is the President of the ERC. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than 16 billion, as part of theHorizon Europeprogramme, under the responsibility of European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Iliana Ivanova

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The Crafoord Prize 2024 goes to three ERC grantees for their pioneering contributions to astronomy and mathematics ... - European Research Council

SuperKnova is a project to provide learning opportunities in radio technology for students in a way that is inclusive and equitable. Originally conceived at the Radio Astronomy Imaging and Analysis Lab (RADIAL), SuperKnova is a collaboration between RADIAL, NRAO, and educators and students from across the country.

The SuperKnova website has a wealth of educational resources that are free to use. You can learn about the history of radio astronomy, the physics of radio technology, and even cube satellites and ham radios! There is also a citizen science project on Sensing the World Around You. Many of the learning materials are age-appropriate for middle school and high school students. They were developed as part of the National Radio Dynamic Zone (NRDZ) project, and are designed in such a way that teachers can integrate them into their course curricula.

Users of SuperKnova have found the materials quite useful. As one participant said, I feel like I now have a treasure trove of resources that have both enhanced my understanding of the EM spectrum and given me real life activities for my students to become engaged in. If you are a teacher who uses these materials in your classroom, you can give back to the project by filling out a short form on the SuperKnova resources page. It will help the team refine and expand available resources.

Radio technology is central to our modern world, and radio astronomy can reveal the Universe in amazing ways. SuperKnova does more than simply help students understand radio technology, it helps open doors to radio careers and works to ensure that radio astronomy is accessible to everyone.

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Learning Shines Brightly at SuperKnova National Radio Astronomy Observatory - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

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New research shows a large moonquake in the 1970s is associated with several south polar faults and areas at risk for landslides.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera's image of a thurst fault near the lunar south pole. Credit: NASA/LRO/LROC/ASU/Smithsonian Institution

Seismic events throughout its history have sculpted the Moons crust with the cracks and cliffs we observe today. These features formed as the Moon shrank and sections of crust were pushed on top of one another.

Now, a new study of surface warping in the Moons south polar region has found evidence that some areas proposed for future landings are near or within fault zones and vulnerable to moonquakes. The paper was published inThe Planetary Science Journalon Jan. 25, 2024.

The Moon has shrunk over time as its core slowly cooled. Aprevious analysisof NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) images found that the Moons shrinkage is comparable to that of a grape, which shrivels up as it turns into a raisin. That same analysis found that the Moon is still shrinking today, which creates moonquakes along the faults that have developed.

The new study found that a group of cracks in the Moons south polar region are linked to a mighty moonquake captured in the 1970s by Apollo seismometers. The team used computer models to determine the surface stability in that area were, finding that some slopes are susceptible to landslides caused by moonquakes.

Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults, saidThomas R. Watters, the studys lead author and a planetary tectonics expert at National Air and Space Museums Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, in a press release. The global distribution of young thrust faults, their potential to be active, and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing global contraction should be considered when planning the location and stability of permanent outposts on the Moon.

Seismic activity could threaten planned human exploration efforts for the first Artemis crewed landing, Artemis III. Shallow moonquakes, which occur at depths of about 100 miles (161 kilometers), can last hours. The large moonquake the Apollo Passive Seismic Network picked up was a magnitude 5 quake and lasted an entire afternoon.

NASA is interested inexploring the lunar south polebecause it has permanently shadowed regions where ice may linger.Artemis IIIis currently planned for 2026. When astronauts land, they will explore the darkened regions with navigation systems and headlamps.

Before this and other missions commence, the research team is hoping to find more areas that may be too risky to explore so they can be avoided.

As we get closer to the crewed Artemis missions launch date, its important to keep our astronauts, our equipment, and infrastructure as safe as possible, said Nicholas Schmerr, study co-author and geologist at the University of Maryland. This work is helping us prepare for what awaits us on the Moon whether thats engineering structures that can better withstand lunar seismic activity or protecting people from really dangerous zones.

Link:

The Moon's south pole is likely not the safest place for manned missions - Astronomy Magazine

Space scientists are eager to protect the option of doing astronomy from the moon.

There are plans in the works to place astronomical hardware on the lunar landscape such as super-cooled infrared telescopes,a swath of gravitational wave detectors, large Arecibo-like radio telescopes, even peek-a-boo instruments tuned up to seek out evidence for "out there" aliens.

Yes, the future of lunar astronomy beckons. But some scientists say there's an urgent need to protect any moon-based astronomical equipment from interference caused by other planned activities on the moon, ensuring they can carry out their mission of probing the surrounding universe.

To that end, efforts are ongoing to scope out and create policy in conjunction with the United Nations in the hope of fostering international support for such protections.

Related: Gravitational wave detectors on the moon could be more sensitive than those on Earth

This action plan is spearheaded by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU brings together more than 12,000 active professional astronomers from over 100 countries worldwide.

Richard Green is chair of the IAU group specific to looking at the issues of staging astronomy from the moon. He is also an assistant director for government relations at Steward Observatory, run by the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The IAU working group is aiming to collaborate with a number of other non-governmental organizations to protect the option of doing astronomy from the moon, Green tells Space.com.

A number of participants in the IAU working group are spectrum managers from radio observatories, strongly linked to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and ITU's World Radiocommunication Conference, a treaty-level forum to review and revise, if necessary, radio regulations and global agreements regarding use of the radio-frequency spectrum and the geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits.

The working group members want to maximize the range of protected frequencies, "including the very low frequencies needed to study the early universe and auroral emissions from planets," Green says.

The other approach, says Green is for protection of sites on the moon that might be suitable for cooled infrared telescopes or gravitational wave detector arrays.

"We have common cause with those who want to protect historical legacy sites and even those who want dedicated sites for extracting water or minerals," Green says. "We imagine that the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is the venue in which some process can be developed to claim a site for protection and to resolve competing claims."

The IAU Astronomy from the moon working group has space law and policy experts who can provide a strong basis for that approach, Green says.

"Of course, the main goal is to conduct astronomical observations that can be uniquely done from the moon," Green explains. The working group is embracing the expertise of principal investigators of lunar missions or concepts for missions.

Doing so, Green says, can help engage the astronomical community in prioritizing sites of extreme scientific interest and take in issues of conducting science in an environment for which "equitable access" is anchored in the spirit of the United Nations 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

A thumbs-up approval of the IAU initiative is Ian Crawford, a professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck College, London.

"My own view is that a subset of lunar locations, for example specific polar craters and key far side locations, need to be designated as 'Sites of Special Scientific Importance' and protected as such, Crawford told Space.com.

A possiblemodel, Crawford suggests, might be theAntarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) as defined in Annex V of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty.

"In any case, international coordination is clearly required so United Nations involvement appears entirely appropriate," Crawford says.

NASA is working with several U.S. firms to deliver science and technology to the moon's surface by way of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

Given the uptick in future CLPS-enabled robotic lunar exploration, we are about to the see the first NASA-funded science payloads landed there in over 51 years since the Apollo 17 human moon landing in December 1972, says Jack Burns, professor emeritus in the department of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

One payload, for which Burns serves as co-investigator, is called the Radio Wave Observations on the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES). If successful, it would be the first radio telescope on the moon and situated at the lunar south pole. ROLSES is to be emplaced there in February via the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander's IM-1 mission under the CLPS partnership.

This will be followed in two years by the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night, or LuSEE-Night, slated to fly in 2026 aboard the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission-2 lander. This endeavor is also part of the CLPS undertaking and Burns is a science team member of the LUNAR far side experiment.

LuSee-Night is a radio telescope that will look into the never-before seen dark ages of the early universe a time before the birth of the first stars.

With this potential and promising burgeoning of radio astronomy from the moon, Burns says "it is essential that we now develop international agreements to protect the far side of the moon for radio astronomy as it is the only truly radio-quiet site in the inner solar system."

Burns emphasizes that radio observations from the moon are no longer science fiction but science fact.

"We are entering a new era of science investigations from our nearest neighbor in space," Burns says.

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The moon could be perfect for cutting-edge telescopes but not if we don't protect it - Space.com

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2024 BJwill pass by Earth harmlessly at 12:29 p.m. EST on Saturday, Jan. 27.

A rendering of 2024 BJ from NASA's asteroid watch. Credit: NASA/JPL

A recently-discovered asteroid named2024 BJwill pass by Earth harmlessly at 12:29 p.m. EST on Saturday, Jan. 27.

2024 BJ will come within some 220,000 miles (354,000 kilometers) of Earth, closer than the average distance between the Moon and Earth.

Still, the asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye. Its too small. At an estimated 72 feet (22 meters), its about the size of two telephone poles stacked end to end. At a magnitude of 15.5 at its brightest, the asteroid will be about as bright as Pluto is in the sky. Only larger telescopes will catch 2024 BJs journey near Earth as it speeds by at around 58,000 miles (93,300 km) per hour.

Still, if you want to see the asteroid,The Virtual Telescope Projectwill livestream the close encounter starting at 17:00 UTC (noon EST).

The asteroid is considered an Apollo asteroid, which are asteroids who come closer to the Sun than 1.017 astronomical units. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun distance.) These objects cross Earths orbit and, if large enough, can be considered potentially hazardous asteroids. However, 2024 BJ4 is not dangerous to Earth.

The next time 2024 BJ will swing near to our planet is over a decade away, onMarch 31, 2034. This encounter wont be nearly as close, though, at a distance of about 23 million miles (37.5 million km).

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You can stream an asteroid whizzing past Earth this weekend - Astronomy Magazine