Category Archives: Astronomy

Recent weeks have witnessed a series of medium-to-large-sized asteroids cross paths with Earths orbit. The largest of the pack asteroid 2004 UE is on track to make its closest approach to the planet Nov. 13. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign astronomy professor and chair Leslie Looney spoke with News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian about what researchers refer to as near Earth objects and how much of a threat they are to the planet.

What are near Earth objects, what are they composed of and how do we know?

Near Earth objects are meteoroids, asteroids or comets with orbits that bring them close to Earths orbit. They are the leftovers of our solar system formation process, which means they are the nearly pristine bits and pieces of ice and rocks from which the planets formed. We know their orbits from tracking them, and we know of their composition from examining their reflected and infrared light and by comparisons to objects that we have visited with space missions.

There seem to be a lot of large NEOs in Earths neighborhood in recent weeks. Is this unusual?

Over the last 20 years, NASA has dramatically increased the number of known NEOs from knowing of less than a thousand to nearly 28,000. The precise dimensions of NEOs can be difficult to resolve due to their small size and great distances. However, those estimated by NASA to be 140 meters or more along their longest axis most asteroids are potato-shaped, so their dimensions can be described as roughly spherical have been mandated by Congress to be classified as NEOs. The increase in the number of objects classified as NEOs was in part due to this mandate. Anything of this size could have a catastrophic impact on Earth, destroying cities with large losses of life. This awareness leads to more reporting of objects.

How do scientists spot and track NEOs?

We discover NEOs by taking pictures of the night sky over a night or over multiple nights, looking for something that moves compared with the stars or galaxies. The closer the NEO is to Earth, the faster it will move. With enough time, we can use these images to determine the objects orbit. Many new and exciting upcoming astronomical surveys will also map the night sky over many years to look for supernovae or other time-varying objects, so we expect to find even more objects over the next few decades.

At what size does a NEO become a concern?

Anything over 140 meters in diameter could cause major damage to cities or coasts, so any NEO with orbits that cross Earths orbit is classified as a potentially hazardous object. There are about 2,000 PHOs known today. None of them are likely to impact the planet in the next 100 years, but we still watch their orbits for any shifts. The orbital paths of NEOs that will be near Earth in more than 100 years cannot be predicted very well. However, it is important to note that large impacts have hit Earth in the past ask any dinosaur you meet and the planet will be hit by large impacts in the future. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. But dont panic. It is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Are there any ways we can deflect NEOs that come too close?

If we have an advanced warning of five to 10 years or so, deflecting a NEO should be easy. I am not talking about nuclear blasts or anything like that. Blowing up a NEO is probably the worst thing to do, since now you have many smaller rocks in the same orbit. That said, NASA will launch this month the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which will test a kinetic impact with an asteroid. This planned high-speed impact is scheduled to occur in October, and will determine how effectively we can change an asteroid orbit.

There are many other methods, including a gravity tractor a spacecraft that nudges the asteroid using the spacecrafts mass or attached rockets. If our civilization wants to survive for the next 1,000 years, we have to figure this out.

Asteroid 2004 UE will reach its closest approach to Earth on Nov. 13. How do this objects size and trajectory compare to other identified NEOs throughout history?

Asteroid 2004 UE is pretty typical of a NEO. It is around 160 meters in diameter most are smaller, but many are bigger. Asteroid 2004 UE is not considered a safety concern since the closest approach to Earths orbit on Nov. 13 will be more than 30 times the Earth-moon distance. This happens frequently.

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A large asteroid will pass by Earth this week should we worry? - University of Illinois News

VAN 309, or online at Meeting ID: 931 1146 7821. Passcode: condmat

We will have 4 10 min presentations;

Until recently, non-circular core geometries(e.g., square or rectangular)of multimode fibers (MMFs) have not been investigated with wavefront shaping. In this research project, I perform wavefront shaping through MMFs using Lee Holography and concludethat both square and rectangular core MMFs present attractive frequency bandwidths when focusing light at the distal end of the MMF, enabling new experimental opportunities in photonics.

2D materials have great potential in electronic device applications such as FETs as well as in optoelectronic devices like semiconductor waveguides. In this short presentation we would learn about some of the methods commonly used to prepare 2D materials and heterostructures as well as investigate their properties in the visible and near-infrared spectrum.

Due to the limitations and expenses imposed by commercially available infrared equipment, research into the temperature and thickness dependent properties of 2 dimensional materials necessitates the production of a custom built cryogenic infrared microscope. This custom microscope needs to be developed using widely available parts, broadband for multiple possible use cases, and simple enough to be assembled without expertise due to the lack of documentation in this area

In order to innovate an analyze current detection methods of Volatile Organic Compounds, we have developed our own fitting program and system to detect compounds. Using gas spectroscopy, we will be able to improve detection with the end goal being in the PPB

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Condensed Matter Seminar - Undergraduate Seminar | Physics and Astronomy | The University of Iowa - Iowa Now

Esha Gupta Shares Her Love For Astronomy, Basketball With Fans ( Photo Credit Instagram )

Esha Gupta is currently busy shooting for two back-to-back web series including Invisible Woman and Ashram 3.

Taking some time off from her busy schedule, the actress recently took to Instagram stories where she revealed some of her most loved things to her fans. She shared that astronomy was her favourite subject in school and that she was always mesmerized by the extraterrestrial world and celestial bodies.

Esha Gupta also spoke about the actors whom she looked up to in the industry, she pointed out that Pankaj Tripathi and the late Irrfan Khan always found a place high on her list. She referred to them as part of the elite pack of performers. Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi, with whom she worked in the 2017 film Baadshaho, were the stars she loved sharing screen space with.

Talking about her hobbies, the actress shared that she has diverse interests. While she loves playing sports like basketball and football, she also likes curling up in bed with a book for a reading session. In addition, she is very particular about fitness and more than Pilates or Yoga, Esha finds her groove in dance, as she considers it a complete workout.

Esha Guptas most loved book is F. Scott Fitzgeralds jazz-age saga The Great Gatsby. Croatian footballer Luka Modric who also plays for Spanish club Real Madrid is also among her favourites.

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Esha Gupta Reveals About Her Love For Astronomy, Basketball With Her Fans On Instagram - koimoi

The Hubble Space Telescope. Image: NASA

NASA is continuing work to resolve an issue that has suspended science operations on the Hubble Space Telescope. The science instruments entered a safe mode configuration on Oct. 25 after detecting a loss of specific data synchronisation messages.

The Hubble team is focusing its efforts to isolate the problem on hardware that commands the instruments and is part of the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit. Specifically, the team is analysing the circuitry of the Control Unit, which generates synchronisation messages and passes them onto the instruments.

While analysing the Control Unit, the team is working to identify potential workarounds for the issue. These include possible changes to instrument flight software that could check for these lost messages and compensate for them without putting the instruments into safe mode. These workarounds would first be verified using ground simulators to ensure they work as planned.

Over the weekend of Oct. 30, the team prepared to turn on parts of the Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) instrument to collect data on this issue, allowing the team to determine how frequently this problem occurs. Installed in 1997, NICMOS has been inactive since 2010, when the Wide Field Camera 3 became operational. NICMOS allowed the team to use an instrument to collect information on these lost messages while keeping the active instruments off as a safety precaution. Since NICMOS was recovered on Nov. 1, no additional synchronisation messages have been lost.

The team is now taking steps to recover Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instrument from safe mode and start collecting science with that instrument at the beginning of next week. The team will make the decision on Sunday after analysing the latest data. If a lost message is seen before then, the decision to activate ACS will also be revisited. The team is proceeding cautiously to ensure the safety of the instruments and avoid additional stresses on the hardware. Therefore, only ACS will be used in this capacity next week. ACS was selected as the first instrument to recover as it faces the fewest complications should a lost message occur.

Over the next week, the team will continue analysing the Control Unit design diagrams and data associated with the lost messages to determine what may have caused this problem. They will also be looking into potential instrument software changes that could help address it. Once the team better understands the frequency of the problem and has determined the time needed to implement possible software changes, they will discuss a plan for returning the other instruments to science operations.

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Engineers test workarounds to recover from Hubble synchronisation glitch Astronomy Now - Astronomy Now Online

ProfessorIonut Chifan; University of Iowa

Abstract: In this talk I will introduce a new class of groups, which we call textit{wreath-like products}. These groups are close relatives of the classical wreath products and arise naturally in the context of group theoretic Dehn filling. Unlike ordinary wreath products, many wreath-like products have strong fixed point properties including Kazhdan's property (T). In this paper, we establish several new rigidity results for von Neumann algebras of wreath-like products. In particular, we obtain the first continuum of property (T) groups whose von Neumann algebras satisfy Connes' rigidity conjecture and the first examples of W$^*$-superrigid groups with property (T). We also compute automorphism groups of von Neumann algebras of a wide class of wreath-like products; as an application, we show that for every finitely presented group $Q$, there exists a property (T) group $G$ such that $Out(L(G))cong Q$. This is based on new joint work with Adrian Ioana, Denis Osin and Bin Sun.

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Operator Theory Seminar - Professor Ionut Chifan, PhD | Physics and Astronomy | The University of Iowa - Iowa Now

Ying Feng Kline, a lecturer of Chinese from Penn State University, will serve as lead instructor for the summer academy. Dr. Yanfei Zhu, UNG associate professor of visual arts, and faculty members from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, High Point University, Hamilton College and other schools will offer online talks for the pre-camp and post-camp activities.

"It's rare to have the chance to tackle both science and Chinese language learning at the same time, and yet, Professor He's dedication to this initiative will provide a truly special learning experience," Dr. Christopher Jespersen, dean of the College of Arts & Letters, said. "We look forward to hosting the STARTALK camp at UNG."

UNG has hired four professional tutors and two UNG Chinese Language Flagship students who are on the advanced track to work with students in spring 2022.

The mission of STARTALK is to support "student education and teacher development programs of less commonly taught and critical-need languages that meet the national security and defense priorities."

Dr. D. Brian Mann, department head of Modern and Classical Languages, said research shows teaching Chinese earlier helps the knowledge become more ingrained for students, and it will set them up well for advanced studies at UNG.

"This makes it possible for them to go further in their Chinese proficiency," Mann said.

Applications for the spring 2022 tutoring are open through Nov. 1. Accepted students will meet individually with their tutor online for half an hour weekly for 17 weeks during the spring semester.

There will be a separate application process for the June 5-18 residential camp, but students who receive tutoring will be encouraged to apply. Students who participate in the camp will have access to post-camp learning activities.

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Grant to fund Chinese and astronomy camp - News at UNG

Unprecedented observations of a nearby supernova in 2020 have given astronomers an extraordinarily detailed look at the explosion of a massive star, including images taken immediately before and after the explosion. The result is a complete picture of the death of a red supergiant star when it runs out of fuel, collapses under its own gravity, and explodes in a core-collapse supernova.

"We used to talk about supernova work like we were crime scene investigators, where we would show up after the fact and try to figure out what happened to that star," explained Ryan Foley, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. "This is a different situation, because we really know what's going on and we actually see the death in real time."

Foleys team reported their findings in a paper published October 21 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The supernova, called SN 2020fqv, is in the interacting Butterfly Galaxies, which are located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered in April 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego, California. Astronomers realized that the supernova was simultaneously being observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a NASA satellite designed primarily to discover exoplanets. They quickly trained the Hubble Space Telescope on it as well as a suite of ground-based telescopes, including at UCs Lick Observatory and at the Keck and Gemini Observatories in Hawaii.

Together, these observatories gave a holistic view of a star in the very earliest stage of destruction. Hubble probed the material very close to the star, called circumstellar material, just hours after the explosion. This material was blown off the star in the last year of its life. These observations allowed astronomers to understand what was happening to the star just before it died.

"We rarely get to examine this very close-in circumstellar material since it is only visible for a very short time and we usually don't start observing a supernova until at least a few days after the explosion," explained first author Samaporn Tinyanont, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSC. "For this supernova, we were able make ultra-rapid observations with Hubble, giving unprecedented coverage of the region right next to the star that exploded."

TESS provided an image of the system every 30 minutes starting several days before the explosion through the explosion itself and continuing for several weeks. The team also looked at Hubble observations of the star going back to the 1990s. Hubble was used again starting only hours after astronomers first detected the explosion. And from studying the circumstellar material with Hubble, the scientists gained an understanding of what was happening around the star in the previous decade. By combining all of this information, the team was able to create a multi-decade look at the star's final years.

"Now we have this whole story about what's happening to the star in the years before it died, through the time of death, and then the aftermath of that," said Foley. "This is really the most detailed view of stars like this in their last moments and how they explode."

The Rosetta Stone of Supernovas

Tinyanont and Foley have called SN 2020fqv "the Rosetta Stone of supernovas." The ancient Rosetta Stone, which has the same text inscribed in three different scripts, helped experts learn to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.

In the case of this supernova, the science team used several different methods to determine the mass of the exploding star. These included comparing the properties and the evolution of the supernova with theoretical models; using information from a 1997 archival Hubble image of the star to rule out higher mass stars; and using Keck observations to directly measure the amount of oxygen in the supernova, which probes the mass of the star. The results are all consistent: around 14 to 15 times the mass of the sun. Accurately determining the mass of the star that explodes in a supernova is crucial to understanding how massive stars live and die.

This is the first time we've been able to verify the mass with these three different methods for one supernova, and all of them are consistent, said Tinyanont. Now we can push forward using these different methods and combining them, because there are a lot of other supernovas where we have masses from one method but not another.

The findings also indicate that the star had a complicated history of mass loss a few years before core collapse. In the years before stars explode, they tend to become more active. Some astronomers point to the red supergiant Betelgeuse, which has recently been belching significant amounts of material, and they wonder if this star will soon go supernova. While Foley doubts Betelgeuse will imminently explode, he does think we should take such stellar outbursts seriously.

"This could be a warning system," said Foley. "So if you see a star start to shake around a bit, start acting up, then maybe we should pay more attention and really try to understand what's going on there before it explodes. As we find more and more of these supernovas with this sort of excellent data set, we'll be able to understand better what's happening in the last few years of a star's life."

Foley noted that these unique observations of a supernova were carried out during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020 and required extraordinary efforts and coordination by a large number of people, mostly working from home. Many observatories were shut down for part of the time, but they reopened soon enough to obtain crucial data for the study.

It was fantastic how people worked together to make this happen, Foley said. A lot of people were involved, and it was logistically complicated, but in the end the data we got were amazing.

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Astronomers witnessed the spectacular death of a star as it happened - UC Santa Cruz

Researchers at NUI Galway, MIT and Cambridge used the ALMA telescope to provide a window to the composition of young planets.

An astronomer from NUI Galway is part of an international team that for the first time found evidence of a planets atmosphere being stripped away by a giant collision in a nearby star system.

At just 95 light years from Earth, the young star named HD 172555 was witness to an impact between two newly formed planets that are estimated to be about the size of Earth.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in Chile, researchers from NUI Galway, MIT and Cambridge University studied the collision and unexpectedly detected a ring of carbon monoxide gas in the dust produced.

This, for the first time, indicates that impacts can release large amounts of gas as well as dust, and that this gas can survive long enough to be detected, said Dr Luca Matr, an adviser for the study and lecturer at NUI Galways Centre for Astronomy.

Based on the amount of gas detected, the team was able to estimate that the size of the impact was likely massive and dated it to around 200,000 years ago. This has the potential to revolutionise our understanding and observability of giant impacts, Matr added.

Findings of the study were published yesterday (20 October) in the journal Nature. It may solve years of mystery around the unusual composition of dust observed by scientists in the HD 172555 region indicating the aftermath of a planetary impact like the one that led to the formation of the moon.

The ALMA observatory used for the study consists of 66 radio telescopes working in unison. Ireland gained access to it after joining the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in 2018. It was used in a study published in July to understand how moons are formed.

Matr said that the amount of gas discovered in this latest research is 10 to 20pc of the mass of Venus atmosphere, which goes on to show the incredible sensitivity of the observations.

This puts forward gas observations as a viable detection method of terrestrial planet-forming collisions, and as a window to the composition of young planets, he said.

Lead author Tajana Schneiderman of MIT said that this the first time scientists have detected the phenomenon of protoplanetary atmosphere being stripped away in a giant impact.

Everyone is interested in observing a giant impact because we expect them to be common, but we dont have evidence in a lot of systems for it. Now we have additional insight into these dynamics.

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Galway astronomer in global team that detected giant collision in space - Siliconrepublic.com

Wythe Marschall, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, spoke to Ithaca College students and faculty about the lack of inclusion of scientific knowledge from marginalized communities.

The Department of Physics and Astronomy Seminar, Defining, Globalizing, and Decolonizing the History of Science: Reflections and Open Problems, took place Oct. 19 in the Center for Natural Sciences. Marschall spoke virtually to about 21 members of the campus community regarding the limitations of science, as defined by European and American standards.

Marschall said the history of science as it is known should become more objective in its explanation of scientific knowledge systems. He said there were several cases in history in which scientific ideas from marginalized, non-Western communities were often overlooked like the separation of traditional Chinese medicine, a branch of Chinese medicine which encompasses a range of health and healing practices, from biomedicine, a branch of Western medicine that combines biological and physiological principles to clinical practice.

So if science is unitarian transhistorical, how do you explain sudden shifts? Marschall asked. There might be an issue with sort of assuming that there is this one view of reality that we are all just working toward.

When examining the history of science, Marschall said it was important to look at three models of scientific philosophy. The first, epistemic paternalism the withholding of evidence from someone without their consent comes from the idea that the interference in the inquiry of others could be considered justifiable. Second, epistemic diversity the ability to produce rich and diverse knowledge takes into account the scientific discoveries of marginalized communities in order to produce a more diverse understanding of the world. Third, epistemic decolonization the critique of the colonization of knowledge calls into question the prevalence of the Western knowledge system and seeks to give marginalized communities a say as to what is considered science.

The history of science has often been taught for a long time as unitary, so theres one thing called science; we sort of know it when we see it, Marschall said. Transhistorically, that thing itself doesnt really change, although we gain more knowledge about it its generally performed by people who have more money than other people; more social status. Its often masculine and its often white.

Marschall said that while there were no definite ways to ensure a complete redefinition of what is and is not counted in the history of science, much of the work begins with education. He said universities must not only begin to re-evaluate the material that is being taught in science classes but also re-evaluate the ways in which that material is being taught.

Its hard because you are in a building in an elite university, and even if youre in a circle, youre still sort of in a position of epistemic authority, Marschall said. So theres some of that sort of paternalistic work that happens in universities that were all accustomed to.

Senior Antara Sen, who helped organize the event, said they enjoyed learning about the ways in which many scientific discoveries have been overshadowed by elitist standards of academia.

I think that talking about these issues helps illuminate to younger students that there isnt just one way to be a scientist, Sen said. Science truly is the all-encompassing act of making knowledge.

Sen also said they agreed with Marschalls point on epistemic paternalism and that it was an idea that could be applied beyond science.

The idea that one race supersedes all others to the point that other races need their help to survive has existed for millennia, Sen said.

Eric Leibensperger, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said he was pleased the seminar was able to draw attention to the impact of colonialism in the field of science.

While a lot of what we teach is derived from [Western scientists], theres a whole wealth of information and knowledge out there that we might not be exposed to and be using to its best ability, Leibensperger said. I think its a really powerful message to be able to realize theres much more out there and that theres much more that we can do to give credit where credit is due.

Leibensperger also said there should be more consideration into the way science is taught. He said that while science is taught in a linear manner, it did not reflect the extent of scientific discovery throughout history.

There are leaps and bounds; discoveries and all of those things so there are big, monumental moments, Leibensperger said. Progress is almost always happening to some extent.

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Department of Physics and Astronomy holds guest speaker event - Ithaca College The Ithacan

You are invited to our next Physics and Astronomy Colloquium taking place on Tuesday, October 19, 2021, from 12:10 - 1 PM in CNS 206/208.

Presenter: Wythe Marschall, Harvard University/New York University

Title: Defining, Globalizing, and Decolonizing the History of Science: Reflections and Open Problems

Abstract:Increasingly, many historians of science are challengingthe discipline at a fundamental level, calling for more diverse syllabi, renewed programs of research into knowledge traditions that originated outside of Europe and North America, and a reexamination of both what counts as scientific knowledge and who labors to create it. That is, when we write evidence-based accounts of efforts to systematically understand our world, whose voices should we listen to? How can we study different ways of systematically making knowledge, side by side? Most glaringly, how should we understand the legacy of Euroamerican colonialism on systems of science around the world today, ones that often continue to draw upon pre-colonial knowledge traditions? In this talk, I will sketch out the shifting terrain of the history of science in the age of the pandemic, globalized commerce, and the shared omni-crisis of climate disruption. The history of science has long served to prompt working scientists and engineers to look beyond the often narrow confines of their technical fields, questioning their social and political roles. Today, more than ever, an intellectually rigorous and culturally inclusive perspective on what it means to do science is a critical tool not only for professional historians but for everyone engaged in the work of making and sharing knowledge.

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Physics and Astronomy Seminar - Defining, Globalizing, and Decolonizing the History of Science: Reflections and Open Problems - Ithaca College