Category Archives: Astronomy

A new supernova just lit up the sky, and its bright enough for amateur astronomers to search out with their scopes. Named SN 2017eaw, this event marks the death of a massive star and the 10th supernova observed in NGC 6946, otherwise known as the Fireworks Galaxy, in 100 years. If you have a 6-inch scope or larger and access to dark skies, you can find this supernova to the northwest of its host galaxys nucleus as it continues to brighten for up to a week, then remains bright for several more weeks.

The transient object was first announced as a potential supernova by amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins on May 14, who identified it by comparing an image hed taken that day with previous images of the galaxy both one year and two days prior. Neither of the previous images showed an object in the location where the new object had appeared. Wiggins imaged the galaxy through his 14-inch (0.35-meter) f/5.5 reflector from his location near Erda, Utah. The supernova was confirmed five hours later by the Virtual Telescope Project with the 16-inch (0.41m) f/3.75 Tenagra III robotictelescope (called Pearl) at Tenagra Observatories in Arizona. Amateur astronomers can find the supernova at R.A. 20h34m44.24s, Dec. +601135.9, close to the border separating Cygnus and Cepheus.

Spectroscopic observations of the supernova have identified it as a type II-P supernova, one the most common supernova events in the universe. Type II supernovae are core-collapse events, which occur when a massive star reaches the end of its life. Prior to the supernova, the core of the star has been shrinking, as fusion inside slows and reduces the pressure outwards from within the core. Eventually, the core shrinks to a critical point, causing a rebounding shockwave that propagates outward, destroying the outer regions of the star as a type II supernova. In this case, the p stands for plateau, because these supernovae have a brightness profile that grows and then plateaus, staying the same for months before the object fades.

This plateau in brightness is caused by the ionization (stripping of electrons) of the hydrogen in what was once the envelope of the progenitor star. As the shockwave from the supernova moves through the envelope, it heats the hydrogen there to temperatures over 100,000 Kelvin (180,000 degrees Fahrenheit [99,700 degrees Celsius]) Heating ionizes the hydrogen, which then becomes opaque, meaning it absorbs light coming from the inner regions of the supernova. Astronomers can only see radiation from the outermost layers of the star, which remains consistent, for several weeks, and is dominated by hydrogen emission when viewed through a spectrograph. Eventually, the hydrogen cools enough to regain its lost electrons, turning into neutral hydrogen that allows radiation from deeper within to escape.

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Fireworks Galaxy sets off its 10th supernova in a century - Astronomy Magazine

NASA is launching another competition for scientists: help pick instruments for a Europa lander.

Jupiters Moon has been a target for scientists for a while, after Voyager 1 and the Galileo spacecraft unveiled a potential ocean back in the 1990s. While a Europa lander mission is still in Phase B and hasnt been officially been approved quite yet, the team is still planning ahead just in case.

"The possibility of placing a lander on the surface of this intriguing icy moon, touching and exploring a world that might harbor life is at the heart of the Europa lander mission," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a press release. "We want the community to be prepared for this announcement of opportunity, because NASA recognizes the immense amount of work involved in preparing proposals for this potential future exploration."

The competition will have two stages to create the instruments and ensure they would work with the mission. Only 10 proposals will make it into Phase A where participants will be limited to 12 full months and $1.5 million to conduct their work. The instruments main duties will be to look for evidence of life on Europa, study the terrain to see if its habitable, and describe the surface and subsurface of the moon.

Along with a hopeful landing mission, a Europa flyby mission, the Europa Clipper mission, is in its preliminary design phase and hopes to launch sometime in the 2020s.

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NASA invites scientists to submit ides for Europa lander - Astronomy Magazine

The Dawn spacecraft was launched in 2007 and arrived at the asteroid Vesta in 2011. The craft orbited Vesta for four years, revealing a fascinating world that is likely a smashed dwarf planet that once had running water. Using revolutionary ion thrusters, it was able to detach itself from Vestas gravitational influence and move towards Ceres, inserting itself in a distant orbit before gradually moving closer to the world.

While a potential third target was discussed, NASA scientists decided to keep Dawn at Ceres in order to reveal more about it and its history. The presence of ammonia ices hints that Ceres may not have formed in the asteroid belt, but instead migrated in from the Kuiper Belt, a smattering of rocky bodies bound by Neptunes gravity.

The craft will stay in a safe distant orbit over Ceres in perpetuity once the mission ends. (Of course, NASA has a funny habit of making missions last long past their original shelf life. Just look at Cassini or Opportunity.)

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See a moving global view of Ceres at opposition - Astronomy Magazine

These two images, taken a year apart, reveal a moon orbiting the dwarf planet 2007 OR10. Each image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescopes Wide Field Camera 3, shows the companion in a different orbital position around its parent body. Credit: NASA, ESA, C. Kiss (Konkoly Observatory), and J. Stansberry (STScI)

The combined power of three space observatories, including NASAs Hubble Space Telescope, has helped astronomers uncover a moon orbiting the third largest dwarf planet, catalogued as 2007 OR10. The pair resides in the frigid outskirts of our solar system called the Kuiper Belt, a realm of icy debris left over from our solar systems formation 4.6 billion years ago.

With this discovery, most of the known dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt larger than 600 miles across have companions. These bodies provide insight into how moons formed in the young solar system.

The discovery of satellites around all of the known large dwarf planets except for Sedna means that at the time these bodies formed billions of years ago, collisions must have been more frequent, and thats a constraint on the formation models, said Csaba Kiss of the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary. He is the lead author of the science paper announcing the moons discovery. If there were frequent collisions, then it was quite easy to form these satellites.

The objects most likely slammed into each other more often because they inhabited a crowded region. There must have been a fairly high density of objects, and some of them were massive bodies that were perturbing the orbits of smaller bodies, said team member John Stansberry of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. This gravitational stirring may have nudged the bodies out of their orbits and increased their relative velocities, which may have resulted in collisions.

But the speed of the colliding objects could not have been too fast or too slow, according to the astronomers. If the impact velocity was too fast, the smash-up would have created lots of debris that could have escaped from the system; too slow and the collision would have produced only an impact crater.

Collisions in the asteroid belt, for example, are destructive because objects are traveling fast when they smash together. The asteroid belt is a region of rocky debris between the orbits of Mars and the gas giant Jupiter. Jupiters powerful gravity speeds up the orbits of asteroids, generating violent impacts.

The team uncovered the moon in archival images of 2007 OR10taken by Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3. Observations taken of the dwarf planet by NASAs Kepler Space Telescope first tipped off the astronomers of the possibility of a moon circling it. Kepler revealed that 2007 OR10has a slow rotation period of 45 hours. Typical rotation periods for Kuiper Belt Objects are under 24 hours, Kiss said. We looked in the Hubble archive because the slower rotation period could have been caused by the gravitational tug of a moon. The initial investigator missed the moon in the Hubble images because it is very faint.

The astronomers spotted the moon in two separate Hubble observations spaced a year apart. The images show that the moon is gravitationally bound to 2007 OR10because it moves with the dwarf planet, as seen against a background of stars. However, the two observations did not provide enough information for the astronomers to determine an orbit.

Ironically, because we dont know the orbit, the link between the satellite and the slow rotation rate is unclear, Stansberry said.

The astronomers calculated the diameters of both objects based on observations in far-infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory, which measured the thermal emission of the distant worlds. The dwarf planet is about 950 miles across, and the moon is estimated to be 150 miles to 250 miles in diameter. 2007 OR10, like Pluto, follows an eccentric orbit, but it is currently three times farther than Pluto is from the sun.

2007 OR10is a member of an exclusive club of nine dwarf planets. Of those bodies, only Pluto and Eris are larger than 2007 OR10. It was discovered in 2007 by astronomers Meg Schwamb, Mike Brown, and David Rabinowitz as part of a survey to search for distant solar system bodies using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California.

The teams results appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

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[ 18 May 2017 ] Hubble spots moon around third largest dwarf planet News - Astronomy Now Online

Universe Today

Could the Closest Extrasolar Planet Be Habitable? Astronomers Plan to Find Out Universe Today According to their study, which appeared recently in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, the team conducted a series of simulations using the state-of-the-art Met Office Unified Model (UM). This numerical model has been used for decades to study ... Proxima b: Researchers Take First Steps to Explore Climate of Nearby ExoplanetSci-News.com Computer simulation explores habitability of Proxima bThe Space Reporter all 30 news articles »

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Could the Closest Extrasolar Planet Be Habitable? Astronomers Plan to Find Out - Universe Today

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The find gives backing to the astonishing theory our universe may be part of a wider cosmos where multiple parallel universes co-exist.

Experts believe that they may have found the first solid evidence of this long-standing theory after finding a cold spot in the deep universe.

The cold spot was first discovered in 2015 and is a 1.8 billion light-year wide area where there are an estimated 10,000 galaxies missing.

The mysterious area contains 20 per cent less matter than it should, according to the Standard Model, which left scientists baffled.

UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM

However, astronomers believe that they may now have the solution and theorise that the area could be where one universe is encroaching on another.

Experts from Durham University said in a paper that as a parallel universe crashed into ours, much of the galaxies and matter were shoved away from the cold spot.

The team adds that if our universe came to be from seemingly nothing and embarked on what looks like an infinite expansion, then others could have too.

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Professor Tom Shanks in Durham University's Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy said: One explanation for the Cold Spot is that it might be the remnant signal of the collision of our Universe and one of the trillions of others.

If further, more detailed, analysis proves this to be the case then the Cold Spot might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse and billions of other universes may exist like our own.

Previously experts had theorised that the cold spot, which is just 0.00015 degrees celsius cooler than its surroundings, was created by the lack of galaxies.

It had been suggested that as the void was so barren it literally sucked energy out of light that travelled through it, leading to the colder temperature.

However, Durham University found that the void is actually made up of many tiny voids which were too small shift light, according to the paper published in arXiv.

Doctoral student Ruari Mackenzie of Durham University said: The voids we have detected cannot explain the Cold Spot.

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Mind blowing theories on how the universe will end

Prof Shanks offered the alternative: Perhaps the most exciting explanation is that the Cold Spot was caused by collision between our universe and another bubble universe, believe it or not.

I remember some scientists suggesting that there could be detectable effects on the galaxy distribution after this cosmic shunt of two universes colliding.

Basically colliding universes could leave a slightly anisotropic galaxy distribution in our own universe - a bit like a pile-up on the motorway. So we can look for this to test how seriously to take these ideas.

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Astronomers claim first evidence of PARALLEL UNIVERSE - 'there could be BILLIONS more' - Express.co.uk

August 21st, the world will experience the first total solar eclipse to only be visible within US borders. In roughly an hour and a half less time than it takes to watch a movie the Moons shadow will cross from Depoe Bay, Oregon to McClellanville, South Carolina. And in its path, professional researchers, eclipse-chasers, and citizen scientists are preparing for the big event. Heres a short sample of the hundreds of experiments happening:

Radiowaves & Lightening

What: At Austin Peay State University (APSU) in Clarksville, Tennessee (across the state border from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the point of greatest eclipse), Dennis L. Gallagher from NASA Education and Public Outreach is partnering with college students to observe the very low frequency (VLF) radio noise lightning around the world makes. Gallagher says teenagers at Space Camp will then analyze the data, hypothesiz[ing] how radio noise might be influenced by the moons shadow crossing overhead.

Why: Gallagher says the eclipse provides the opportunity to examine the frequency content of this natural radio noise from about 300 Hz to 12 kHz and to measure the total noise content in a VLF frequency band, which differs from normal conditions.

Cool Score: For the cross-generational and weather components, 8.

Animal Behavior

What: Dr. Rod Mills and Dr. Don Sudbrink from APSU are partnering with NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies to observe animal behavior during the eclipse. Mills is watching cows and Sudbrink is studying crickets. Both men hope to learn more about how animals react to rapid changes in lighting, temperature, and wind.

Why: Why not? More specifically, though, Mills is following up on research conducted during the 1999 eclipse over England.

Cool Score: Theres not much new science here, but since the eclipse cuts across rural American farmland, were glad someones studying livestock: 4.

Retesting Relativity

What: Citizen scientist Don Bruns is heading to Casper Mountain, Wyoming, where he hopes to become the first to prove Einsteins theory of relativity using Finlay-Freundlichs method from the ground.

Why: In order to prove general relativity, you have to show how sunlights gravitational pull creates a shift between the apparent and actual position of stars. Since the moon will completely cover the sun, the total solar eclipse gives Bruns the complete darkness he needs to measure the shift in positions.

Cool Score: Modern photography divides an image into digital pixels, so when light falls between two pixels, the image is pushed into one pixel or the other, changing results. Since Bruns has found a way to correct this that others couldnt: 6.

Citizen CATE

What: Citizen scientists across America are coming together to study the solar corona. NASA says, more than 60 identical telescopes equipped with digital cameras [are] positioned from Oregon to South Carolina to image the solar corona. The project will then splice these images together to show the corona during a 90-minute period, revealing for the first time the plasma dynamics of the inner solar corona.

Why: This experiment will give us new information about the inner corona. But because eclipse excitement has gone mainstream, its also a chance to involve the public in science. Volunteers from 20+ high schools, 20+ colleges, 5 national research labs, and astronomy clubs across the country are participating.

Cool Score: For uniting scientists of all ages, expertise, and backgrounds, we give it a 10. Turn this experiment up to 11 by joining CATE here: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/citizen-science

Bonus Info: Padma Yanamandra-Fisher from the Space Science Institute is taking part in CATE at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale, Illinois. Carbondale is the point of greatest duration this August, and its also in the path for Americas next total solar eclipse April 8, 2024. Out of all the experiments we found, Yanamandra-Fishers is the only one taking advantage of two eclipses from the exact same spot.

For more opportunities to get involved in citizen science--eclipse and otherwise--check out NASAs list here: https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/citizen-science

Terena Bell is a freelance journalist writing on all things Great American Eclipse. Her family farm outside Hopkinsville, Ky is within radius of the point of greatest eclipse.

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What's Going on August 21st | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine

NEWS Kelsey Johnson to succeed Michael Timko in leading College undergraduate honors program by Hannah Gavin | May 15 2017 | 05/15/17 11:59pm

The College of Arts and Sciences announced May 8 that Assoc. Astronomy Prof. Kelsey Johnson will be the next director of the Echols Scholars Program. She will take on her new position at the end of May, succeeding Biology Prof. Michael Timko.

Johnson has been with the astronomy department since 2004 and teaches the popular course Unsolved Mysteries in the Universe.

The Echols Scholars Program, which provides selected undergraduates with academic opportunities and Echols-only housing, was established in 1964 with a few dozen College students. The program has expanded to approximately 10 percent of College students as of 2012.

Johnson will lead the program as multiple reforms are being considered on the future of the Echols program, including changes to the selection process and grouping of Echols Scholars in the Balz-Dobie and Tuttle-Dunnington residence halls.

Johnson served on the Colleges General Education Committee and is a member of the College Fellows, which designed the new Engagements courses for incoming first-years next year.

The Engagements courses are a first-year student experience that has been developed from scratch with the goal of providing a framework to help students flourish in the 21st century, Johnson said, which will help develop ones intellectual framework regardless of specific discipline.

Johnson said she has specific goals for expanding opportunities to Echols Scholars. As director, she said she hopes to encourage students academic curiosity.

I would like to help create more options for Echols students to push themselves to explore topics both more deeply and more broadly, Johnson said in an email to The Cavalier Daily. Options might include dedicated Echols seminars, intensive mentoring with Echols alumni or topical fieldwork.

Johnson said she looks forward to being the next director of the Echols Scholars Program for the important challenges it provides undergraduates as well as for the challenges it will provide her.

Im excited to help facilitate a deep acquisition of knowledge and understanding with the Echols students and to push myself to keep up with them, Johnson said. I believe that environments with a strong foundation of trust and respect are essential for having rigorous debates and intellectual growth, and Im thrilled to be part of a program that embraces this ideal.

College Dean Ian Baucom said Johnsons professional style qualifies her for leading the Echols Scholars Program.

[Johnson] brings great energy, creativity and collegiality to the Echols Scholars Program, Baucom said in a release from the College. As a leading research scientist and a sterling teacher, she offers unique and valuable insight in this important leadership role.

He also said Johnson has exceptional experience in both the classroom and the research sphere, making her a great candidate for the position.

I think that combination of teaching passion and research excellence will make her a sterling Director for the vibrant intellectual community of Echols Scholars, Baucom said. Im particularly hopeful that she will find ways to strengthen faculty mentoring opportunities for Echols Scholars across their years on Grounds and know that she shares that priority.

Johnson was recently named one of four ACC Distinguished Professors. At the University, she has received the Center for Teaching Excellences All-University Teaching Award and the Z Societys Distinguished Faculty Award.

Johnsons academic focus is galaxy evolution and, more specifically, ancient star formation. She is the founding director of Dark Skies, Bright Kids, an outreach program where University astronomers, graduate students and volunteers work with elementary school students from rural areas.

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Assoc. astronomy professor named new director of Echols Scholars Program - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

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Members of a Bienen orchestra perform A Shout Across Time in Nichols Concert Hall on Monday. The event merged science and music with the goal of exciting people about astronomy.

Colin Boyle/Daily Senior Staffer

Colin Boyle/Daily Senior Staffer

Members of a Bienen orchestra perform A Shout Across Time in Nichols Concert Hall on Monday. The event merged science and music with the goal of exciting people about astronomy.

Ava Polzin, Reporter May 16, 2017

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Second-year graduate student Kyle Kremer (Bienen, Weinberg 12) said he finds all the inspiration he needs in the sky.

Kremer helped bring his inspiration to an audience of more than 100 people to combine music and astronomy in a multimedia performance called A Shout Across Time at Nichols Concert Hall on Monday.

The event was part of Kremers Cosmos in Concert initiative, which aims to educate and excite the public about astronomy through live classical music and public outreach events.

Kremer said a large part of his motivation comes from the reactions he sees from community members. Wonder is inherent to his science, he said.

Were lucky as astronomers, Kremer said. Its one of the most awe-inspiring of all the sciences, so people already love it. Its not very hard to get people excited.

At the event, Bienen students performed two works: Eclipse and the title piece A Shout Across Time. Each arrangement celebrated a different event in modern astronomy, Kremer said.

Eclipse, arranged by Kremer and performed by Bienen quintet Lake Shore Brass, honors the upcoming solar eclipse on Aug. 21, he said. The piece was broken into themes covering the sun, moon and Earth. Kremer encouraged the audience to observe the eclipse because a total solar eclipse of this breadth has not been seen since 1918.

Evanston resident Lynn Clark said she left the performance wanting more. She particularly enjoyed the vivid imagery and how it related to the music to make a unified work of art, she said.

This was fantastic, Clark said. I just never expected to have such a holistic experience; it was wonderful There need to be more performances.

A Shout Across Time was intended as a celebration of Albert Einstein to commemorate the centennial of his theory of general relativity, which was confirmed last year with the detection of gravitational waves. The piece was composed by Ira Mowitz and originally performed at Montana State University.

The performance traced the universe, or the beautiful mystery that inspired Einstein, to the discovery of gravitational waves caused by the merging of black holes.

Toward the end of A Shout Across Time, the audience heard a simulated black hole collision. Evanston resident Bob Lounsbury said he enjoyed the opportunity to hear this particular effect.

I was trying to listen a few months ago to the sound of the black holes colliding, and now I have a better sense of what was going on, he said. I probably need to see this several more times to really get it, though.

Communication junior Noah LaPook, a Dearborn Observatory host and artist, said he feels inspired by the intersection of science and art.

LaPook said he liked that the performance reinforced the message that there is music in the universe.

Theres something in thinking about the universe that is so baffling that there often arent the words, LaPook said. The music made me feel something that I cant verbalize when I look at the sky.

Email: avapolzin2018@u.northwestern.edu Twitter: @avapolzin

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Music, astronomy collide at multimedia Bienen performance - The Daily Northwestern

If youve ever wanted to find supernovae, nows your chance. The Australian National University (ANU) is inviting citizen scientists to join the search for the bright, exploding stars.

Supernovae are the bright explosions that mark the end of a stars life and can shine brighter than entire galaxies. They are incredibly useful for researchers who use the bright light from the explosion as a form of measurement.

Using exploding stars as markers all across the universe, we can measure how the universe is growing and what its doing, ANU astrophysicist and co-lead researcher Dr. Brad Tucker said in a press release. We can then use that information to better understand dark energy, the cause of the universes acceleration.

To get involved with the study, all any interested citizen scientist has to do is search images from the SkyMapper telescope, a 1.3-meter telescope at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory, on a website called Zooniverse.org and mark any differences they see in the images. From there, the researchers will check over the marked images and see what they found.

Dr. Tucker said the team is studying an overwhelmingly large amount of sky, so the help would achieve things that would take scientists working alone years to do.

The volunteer help isnt without glory, though. Co-lead researcher Dr. Anais Mller from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics said, The first people who identify an object that turns out to be a supernova will be publicly recognised as co-discoverers.

Dr. Tucker said the team plans to use this information to gather measurements of the universe as well as have a better understanding of supernovae.

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Citizen scientists are invited to help find supernovae - Astronomy Magazine