Category Archives: Astronomy

By Daniel Stolte, University Communications

Thursday

NASA is preparing to launch its most ambitious astronomical observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, to an outpost four times farther away from the Earth than the moon. With their respective research teams, Marcia and George Rieke, both Regents Professors in the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory, have been instrumental in developing technology that will enable the telescope to peer deeper back in time and space than any instrument before it.

The husband-and-wife research team also helped the field of infrared astronomy, once a niche endeavor fraught with extreme technical challenges, flourish into a powerful discipline that has allowed us to see the universe in ways that were deemed impossible 50 years ago.

Ahead of the launch, now planned for no earlier than Dec. 24, Lo Que Pasa spoke with the Riekes about what they hope to see with Webb, and how they became first involved with studying the cosmos and with each other.

George:When NASA built Spitzer (a previous generation space telescope), I remember being ushered into a clean room and there were the three instruments, including mine, all mounted on the cryostat (the device that keeps the telescope cool enough for operation). And I said a little prayer to myself: "Please never let me see these again." Because, obviously, I thought if I saw them again, it meant there was a big problem.

Marcia: I'm excited to get off the ground, then I'm excited to have the solar array deploy half an hour later, and I'm excited to have midcourse correction. All those steps, I'm excited about seeing every one of them go by.

George:I'm excited for our teams of young researchers who are counting on JWST data to further their careers. They have spent years working with us to make this happen, and this is a big deal for them, especially after all these delays the project experienced, which can be demoralizing.

George:We do not really understand the origin of quasars and active galactic nuclei, because some of them may be so hidden in dust that they just can't be found with current observatories. But they cannot hide from MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument that George Rieke's group helped develop).

Marcia: I've always wanted to find the most distant galaxies and trace how galaxies changed from that epoch all the way down to the current times. My other goal is to look at the atmospheres of exoplanets and understand their composition.

George: JWST will only look a little bit further than we alreadyhave with Hubble BUT it will look much closer to the Big Bang. So, if you're counting from the Big Bang, it's going to get twice as close, rather than 5% further back than we have looked, and that is a very important distinction.

Marcia: On my optimistic days, I hope that we can see back to only 200 million years after the Big Bang.

Marcia:That's the $95 question.

George:No, that's the $10 billion question!

Marcia: We don't know.

George: As far back as we've been able to look, everything still looks pretty darn familiar. There are galaxies, there are stars and, yes, compared to modern galaxies, these early galaxies have slightly different shapes. They're a little smaller, but all that is kind of "so what." By getting twice as close to the Big Bang, we're really pushing back to the time when things SHOULD look different. But we don't know HOW they're different. Who knows what we'll find.

Marcia: My first job out of graduate school was here at the university. I was working with George as a postdoc, and I've not ever left. He was assistant professor at the time I showed up. When I was doing my thesis research, George arranged for the telescope and detector package that I used and he helped me figure out how to use it, so he was quite important for getting my thesis done.

George:I was offered a job here at the university, and I took it because I thought that it would broaden my science if I got into this new field. Just to show you how simple things were in those days compared to today: I went observing with a postdoc who worked for Frank Low (late Regents Professor Emeritus who helped establish modern infrared astronomy) at the time. After spending three nights observing with him, I went to the same telescope to start my own observations, and Frank drew a little diagram of how to find the telescope and he wished me luck. He did not come along to check things out. It was that simple. I could take the instrument, a very crude instrument detecting infrared light at 10 microns, to the telescope, mount it, get it going and get data. And when he says "simple," think of a single pixel that measures how bright a circular spot on the sky is. Now that's OK if you're measuring something that's a simple point source, like a single star. But if you want to map something so that you can make it look like a photo, you have to measure a spot, move the telescope, measure another spot, move the telescope and so on. It's very tedious way to make a photo.

Marcia: Because astronomers are skeptical of other wavelengths.

George: I'm going to put it more succinctly: Nobody liked us.

Marcia:Part of it was that most of the people who started out doing infrared astronomy were actually not astronomers. They were physicists like us. We speak a different language. In one of the early papers that we published together, we used a strange unit of energy, the "watt." (Laughing) Astronomers weren't used to that.

George:Science works by paradigms; there's a structure of thinking. Scientists have learned to be very suspicious of anything outside their paradigm, and so, when there's a totally new initiative, like infrared astronomy, the optical astronomers were automatically suspicious that there's something wrong with this.

Marcia: (Laughing) Well, the perks are that we get to go on trips together.

George:We have a lot to talk about on business, we have less to talk about on other things so, you know, in some sense it's a little limiting. But in another sense, it is very expansive because we can talk in depth about the things we're both working on.

Marcia: We read each other's papers and grant proposals, we tend to share a lot, we run ideas past each other and so on.

Marcia: I will say, "You forgot that this fact is XYZ," and he'll say, 'Oh, but you're misinterpreting THAT fact.' (Both laugh.)

Marcia: I hope that we'll be in the big lecture hall at Steward Observatory, and that we'll have our teams there and watch on the big screen. Since the launch is at 5:20 in the morning, I suspect we'll do the celebrating a bit later. We're going to have such a collective sigh of relief when we see that rocket go up.

George: We're having an argument about that. I think we should bring Champagne, but Marcia thinks it's too early to drink. (Both laugh.)

This interview originally appeared on the UA@Work website: https://uaatwork.arizona.edu/lqp/meet-riekes-husband-and-wife-team-helped-get-infrared-astronomy-ground

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Meet the Husband-and-Wife Team that Helped Get Infrared Astronomy off the Ground - UANews

Every 10 years, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine issues a report that helps set the research priorities for the astronomy and astrophysics communities for the next decade.

Bruce Macintosh (Image credit: Courtesy Stanford Department of Physics)

The seventh and latest Decadal Survey, published earlier this fall, recommended a number of new and ambitious ground- and space-based observatories and missions for discovering extrasolar planets planets beyond our solar system resembling Earth; studying colliding black holes and other cosmic cataclysms; and understanding the origin and evolution of galaxies. It also outlined new initiatives to help make sure the tools and technologies critical to these missions are developed on time and on budget. And in a departure from past Decadal Surveys, this latest report also focused on broader issues affecting the astronomy and astrophysics communities, including the diversity and mental health of their practitioners and their relationship to society at large.

Stanford astronomer Bruce Macintosh was a member of the National Academies committee that issued the 614-page report, titled Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s.

Macintosh, whose research focuses on directly imaging extrasolar planets, spoke to Stanford News about the reports conclusions and recommendations.

The Decadal Survey recommends that NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) construct several new space- and ground-based observatories, respectively. How will the observatories differ from one another, and what will they be studying?

On the ground, there are three big recommendations to NSF. The highest priority is a federal role in one or two Extremely Large Telescope project collaborations about 25 percent in each the Giant Magellan Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope. These are general-purpose facilities that can do almost any kind of astrophysics, from mapping nearby asteroids to the first galaxies billions of light years away, as well as study exoplanets.

The longest-term recommendation is the Next Generation Very Large Array (NGVLA). The current VLA is a network of radio telescope dishes in New Mexico that combine to form a single telescope 20 miles across we call this a radio interferometer. The NGVLA would replace this with a new array that would cover most of the continental U.S., taking advantage of modern computing to combine this into a single telescope thousands of miles across. It would also do a lot of different science missions.

The third ground recommendation, which is joint to NSF and the Department of Energy, is to build a more specialized array of radio telescopes to look at the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) the radiation left over from the Big Bang. Importantly, the Decadal didnt recommend it just for cosmology and the early universe the telescope will be surveying the whole sky and will be able to see clusters of galaxies, stellar explosions, etc., and the project has to make the data available to everyone.

In space, the biggest recommendation is a big optical/infrared/ultraviolet telescope optimized for studying Earth-like planets, and the Great Observatories program more on that below. While those are developing, there will be a regular program for a new kind of mission called a Probe. About the cost of the [$690 million] Stanford-led Fermi spacecraft, these are powerful but specialized missions; teams will compete to see who gets to lead which mission. The two Probe missions proposed so far are a far-infrared telescope that could study dust in early galaxies or trace water as planets are forming, or an X-ray telescope with incredibly precise optics to make ultra-sharp images of things like black holes.

According to the survey, exoplanets should be a major research focus for the field in the coming decade. Why is that? And what do astronomers want to learn about planets beyond our solar system?

Exoplanets are a focus because theyre awesome

A Q&A with astronomer Bruce Macintosh on what people should understand about exoplanets planets outside our solar system and what exoplanet research means for life on Earth.

But more seriously, were in a position to make some really transformative discoveries. In the past decade weve been studying exoplanets but mostly by counting them figuring out how many planets of different sizes exist. We have no idea what many of them are really like.

Now were starting to study them in detail and measure their atmospheres. With the telescopes we have right now, we can do that for giant planets (Neptune- or Jupiter-sized) that are either very close to their star or very far away.

In the next decade, well measure the spectra, or light, of new kinds of planets. Even the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launching later this month will still be limited to planets close to their stars closer than Mercury is to our sun but sensitive enough to measure the atmospheres of Earth-sized planets. Most will be superheated, but some, orbiting close to the smallest and coldest stars, could have Earth-like conditions such as liquid water on their surface. The Extremely Large Telescopes will play a role too, probing planets like our own gas giants, and helping put together a comprehensive picture of how planets form and evolve and maybe approach conditions for life.

What other research priorities did the committee suggest the astronomy and astrophysics community focus on in the coming decade?

Other than stars and planets, the committee identified two additional major research themes and priority areas within them. For thousands of years astronomers have studied the universe with light whether thats visible light or X-ray light or radio light. But the universe throws a lot of other things at us cosmic rays, neutrinos and the ripples in space we call gravitational waves. These new messengers come from energetic and exotic physics. New messenger projects will focus on the dynamic universe, which I mostly consider to be things that blow up exploding stars, black holes crashing into each other.

The third theme is cosmic ecosystems. The universe is made out of three kinds of things. The moderately mysterious one is dark matter something invisible and intangible that still contributes most of the mass and gravity in the universe. The most mysterious is dark energy, the force accelerating the universe apart. The third is ordinary matter gas and dust and stars.

Although ordinary matter seems the least mysterious, in some ways its the hardest to model with our computers, because matter can interact with itself in so many ways. The priority focus within this theme is the growth of galaxies. Thanks to people like Risa Weschler, were beginning to understand how dark matter condenses to form the gravitational well of galaxies. The facilities of the 2020s map dark matter by seeing the light of stars under its influence. New facilities will study the gas and dust and the feedback that comes from gravitational wells gas turning into stars that then explode and blow the gas right out of the galaxy and the details of how galaxies form and make stars and planets.

The committee recommends that NASA establish a new initiative, called the Great Observatories Mission and Technology Maturation Program (GOMTMP), that would represent a fundamental shift in how NASA plans and develops large astronomy projects. What are some key aspects of this initiative?

Big space-based telescopes are extremely expensive ranging from $3 billion for the Chandra X-ray Observatory to $10 billion for Hubble and JWST. These are scientifically amazing but have also had complicated track records. For example, the cost of JWST has grown enormously since a previous Decadal recommended it.

The GOMTMP is supposed to reduce the uncertainty. Before a new space mission would truly start, NASA would make a major investment in developing the technology and the mission design early, so that when a mission is finally approved to start, NASA and scientists and Congress would have an accurate estimate of what it costs and know whether or not its feasible.

What role do you see Stanford playing in the projects outlined in the survey?

Stanford is in a good position to be involved in many of these initiatives. The current fourth-generation ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment, or CMB S4, grows out of previous CMB projects that we are leaders in, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford will be a major part of the collaboration. Stanford scientists and engineers have been working on the detectors for the next-generation X-ray telescopes, and the Probe mission concept provides a good way for universities and national labs to join and compete to help lead these missions. Our exoplanet scientists will likely be part of the process that defines the LuvEx mission [a new infrared/optical/UV telescope proposed in the Decadal].

This Decadal also focused on broad issues such as increasing diversity and inclusion in the profession and maintaining the mental health of its practitioners. Can you talk more about that?

A new thing this survey includes is a careful, thoughtful look at the state of our profession and its relationship to society. Astronomy is amazing and exciting. But we also need to make sure its humane and just, that we treat people in it well, that we reflect the population of the nation, and that we respect the people whose mountains we build telescopes on. A whole chapter and appendix of the report are devoted to this discussing the profession, ways in which we are improving, while acknowledging our failures on diversity, harassment and our complicated history, and continuing the (long) process of remedying these failings.

KIPAC and Stanford astrophysics have been leaders in improving equity and inclusion in the profession of astrophysics, and the voices of people like me and Risa will be important to advancing the improvements the survey recommended.

What must happen now for any of these proposed projects to become a reality?

First, we need to do a lot of engineering and management and design proving these projects are feasible and getting the best estimate as to how much they cost.

Then, building them will require real national will these are grand projects. Congress has to approve them. For that, astronomers and the public have to make it clear that these really are priorities that answering fundamental questions about the universe is something that we want to do as a nation.

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Astronomy's newest 10-year plan focuses on alien Earths | Stanford News - Stanford University News

Theres something truly captivating about looking up at the night sky and pondering the nature of the stars above us. While that may sound overly lyrical or philosophical, humanity has been studying the stars for millennia now, and questions about our place in the universe and even the solar system have come to the forefront with newer and better technology.

While cosmology (and astrophysics) is certainly interesting, theres no reason why you cant also take part in a couple of interesting hobbies related to the stars: Astronomy and Astrophotography. In fact, San Francisco has some great places to do a bit of both, and after a little shopping there's no reason you can't start partaking in this fun and fulfilling hobby.

Before starting out, theres a couple of tips you should keep in mind.

First, light pollution is the enemy of astronomy because it drowns out the light coming from the stars. Thats why using a light pollution map is going to come in handy for figuring out where exactly to do your thing.

Second, astronomy doesnt have to be expensive and as youll see later, there are some good starter telescope kits to help you get going for only a coupled hundred dollars. Even without a telescope, you can pick up a really good book on astronomy for beginners, Nightwatch, and just go out and look at the stars.

Finally, and this more of a general tip: It can get chilly at night, especially in places where there isnt much light pollution, so be sure to take warm clothing, water, food, and a first aid kit, since you might be far away from civilization for a while.

Now when it comes to actual astronomy and astrophotography probably one of the best places in SF to do some star gazing is Strawberry Hill in Golden Gate Park. Not only is it quiet and secluded, but its also not that well known, especially by tourists, so you arent likely to get crowded out. Its also remote enough to cut down on the light pollution which makes it easier to see the stars.

Lands End is also another great point, especially on clear nights theres an amazing view of the sky. Actually, the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers host star parties near the USS San Francisco Memorial you can catch as well.

Moving on to the East Bay, probably one of the best spots is the Sibley Volcanic National Reserve, as its well protected from light pollution by the hills. That being said, arguably the best spot of all is Mount Diablo. Its a bit of a drive but it cuts out a ton of light pollution, and in the summer, you get an awesome view of the Milky Way.

Then, over on the South Bay, there are a few observatories that might be worth checking out, but if you want to rough it on your own, the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve is where you want to go. I mean, the name is even in the title! Youll find some great sky views there with limited to no light pollution, which is great.

Finally, the Noth Bay has two great spots: Mt. Tamalpais and Muir Beach Overlook. Theyre both popular spots in both the daytime and the nighttime, so you might find others out there doing some stargazing as well, which is great if you want to connect (and not so much if youre a lone-wolf introvert like me!).

Right, now that you know there where lets look at the how, at least in terms of equipment.

First things first youll need some form of telescope, and the Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ is an excellent starter kit. It comes with the telescope (of course), an equatorial mount, which is fancy speak for a tripod that adjusts for the earths rotation, as well as a couple of eyepieces and three lenses. If youre willing to fork over a little more cash, the Celestron AstroMaster 102AZ is a fancier choice with a more powerful telescope, and a slightly better mount and set of lenses.

AstroMaster 102AZ Refractor Telescope

Celestron

amazon.com

$435.99

If youre going to do astrophotography, thats a bit more complicated... and expensive. For example, youll need to use a motorized mount since taking pictures of the stars require long exposure shots. A couple of options are the Orion AstroView EQ Mount which is a good budget option, or the Celestron Advanced VX Computerized Mount, which is expensive, but probably one of the best-in-class.

Celestron Advanced VX Computerized Mount 91519

Celestron

amazon.com

$2598.98

Youll also want a good auto-guider that connects to the mount and helps it keep a fixed point in the moving sky. The Orion StarShoot AutoGuider is what you need, although it is expensive. Just be aware you dont necessarily need an auto-guider, it just makes life much easier.

Orion 52064 StarShoot AutoGuider

Orion

amazon.com

$299.99

Then of course theres a camera adaptor for the telescope. The SVBONY Telescope Camera Adapter and/or the SVBONY T2 T Ring Adapter should cover most camera and telescope pairings, although always make sure to double-check the threading on the adaptor to see that it fits both.

Ring Adapter and T Adapter

SVBONY

amazon.com

$13.99

Id also recommend getting light pollution filters, especially if youre near the city. The SVBONY Telescope Filter should work for most telescopes and the SVBONY Camera Filter should work for most cameras. Speaking of light pollution, youll want to use a red light, rather than a traditional white light, since white light will overwhelm the light receptors in your eye and make it harder to see at night.

SVBONY Telescope Filter

SVBONY

amazon.com

$72.99

Finally, theres a bunch of software that will come in handy when working with astrophotography. For example, the Astro Photography Tool is great for controlling your camera, whereas the Cartes du Ciel and Stellarium pieces of software will help with mount control. Also, since astrophotography requires a bit of image processing, youll probably need the Deep SkyStacker app, or if youre willing to pay, Images Plus, which is a bit fancier and has more functions.

Id like to end this piece by giving you a few cool local resources to check out, especially if youre really interested in getting deeper into astronomy.

For starters, theres the Astronomical Association of Northern California, the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers (SFAA), and The Astronomy Connection (TAC). All of these are great amateur associations that cater to astronomy enthusiasts.

Theres also the Chabot Observatory and the Foothill College Observatory, both are great for shows, exhibits, classes and facility rentals. On the other hand, if youre looking for something to mix both entertainment and academics, theres the Fujitsu Planetarium and the Morrison Planetarium. They have everything from light shows to lectures, and are great if you want to get your kids into astronomy.

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How to get into astronomy and astrophotography in the Bay Area - SFGate

What do astronomers eat for breakfast on the day that their $10 billion telescope launches into space? Their fingernails.

You work for years and it all goes up in a puff of smoke, said Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona.

Dr. Rieke admits her fingers will be crossed on the morning of Dec. 24 when she tunes in for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. For 20 years, she has been working to design and build an ultrasensitive infrared camera that will live aboard the spacecraft. The Webb is the vaunted bigger and more powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers expect that it will pierce a dark curtain of ignorance and supposition about the early days of the universe, and allow them to snoop on nearby exoplanets.

After $10 billion and years of delays, the telescope is finally scheduled to lift off from a European launch site in French Guiana on its way to a point a million miles on the other side of the moon. (Late on Tuesday, NASA delayed the launch at least two days).

An informal and totally unscientific survey of randomly chosen astronomers revealed a community sitting on the edges of their seats feeling nervous, proud and grateful for the team that has developed, built and tested the new telescope over the last quarter-century.

I will almost certainly watch the launch and be terrified the entire time, said Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a professor of physics and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire.

And there is plenty to be anxious about. The Ariane 5 rocket that is carrying the spacecraft has seldom failed to deliver its payloads to orbit. But even if it survives the launch, the telescope will have a long way to go.

Over the following month it will have to execute a series of maneuvers with 344 single points of failure in order to unfurl its big golden mirror and deploy five thin layers of a giant plastic sunscreen that will keep the telescope and its instruments in the cold and dark. Engineers and astronomers call this interval six months of high anxiety because there is no prospect of any human or robotic intervention or rescue should something go wrong.

But if all those steps succeed, what astronomers see through that telescope could change everything. They hope to spot the first stars and galaxies emerging from the primordial fog when the universe was only 100 million years or so old, in short the first steps out of the big bang toward the cozy light show we inhabit today.

The entire astronomy community, given the broad range of anticipated science returns and discovery potential, has skin in the game with the telescope, said Priyamvada Natarajan, an astrophysicist at Yale. We are all intellectually and emotionally invested.

But the telescope has been snake bitten during its long development with cost overruns and expensive accidents that have added to the normal apprehension of rocket launches.

Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the Kavli Foundation in Los Angeles and past president of the American Physical Society, described the combination of excitement and terror, he expected to feel during the launch.

The next decade of astronomy and astrophysics is predicated on J.W. being successful, Dr. Turner said, referring to the James Webb Space Telescope, and U.S. prestige and leadership in space and science are also on the line. That is a heavy burden to carry, but we know how to do great things.

That opinion was echoed by Martin Rees of Cambridge University and the Astronomer Royal for the British royal households.

Any failure of JWST would be disastrous for NASA, he wrote in an email. But if the failure involves a mechanical procedure unfurling a blind, or unfolding the pieces of the mirror this will be a mega-catastrophic and embarrassing P.R. disaster. Thats because it would involve a failure of something seemingly simple that everyone can understand.

Dr. Natarajan, who will use the Webb to search for the origins of supermassive black holes, said, I am trying to be Zen and not imagine disastrous outcomes.

But in describing the stakes, she compared the telescope to other milestones of human history.

Remarkable enduring achievements of human hand and mind, be it the temples of Mahabalipuram, the pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall or the Sistine Chapel have all taken time and expense, she said. I truly see JWST as one such monument of our times.

Alan Dressler of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, who was chair of a committee 25 years ago that led to the Webb project, responded with his own question when asked how nervous he was.

When you know someone is about to have critical surgery, would you sit around and have a conversation about what if it fails? he wrote. He added that his colleagues know there is no certainty here, and it does no good for any of us to ruminate about it.

Another astronomer who has been involved with this project from the beginning, Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in an email that he was optimistic about the launch despite his reputation of being a glass is half empty kind of guy.

The deployments are complex but my view is that all that is humanly possible has been done! he wrote. He said that even if there were surprises in the telescopes deployment, he did not expect these to be either major or mission terminating not at all.

Other respondents to my survey also took refuge from their nervousness in the skill and dedication of their colleagues.

Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles, who won the Nobel Prize in 2020 for her observations of the black hole in the center of our galaxy, said she kept herself sane by trusting that really smart people have worked really hard to get things right.

That thought was seconded by Tod Lauer, an astronomer at NOIRLab in Tucson, Ariz., who was in the thick of it when the Hubble Space Telescope was launched and found to have a misshapen mirror, which required repair visits by astronauts on the now-retired space shuttles. He said his feelings regarding the upcoming launch were all about the engineers and technicians who built the Webb telescope.

You very quickly respect the team nature of doing anything in space, and your dependence on scientists and engineers that you may never even know to get it all right, he said. Nobody wants it to fail, and I have yet to meet anyone in this who didnt take their part seriously.

He added that astronomers had to trust their colleagues in rocket and spacecraft engineering to get it right.

Someone who knows how to fly a $10 billion spacecraft on a precision trajectory is not going to be impressed by an astronomer, who never took an engineering course in his life, cowering behind his laptop watching the launch, Dr. Lauer said. You feel admiration and empathy for those people, and try to act worthy of the incredible gift that they are bringing to world.

And if anything does go wrong, some astronomers said they would keep in perspective that its only hardware, not people, at stake.

Should anything bad happen, I will be heartbroken, Dr. Prescod-Weinstein said. I am glad that at least human lives arent on the line.

There was also a lot to look forward to if everything works as intended, said Dr. Rieke, who worked on the telescopes infrared imaging device.

When the camera turns on well have another party, she said.

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James Webb Space Telescope Launch Is Making Astronomers Very Anxious - The New York Times

Astronomers have captured the deepest and sharpest images of the Milky Way's center ever, enabling scientists to estimate the mass of the giant black hole at our galaxy's heart with unmatched precision.

The Milky Way observations, made with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, also revealed a previously unknown star orbiting close to our galaxy's mysterious central black hole, called Sagittarius A*.

The Very Large Telescope is one of the world's most advanced optical space observatories. Consisting of four main telescopes, each 27 feet in diameter (8.2 meters), and four auxiliary telescopes, 6 feet in diameter (1.8 m), the observatory can detect stellar objects four billion times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye.

A technique called interferometry enables astronomers to combine the light coming through the four main telescopes into a single image. Astronomers have been using interferometry for years, but its latest iteration provides a jaw-dropping 20-fold improvement in sharpness and detail compared to the images obtained by the individual telescopes, researchers said.

Related: Milky Way's galactic core overflows with colorful threads in new panorama

"The VLTI gives us this incredible spatial resolution and with the new images we reach deeper than ever before," Julia Stadler, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, who led the imaging campaign, said in a statement. "We are stunned by their amount of detail, and by the action and number of stars they reveal around the black hole."

Since the black hole in the Milky Way's center emits no light, it cannot be directly observed. Astronomers can only learn about its properties by studying the motions of the stars in its vicinity.

"Following stars on close orbits around Sagittarius A* allows us to precisely probe the gravitational field around the closest massive black hole to Earth, to test general relativity, and to determine the properties of the black hole," Reinhard Genzel, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 for his decades-long research of Sagittarius A*, said in the statement. Genzel is also a co-author of the new study.

The measurements, conducted between March and July 2021, revealed that Sagittarius A* has a mass of 4.3 million suns and sits at a distance of 27,000 light-years from Earth. Both of these figures are the most precise estimates of their kind to date.

During the campaign, the astronomers observed the star S29, the closest known star to Sagittarius A*, zooming by the black hole at a distance of just 8 billion miles (13 billion kilometers). That is only about 90 times the distance from Earth to the sun. During this close pass, the star travelled at a record-breaking speed of 5,430 miles per second (8,740 kilometers per second).

But the observations also discovered a completely new star in this dense region close to the galaxy's heart. Named S300, the star's discovery is a promising development for further research into this intriguing part of the galactic system.

The research is part of an international project called GRAVITY, which is developing new techniques for analyzing images of the Milky Way's galactic center with the goal of mapping the surroundings of Sagittarius A* in the greatest possible detail. The astronomers hope that in the future, they will be able to detect stars much fainter than S29 and S300 and orbiting even closer to the black hole. The orbits of these close stars may reveal information about the black hole's rotation. The astronomers hope to make major leaps after the completion of ESO's Extremely Large Telescope, which will become the world's largest optical space observatory when it comes online in about 2025.

"With GRAVITY and the ELT's powers combined, we will be able to find out how fast the black hole spins," Frank Eisenhauer, an astronomer at MPE and principal investigator of the GRAVITY project, said in the statement. "Nobody has been able to do that so far."

The new research is described in two papers published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on Tuesday (Dec. 14).

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Astronomers peer deeper into Milky Way's heart than ever before with new telescope images - Space.com

ByHub staff report

Legendary investor and philanthropist William H. "Bill" Miller III has made a lead gift of $50 million in a combined $75 million philanthropic effort to support Johns Hopkins University's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Miller's $50 million commitment will fund endowed professorships, postdoctoral fellowships, and graduate research, and will provide ongoing support for research infrastructure. His gift also served as the impetus for two anonymous donors to support the department as well, expanding to $75 million the funding to advance key areas of physics research.

Image caption: William H. "Bill" Miller III

The gift will propel one of the nation's most storied departments of physics to new heightsexpanding research into emerging subfields of study and attracting promising young researchers, Johns Hopkins University President Ron Daniels said.

"The support Bill Miller has shown Johns Hopkins is historic," Daniels said. "Four years ago, Mr. Miller committed what is believed to be the largest ever gift to a university philosophy program, and now he has made an equally impressive gift to the study of physics and astronomy. We are endlessly grateful for his generosity that is driving our scholars to explore everything from the human condition to our understanding of the universe and our place in it. A philanthropic investment of this magnitude will be a standard-bearer for how a robust physics and astronomy department can broaden its research, engage in collaborative exploration, and advance to the front lines of emerging areas."

Said Miller: "Physics seeks to understand reality at its most fundamental level. It is the bedrock on which the other sciences rest. I am delighted to be able to make a gift to Johns Hopkins physics that will enable it to add new resources and continue to build on its distinguished history."

At the center of Miller's gift is funding for young scientists. Support for these future leaders in physics and astronomy includes the creation of 10 prize postdoctoral fellowships and 10 endowed graduate research fellowships. The gift will also support the establishment of three endowed professorships, a cohort of senior and junior level faculty lines, and funding for research infrastructure such as laboratory equipment and instrumentation. In all, this new philanthropic support will enable the department to grow from its current 33 faculty to 46 over the next five years.

"The visionary research currently underway in our physics and astronomy department will be enhanced by this gift in vital ways that could potentially change our view of the universe," said Chris Celenza, dean of the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, of which the Department of Physics and Astronomy is a part. "Mr. Miller's extraordinary gift will enrich the scholarly and collaborative pursuits of our faculty and students for decades to come."

The Department of Physics and Astronomy has a notable history dating back to 1876, when it became the first physics department in the United States dedicated to research. One of the most significant events in the department's modern history occurred in 1981, when NASA chose Johns Hopkins as the site for the Space Telescope Science Institute. This decision transformed Johns Hopkins into one of the nation's premier centers for astronomy and also raised the profile of the physics department, which embraced a name change in 1984 to the Department of Physics and Astronomy. In 1991, the department moved into its current space, the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy, complete with a rooftop observatory dome that is home to the Morris W. Offit Telescope. The department has attracted numerous remarkable faculty members, including two Nobel laureates and recipients of prestigious global awards such as the Gruber Cosmology Prize, the Simons Investigator Award, and a McArthur Fellowship.

Today, the department's expertise is distributed in three primary areas: astronomy, condensed matter physics, and particle physics. Its experimental and theoretical faculty members are renowned for their work in areas such as astrophysics, cosmology, big data, quantum materials, extra-galactic astronomy, particle-theory model building, and dark matter detection.

"Because of Mr. Miller's gift, Johns Hopkins will be an even more enticing place for young physics students and scholars to learn from our preeminent physicists," said Timothy Heckman, professor and department chair. "Our faculty, in turn, will have the privilege of preparing the next generation of brilliant physicists. Such a financial venture will have an astounding impact on discovery that could potentially reveal new truths about some of the deep mysteries of the universe and how we live in it."

In recognition of Miller's gift, the department will be renamed the William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy. The department currently carries an honorific naming in recognition of the department's first chair, Henry A. Rowland, who was known as one of the most significant physicists of the 19th century for his work in electricity, heat, and astronomical spectroscopy. The department chair's position will now be named for Dr. Rowland, and the university will seek additional opportunities to honor his legacy.

Michael Turner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, said a gift of this scale will enhance the study of physics on a broad level.

"Astronomy and physics faculty at Johns Hopkins have been making breakthroughs that reveal our place in the universe, from the discovery of dark energy to mapping the universe today and at 380,000 years after the beginning. This extraordinary gift will enable them to continue to make the really big discoveries that only happen when you have the financial freedom to pursue edgy research. The support earmarked for young scientists is a crucial investment in the future of American leadership in science, and I can't think of a better place to be a postdoc or graduate student than Hopkinsby the way, is there an age cutoff for Miller Fellows?"

Miller is the founder and chairman of Miller Value Partners and formerly the longtime manager of the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust. Miller serves on the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees. He majored in economics and European History at Washington and Lee University, graduating with honors in 1972. He later served as a military intelligence officer overseas and studied philosophy at Johns Hopkins before turning to his career in investments. In 2018, he made a $75 million gift to Johns Hopkins' Department of Philosophy, believed to be by far the largest gift ever to a university philosophy program.

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Investor Bill Miller gives $50M to Johns Hopkins Department of Physics and Astronomy - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

There are places in the Universe where the laws of physics are pushed to their limits where temperatures, densities, energy, motion, and gravity are so extreme they read like an astrophysicists fever dream and sound like a science fiction plot device to everyone else.

But then, binary pulsars do actually exist.

And one particular pair of these compact bizarre objects found just a few years ago has proven to be a cosmic playground for a team of astronomers. Theyve made observations so precise theyve been able to tease out details of how the binary warps the very fabric of space itself, putting Einsteins Theory of Relativity to one of its most stringent tests ever undertaken.

Surprise: It passes, even while a couple of contender theories do not.

OK, backing up a bit: Pulsars are neutron stars, the ridiculously dense cores of massive stars after they go supernova. The outer layers of a massive star explode away, but the core collapses, compressed down from an object as big as the Sun to something literally a couple of dozen kilometers across.

These objects can be more massive than the Sun, but theyre so small their density skyrockets. A single cubic centimeter of neutron star material the size of a six-sided die can weigh 100 million tons. So yeah: dense.

When first formed, they spin rapidly and can have extremely powerful magnetic fields. Any material nearby is swept up into these fields, accelerated by them and the mind-crushingly strong gravity of the neutron star itself, and channeled down to the magnetic poles on the stars surface. The material slams into it at a respectable fraction of the speed of light, generating huge amounts of energy, focused into beams like a lighthouse. As the stars spin, these beams sweep across space, and we see them from Earth as blips of light, pulses with fantastically regular periodicity. Hence pulsars.

In 2003 astronomers discovered a pair of pulsars orbiting each other. Dubbed PSR J07373039A/B, the binary is located about 2,400 light years away in the constellation of Puppis. They orbit each other in a near-circle about 430,000 kilometers apart a little bit more than the distance of the Moon from the Earth but their over-the-top fierce gravity slings each around at a staggering 1 million kilometers per hour, completing a single orbit every 2.45 hours.

One of the two stars (pulsar A) spins once every 23 milliseconds over 40 times per second! making it what we call a millisecond pulsar, and the other (pulsar B) spins once every 2.8 seconds. Both have a mass a little over the Suns.

Put all this together and you have a phenomenal laboratory to test relativity.

A team of astronomers has used seven different radio astronomy observatories to watch this system for over 16 years, timing with exquisite precision exactly when the pulses from the two stars reach Earth. There are some obvious effects that can affect when the pulses arrive; for example, if pulsar A is on the far side of its orbit, it takes longer for the pulses to reach us due to the added distance, while the pulses from B arrive before those of A.

But theres much, much more. General Relativity is a set of rules for how things behave in extreme environments of high velocity and/or intense gravity. One effect of this is time dilation: The closer you are to a source of gravity the slower your time flows relative to someone far away. The astronomers see this in the binary: When the pulses from pulsar A, say, pass by pulsar B on their way to Earth, time for them slows down, so theres a slight delay in when we receive them, called a Shapiro delay.

Another delay occurs because of the orbital motions of the two pulsars around each other. They move so rapidly that there is an effect called relativistic beaming, which changes the angle of the light emitted ever so slightly. This too, small an effect as it is, is seen in the pulsars signal.

One of my favorite relativistic effects is due to the way the gravity of the pulsars warps spacetime, bending it like a bowling ball sitting on a bed. As the pulsars move through each other's gravity, the orientation of their orbit changes, slowly turning in space. This effect was first seen in Mercurys orbit around the Sun, and in the early 20th century was hailed as strong evidence of the correctness of Einsteins Relativity theory. Its been seen many times since, including in a star that orbits our galaxys central black hole, and is seen in the binary pulsar as well.

Theres still so much more. As the stars spin, they drag spacetime around them like a ball spinning in honey. This is called frame dragging, or more formally the Lense-Thirring effect, and it also measurably changes the pulses received from the stars.

As the stars orbit each other they emit gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime, and this steals energy from them, shrinking their orbital size. That cant be seen directly, but as they get closer to each other they orbit more rapidly, and this changes the period of their orbit. That too has been seen in the data.

Several other subtle effects were detected as well. Clearly, this system provides some of the most stringent tests of relativity ever seen, and it passes them all.

Still, there are other theories of gravity, ones that hope to supersede relativity. We know that there are some behaviors that relativity doesnt cover, especially dealing with quantum mechanics, and so new ideas come along which potentially could modify it. These theories make predictions too, and the astronomers tested them against what they see in the binary pulsar system and find them wanting. While relativity covers their behavior extremely well, these other two ideas dont.

Thats fine! Not every idea works out, and we have to test them. Most fail. We know theres more out there than relativity and quantum theories, so we have to keep trying to figure out what it is, and we have to test these ideas against the actual Universe.

Thats what makes systems like J07373039A/B so important. They allow us to take the pulse of the Universe, so to speak, and use that information to not only develop new ideas but to test them rigorously.

Thats the point of science: To know better the truth. We dont want to fool ourselves; we want to know whats really going on out there. The rules of the Universe exist, and they are both subtle and gross. By studying the cosmos carefully, we can tease these rules out.

Continue reading here:

Binary pulsar puts Einstein to the test and he passes. Relatively speaking. - SYFY WIRE

image:A pair of stars at the start of a common envelope phase. In this artist's impression, we get a view from very close to a binary system in which two stars have just started to share the same atmosphere. The bigger star, a red giant star, has provided a huge, cool, atmosphere which only just holds together. The smaller star orbits ever faster round the stars' centre of mass, spinning on its own axis and interacting in dramatic fashion with its new surroundings. the interaction creates powerful jets that throw out gas from its poles, and a slower-moving ring of material at its equator. view more

Credit: Danielle Futselaar, artsource.nl

Unlike our Sun, most stars live with a companion. Sometimes, two come so close that one engulfs the other with far-reaching consequences. When a team of astronomers led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, used the telescope Alma to study 15 unusual stars, they were surprised to find that they all recently underwent this phase. The discovery promises new insight on the sky's most dramatic phenomena and on life, death and rebirth among the stars.

Using the gigantic telescope Alma in Chile, a team of scientists led by Chalmers University of Technology studied 15 unusual stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, the closest 5000 light years from Earth. Their measurements show that all the stars are double, and all have recently experienced a rare phase that is poorly understood, but is believed to lead to many other astronomical phenomena. Their results are published this week in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.

By directing the antennas of Alma towards each star and measuring light from different molecules close to each star, the researchers hoped to find clues to their backstories. Nicknamed water fountains, these stars were known to astronomers because of intense light from water molecules produced by unusually dense and fast-moving gas.

Located 5000 m above sea level in Chile, the Alma telescope is sensitive to light with wavelengths around one millimetre, invisible to human eyes, but ideal for looking through the Milky Ways layers of dusty interstellar clouds towards dust-enshrouded stars.

"We were extra curious about these stars because they seem to be blowing out quantities of dust and gas into space, some in the form of jets with speeds up to 1.8 million kilometres per hour. We thought we might find out clues to how the jets were being created, but instead we found much more than that", says Theo Khouri, first author of the new study.

Stars losing up to half their total mass

The scientists used the telescope to measure signatures of carbon monoxide molecules, CO, in the light from the stars, and compared signals from different atoms (isotopes) of carbon and oxygen. Unlike its sister molecule carbon dioxide, CO2, carbon monoxide is relatively easy to discover in space, and is a favourite tool for astronomers.

"Thanks to Alma's exquisite sensitivity, we were able to detect the very faint signals from several different molecules in the gas ejected by these stars. When we looked closely at the data, we saw details that we really weren't expecting to see", says Theo Khouri.

The observations confirmed that the stars were all blowing off their outer layers.But the proportions of the different oxygen atoms in the molecules indicated that the stars were in another respect not as extreme as they had seemed, explains team member Wouter Vlemmings, astronomer at Chalmers University of Technology.

"We realised that these stars started their lives with the same mass as the Sun, or only a few times more. Now our measurements showed that they have ejected up to 50% of their total mass, just in the last few hundred years. Something really dramatic must have happened to them", he says.

A short but intimate phase

Why were such small stars come losing so much mass so quickly? The evidence all pointed to one explanation, the scientists concluded. These were all double stars, and they had all just been through a phase in which the two stars shared the same atmosphere - one star entirely embraced by the other.

"In this phase, the two stars orbit together in a sort of cocoon. This phase, which we call a "common envelope phase, is really brief, and only lasts a few hundred years. In astronomical terms, its over in the blink of an eye", says team member Daniel Tafoya of Chalmers University of Technology.

Most stars in binary systems simply orbit around a common centre of mass. These stars, however, share the same atmosphere. It can be a life-changing experience for a star, and may even lead to the stars merging completely.

Scientists believe that this sort of intimate episode can lead to some of the sky's most spectacular phenomena. Understanding how it happens could help answer some of astronomers' biggest questions about how stars live and die, Theo Khouri explains.

"What happens to cause a supernova explosion? How do black holes get close enough to collide? What's makes the beautiful and symmetric objects we call planetary nebulae? Astronomers have suspected for many years that common envelopes are part of the answers to questions like these. Now we have a new way of studying this momentous but mysterious phase", he says.

Understanding the common envelope phase will also help scientists study what will happen in the very distant future, when the Sun too will become a bigger, cooler star - a red giant - and engulf the innermost planets.

Our research will help us understand how that might happen, but it gives me another, more hopeful perspective. When these stars embrace, they send dust and gas out into space that can become the ingredients for coming generations of stars and planets, and with them the potential for new life, says Daniel Tafoya.

Since the 15 stars seem to be evolving on a human timescale, the team plan to keep monitoring them with Alma and with other radio telescopes. With the future telescopes of the SKA Observatory, they hope to study how the stars form their jets and change their surroundings. They also hope to find more if there are any.

Actually, we think the known "water fountains could be almost the only systems of their kind in the whole of our galaxy. If that's true, then these stars really are the key to understanding the strangest, most wonderful and most important process that two stars can experience in their lives together", concludes Theo Khouri.

More about the research, and about Alma

The research is published in the paper Observational identification of a sample of likely recent Common-Envelope Events in Nature Astronomy, by Theo Khouri (Chalmers), Wouter H. T. Vlemmings (Chalmers), Daniel Tafoya (Chalmers), Andrs F. Prez-Snchez (Leiden University, Netherlands), Carmen Snchez Contreras (Centro de Astrobiologa (CSIC-INTA), Spain), Jos F. Gmez (Instituto de Astrofsica de Andaluca, CSIC, Spain), Hiroshi Imai (Kagoshima University, Japan) and Raghvendra Sahai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA).

Alma (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is an international astronomy facility is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

Chalmers and Onsala Space Observatory have been involved in Alma since its inception; receivers for the telescope are one of many contributions. Onsala Space Observatory is host to the Nordic Alma Regional Centre, which provides technical expertise to the Alma project and supports astronomers in the Nordic countries in using Alma.

For more information, contact:

Robert Cumming, Communications Officer, Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology,+46 31 772 5500+46 70 49 33 114robert.cumming@chalmers.se

Theo Khouri, Astronomer, Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology+46760 958023theo.khouri@chalmers.se

Observational study

Not applicable

Observational identification of a sample of likely recent Common-Envelope Events

16-Dec-2021

Original post:

Secret embraces of stars revealed by Alma - EurekAlert

December 6, 2021

Editor's note:This story is part of a series of profiles ofnotablefall 2021 graduates.

McCall Langford was introduced to the design principles of biomimicry at a very early age. She came to appreciate the intricacies of natures complex systems, processes and forms through the work of her grandfather, Ray Anderson, founder of eco-friendly and sustainability-focused textile manufacturing company Interface. Langford was influenced by the biomimicry and sustainability thought leaders with whom her grandfather worked closely to design products inspired by the regenerative properties of the natural world. McCall Langford. Download Full Image

After receiving her bachelor of business administration in marketing from Georgia State University, she channeled her passion for equity and sustainability into the environmental nonprofit sector, serving as the director of development of One More Generation.

The pull of the natural world was strong, and she stepped away from her corporate career to immerse herself fully in nature, spending over a year camping and backpacking in the U.S. wilderness. It was there that she was able to observe just how nuanced and special the harmonious nature of the biological world truly is.

Upon returning from her adventures, Langford had solidified her lifes purpose: to not only reacquaint herself with nature, but to advocate for a global reconnection to the natural world to create a more sustainable and regenerative future. She enrolled in the College of Global Futures Master of Science in biomimicry programthrough ASU Online, and she hopes to use her experience and degree to continue to help bridge the gap between modern technology, innovation and the natural world.

Question: What was your aha moment when you realized you wanted to study the field you majored in?

Answer: I was exposed to biomimicry when I was really young through my grandfathers work. He became really active in the sustainability community through his mission at Interface. His organization worked with biomimicry consultants to create regenerative and sustainable designs.

In my undergrad, I did nonprofit development work in fundraising and donor management, later serving as the director of development of an environmental youth education and endangered species advocacy nonprofit. I also took some time away from the corporate world to backpack.

During that time, I was immersed in nature. I really started to observe the level of complexity and efficient productivity of natural processes. These natural systems are filtering water, sequestering carbon, removing air pollutants, cooling the ground, generating abundant nutrients and so on, without causing any of the issues or challenges our human designs cause. There are so many complex cooperative relationships in nature. The ecological systems surrounding us are performing all of the functional tasks that the human race is trying to accomplish, and theyre doing so much more efficiently than us.

Nature creates conditions conducive to life because its sole purpose is to continue surviving. I realized the power of natures advice, and biomimicry helps us formalize the process of asking, How does nature do this, and what can we learn from her? We could solve a lot of wicked challenges that we're experiencing at this very crucial point in human history. My big aha moment came from looking around and seeing all of this very complex solution space where these answers already exist and knowing I wanted to tap into the library of solutions the biological world is leveraging.

Q: Whats something you learned while at ASU in the classroom or otherwise that surprised you or changed your perspective?

A: It really struck me while I was in this program just how much humans are designing. Obviously we're designing buildings, infrastructure, products and a plethora of tangible things that give us modern conveniences. We are also designing so much more than that. The human race designs intangible processes and systems as well. Whether it's how you're going to spend your morning or how to engage a community, we are constantly generating new ideas for how to optimize our lives. With biomimicry, we have the opportunity to bridge innovative human design with efficient and effective nature-inspired design solutions.

Q: Why did you choose ASU?

A: In the early 90s, (her grandfather) Ray Anderson set out to identify leaders and change agents in the sustainability field to aid in the development of sustainable designs inspired by nature at Interface. Janine Benyus and Dayna Baumeister, the co-founders of Biomimicry 3.8, were among those leaders, and I followed their careers closely over the years. What I appreciated about ASU and its partnership with Biomimicry 3.8 was that the program not only stressed the importance of emulating nature in design, the ultimate goal is to create ethical and sustainable systems that work in harmony with nature. ASUs program instills emulating nature for the sake of sustainable and regenerative futures.

The holistic design thinking methodology offered at ASU guides a comprehensive approach to mimicking natural systems to establish a genuine symbiosis with the Earth. We can create conditions conducive to life, just like our natural ecosystems do, and in that process, we can re-engage a deep relationship with the natural world.

In addition to the unique opportunity to learn from leaders of the field, ASU is recognized for its prestigious and well-equipped online programming. In my eyes, there was nowhere else I wanted to go but ASU.

Q: Which professor taught you the most important lesson while at ASU?

A: Dayna Baumeister is the backbone of the biomimicry masters program. We also have a wonderful group of adjunct professors that uplift and support Daynas work while bringing additional knowledge and perspectives into the program. Its so difficult to choose just one professor who has had an impact. They have all played a massive role in the advancement of my academic career.

Q: Whats the best piece of advice youd give to those still in school?

A: My best piece of advice is to go above and beyond what the courses require of you. More specifically, identify how you can be an advocate for the work you are doing here. The master's program is built to be flexible for career professionals, designed to be accessible and achievable with this underlying implication that you can go further and customize your education and experience. Its not about the grades on your transcript, its about learning everything you can and then taking that knowledge and applying it to make the world a better place.

Q: What was your favorite spot for power studying?

A: I really don't consider this solely an online program because we're being called to go out into nature and learn from her. This program encourages us to be outside all of the time, so truly I spent most of my time out in the field, observing and learning how to view the natural world through a functional lens.

Q: What are your plans after graduation?

A: I'm formally practicing biomimicry within my regenerative design career. I'm currently working as a biomimicry consultant on a project bringing biomimetic design to an 18-mile stretch of testbed highway that's been deemed an innovation lab for regenerative design. The innovation lab initiative is showing interest in pulling in bio-inspired design to improve the regenerative qualities of our nations transportation systems. After graduation I'm going to continue leveraging biomimetic design to get us closer to the harmonious place that I know we can arrive.

Q: If someone gave you $40 million to solve one problem on our planet, what would you tackle?

A: The School of Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on developing frameworks to guide the design of our systems, while in a highly technical way, also incorporating these frameworks into social and conceptual designs. To do both, you have to have a culture shift, so Id love to put that towards encouraging people to invest in biomimetic solutions by showing them how regeneration will improve their conditions. I would invest the $40 million into demonstrating the value of funding and implementing regenerative and efficient systems inspired by the natural world in lieu of a lot of the current maladaptive solutions.

Were getting there. Over the past decade weve seen a massive culture shift towards a more equitable and inclusive social mentality. We definitely have to address the economic and social perspectives before we can see the massive complex systems change necessary to solve these wicked problems.

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Path to PhD started with a small planetarium and an intro astronomy course - ASU Now

Beta Crucis is represented in the flags of Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Samoa.

Beta Crucis. Image credit: Naskies at en.wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Beta Crucis is a triple star system located at a distance of 280 light-years from the Earth.

Also known as HD 111123, HIC 62434, Becrux and Mimosa, it is the second-brightest object in the constellation of Crux and the 20th brightest star in the night sky.

The primary star in the system, beta Crucis A, is a beta Cephei variable star with rapid brightness changes.

The secondary, beta Crucis B, is a main sequence star with a stellar class of B2.

And the third companion is a low mass, pre-main sequence star.

To crack the age and mass of beta Crucis A, Dr. Daniel Cotton from the Australian National University and Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy and his colleagues combined asteroseismology, the study of a stars regular movements, with polarimetry, the measurement of the orientation of light waves.

Asteroseismology relies on seismic waves bouncing around the interior of a star and producing measurable changes in its light, they explained.

Probing the interiors of heavy stars that will later explode as supernovae has traditionally been difficult.

In the study, the authors analyzed data from NASAs WIRE and TESS satellites, high-resolution spectroscopic data from ESO, and polarimetric data from Siding Spring Observatory and Western Sydney Universitys Penrith Observatory.

We wanted to investigate an old idea, Dr. Cotton said.

It was predicted in 1979 that polarimetry had the potential to measure the interiors of massive stars, but its not been possible until now.

The size of the effect is quite small, added Professor Jeremy Bailey, an astronomer at the University of New South Wales.

We needed the worlds best precision of the polarimeter we designed and built.

The team found beta Crucis A to be approximately 14.5 times as massive as the Sun and around 11 million years old, making it the heaviest star with an age determined from asteroseismology ever.

Analyzing the three types of long-term data together allowed us to identify Mimosas dominant mode geometries, said Professor Derek Buzasi, an astronomer at Florida Gulf Coast University.

This opened the road to weighing and age-dating the star using seismic methods.

This polarimetric study of Mimosa opens a new avenue for asteroseismology of bright massive stars, added Professor Conny Aerts, an astronomer with the Institute of Astronomy at KU Leuven, Radboud University Nijmegen, and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

While these stars are the most productive chemical factories of our Galaxy, they are so far the least analyzed asteroseismically, given the degree of difficulty of such studies. The heroic efforts by the Australian polarimetrists are to be admired.

The teams paper was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

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D.V. Cotton et al. Polarimetric detection of non-radial oscillation modes in the Cephei star Crucis. Nat Astron, published online December 6, 2021; doi: 10.1038/s41550-021-01531-9

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Astronomers Measure Mass and Age of Beta Crucis A - Sci-News.com