Category Archives: Astronomy

AMHERST, Mass. A twelve-billion-year-old mystery from the early universe; the paradox of a consistently recurring supernova; the unknown process governing how stars grow: these are among the topics recently explored in a remarkable series of papers coming out of UMass Amhersts astronomy department, all of which appear in the Nature family of journalsamong the most prestigious academic journals in the world.

The results published in these three papers address fundamental questions in Astronomy, from understanding the evolution of stars and galaxies at the dawn of the Universe to unraveling how stars, and possibly planets, grow in our cosmic `backyard, says Daniela Calzetti, astronomy department head. This trifecta of Nature papers is both thrilling and amazing.

Why did the growth of some early galaxies stall?

A short time after the Big Bang occurred, 14 billion years ago, some of the most massive galaxies in our universe mysteriously stopped producing new stars. For some reason, says Kate Whitaker, professor of astronomy and lead author of a new paper recently published in Nature, they have shut down. Theyre no longer forming new stars. Astronomers have known that these early, massive galaxies had gone quiescent, but until now, no one knew why.

Using a suite of instruments, including the Hubble Space Telescope and ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, Whitakers team, which includes Alexandra Pope, professor of astronomy at UMass, and Christina C. Williams, who received her Ph.D. in astronomy at UMass, Whitakers team discovered that those early galaxies literally ran out of gascold gas, which is what powers galaxy growth.

The galaxies Whitakers team studies are 10 12 billion light years away, which means that the light that the team observed was emitted 10 12 billion years ago. In effect, Whitaker is looking into the deep past of the universe.

The teams findings mean that, within the first few billion years of the universes existence, these galaxies either burned through their energy supplies, or ejected them and, furthermore, that something may be physically blocking each galaxys replenishment of cold gas.

Taken together, the research helps us to rewrite the early history of the universe so that we can get a clearer idea of how galaxies evolve.

The paradox of the recurring supernova

As if solving a 12-billion-year-old mystery isnt enough, Whitaker also recently co-authored a paper in Nature Astronomy revealing a paradox: the recurring appearance of a supernova known as Requiem.

When a star explodes, its called a supernova, so one might think that theres only one chance to see the explosion. But, due to an effect called gravitational lensing, first predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, light can be bent, split, magnified and distorted by immense gravitational forces.

Supernova Requiem is about 10 billion light years away, and as its light travelled to earth, it passed by an immense cluster of galaxies, whose gravity quartered Requiems. The research, led by Steven Rodney of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, predicts that the next viewing of Supernova Requiem will occur in 2037. Though the light will be too faint to see with the naked eye, it should be visible to advanced telescopes.

Revealing how stars are born

It begins with a cloud of dust and gas. Slowly, as gravity works upon the particles, the dust and gas start to cohere, eventually collapsing into a star and an accompanying disc. Next, in a process called magnetospheric accretion, the particles at the inner edge of the disc fall at hundreds of kilometers per second toward the newborn star. When these particles smash into the surface of the star, they produce shockwaves and an enormous amount of heat. A hot spot emerges on the surface of the star where the falling particles converge. These hot spots release radiationwhich a number of astronomical instruments can perceive.

Connor Robinson, the Five College Astronomy Department Education and Research Fellow affiliated with UMasss astronomy department, was second author on another recent Nature paper, led by Boston Universitys C.C. Espaillat, that combined data from Hubble Space Telescope, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope, and SMARTS, which reveals, for the first time, the mechanics of exactly how stars grow.

We now have a better understanding of how the accretion process works, says Robinson, whose team focused on a star called GM Aur. For the first time, we were able to infer the azimuthal structure of the accretion shocks by using multiple telescopes that are sensitive to hot spots with different densities. As the star rotates, these hot spots also rotate in and out of view, which lets us measure the density-distribution of hot spots on the stellar. We already knew that there were low- and high-density hot spots on the surface of the star, but this is the first time that we have been able to map their structure.

It turns out that up to 20% stars surface is covered by hot spots of a lower density, and the highest-density regions make up only about 0.1% of the surface. This is the first empirical proof we have of these azimuthal hot spot gradients on growing stars. It tells us about the young star and the conditions in the inner regions of the protoplanetary discs that will someday grow into solar systems.

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Astronomy Department Launches into New Academic Year with 'Nature' Trifecta - UMass News and Media Relations

The breath-taking Aurora Borealis and Venus rising over the rocky horizon of the Moon are just some of the incredible subjects featured in this year's 'Astronomy Photographer Of The Year' winning images.

Shuchang Dong -'Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13'

Photographer Shuchang Dong with his astounding image of the annular solar eclipse, "The Golden Ring", is the Overall Winner and wins the Royal Observatory Greenwichs title 'Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13'.

The photograph depicts the annular solar eclipse that occurred on 21 June 2020 in a powerful and atmospheric composition thatspellbound the judges.

Dmitrii Rybalka

Winning images from other categories and special prizes include the mesmerising Aurora dance taken from the bridge of a ship by the Third Officer Dmitrii Rybalka (Russia), who was on watch duty that night; Venus rising over the rocky horizon of the Moon by Nicolas Lefaudeux (France); a poignant star trail image taken during lockdown by Deepal Ratnayaka (UK) that captured the essence of the year 2020, restricting but hopeful; and the outstanding image of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket passing the Moon by Paul Eckhardt (USA).

Deepal Ratnayaka

15-year-old Zhipu Wang (China) is taking home the top prize in the Young Competition category for his astonishing composition of the Sun, the Moon and the planets of the Solar System.

Zhipu Wang

Astronomy Photographer of the Year is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine Now in its thirteenth year, the competition received over 4,500 entries from 75 countries. The best of these exceptional photographs are showcased in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13 exhibition at the National Maritime Museum.

You can view last year's winning images here:Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2020 Winners

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Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2021 Winners - ePHOTOzine

[imagesource: Nicolas Rolland and Martin Pugh]

Is the universe watching us or are we watching the universe?

Either way, it feels like that smiley in space is trying to tell us something.

These are just some of the things that might cross your mind after seeing the outstanding photographs from this years Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

The competition has been running for 13 years out of The Royal Observatory Greenwich, which was founded back in 1675 and has been at the centre of several historic milestones in the measurement of time and space, per New Atlas.

There were 4 500 entries this year, featuring technically masterful photos of distant galaxies. That smiley was awarded highly commended after taking 27,5 hours of total exposure to get right.

This years best photograph was of a solar eclipse taken in Tibet in mid-2020 by Shuchang Dong.

It is awe-inspiring for being deceptively simple:

This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event, says Emily Darbek-Maunder, one of this years judges.

Behold, The Golden Ring:

Chinese photographer Zhong Wus 360-degree mosaic of the Milky Way is an image that blows minds.

It took Wu two years to piece together the image from 1 000 separate shots taken in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres.

Judge Imad Ahmed said it was one of the most breathtaking entries of this year:

In the Aurora category, Dmitrii Rybalkas haunting shot from a moving ship approaching the Kara Strait in Russia took first place.

Judge Sue Prichard said the image reminded them of an opening scene from a sci-fi movie:

The sun was also a hot contender, featured in two vastly different winning shots by separate photographers.

Theres this by Vincent Bouchama, whose image of the sun sharing its crown with a comet was a runner-up:

Thats quite different to Alan Friedmans take, which shows a curtain of hydrogen bellowing from the surface of the sun.

It received the status of highly commended:

The winner for the Planets, Comets, Asteroids category was Frank Kuszaj for his shot of a colourful Quadrantids meteor taken in Missouri, America:

No idea what is going on there, but I cant stop staring.

Then theres this dreamy shot of a skyscape by Jin Yang, titled Van Goghs Sketchpad and taken in Yunnan Province, China.

It received highly commended status:

Another highlight came via the Stars and Nebulae category with Min Xies The Colour Splash Of Cygnus Loop:

For the other spectacular shots of space, head here.

And if youre going up, you might as well go down and peruse the winning shots of the Ocean Photography Awards.

[source:newatlas]

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Stunning Shots From The Astronomy Photo Awards 2oceansvibe News | South African and international news - 2oceansvibe News

The seasons are changing. The moon is telling us it's time to harvest the crops, and fall officially begins on Wednesday, September 22nd. Also, the annual "Astronomy at the Beach" event is coming up later this week, still virtual due to the pandemic.

WEMU's Lisa Barry talks with local amateur astronomer Dr. Brian Ottum about what to expect from all of the sky watching events now taking place.

Listen to the full interview.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Lisa Barry:The seasons are changing, the moon is telling us it's time to harvest our crops, and fall officially begins on Wednesday. This is Lisa Barry, and with his eyes on the sky all times of year and through all the seasons, we're checking in with local Saline amateur astronomer Brian Ottum. Thanks for talking to us, Brian.

Dr. Brian Ottum:It's great to be here.

Lisa Barry:We're talking about the harvest full moon, which will be visible pretty much all week.

Dr. Brian Ottum:Well, the full moon is this week, and it's going to be wonderful because it's visible all week, because it only comes up a little later each night. So, it's been very helpful for farmers and getting those crops in from the fields. So, they call it the harvest moon because it's this time of year, the harvest season. But it comes up only a little bit later each night, illuminating those fields, so the farmers can get the crops in.

Lisa Barry:Well, weather's been a bit tricky, but you're thinking by Thursday we'll have another good view?

Dr. Brian Ottum:Yeah, it looks like the Tuesday and Wednesday are kind of iffy, but I think that, on Thursday night, it looks like our best chance to see that really amazing harvest Moon coming up in the east. It comes up at about nine or two, and it looks like it'll be clear.

Lisa Barry:We have so many different moon names, depending on the time of the year, and the harvest moon, for me personally, I just feel the season change. Maybe it's because the temperature is changing as well. But how significant in the feeling of seasons does the harvest moon seem to you?

Dr. Brian Ottum:It definitely is a harbinger of the cooler weather. Usually, it's coming if it's clear and the moon's coming up. The temperature is dropping from a warm day to a very chilly night. And maybe that first frost is not far away. And so, that's what you think about when you see that harvest moon coming up in the east. And it's just always a really crisp evening.

Lisa Barry:And fall officially begins on Wednesday, speaking of crisp evenings.

Dr. Brian Ottum:Yes. Yes. And it's also happening this week, which is kind of great to have the two-in-one week. We got the harvest moon, and we got the autumnal equinox, which is the beginning of fall--the official beginning of fall. And what's interesting about that is the sun is setting directly west, and the sun is coming up directly in the east. So, no matter where you live on the whole globe, that's true. And that's only true at this time of year. And then opposite of this is the the spring equinox. And also, you know, we can talk about the physics of it. It's when we cross the plane of our solar system, and we're just lined up very carefully with the sun.

Lisa Barry:And something that we look forward to every year is coming up this weekend. Tell us about that.

Dr. Brian Ottum:Well, Astronomy at the Beach is in its 25th year.

Lisa Barry:Wow.

Dr. Brian Ottum:And it's very exciting. This is an event where us fanatic amateur astronomers love to get our telescopes out and share our passion for the sky with the public. And over these 25 years, we've shown probably 75,000 people views of the sky. Two years ago, we had 70 telescopes out there. And so, it's a wonderful event, but, because of COVID, we're not able to do it in person. We still want to be safe. So, this year, we've switched it to a virtual star party event, meaning people for free can golog on, and they can get live views like of the sun and prominences and solar flares, if it's clear. And then, in the evening, real telescope views. And, myself. I'll be using my remote control telescope that's located in the desert to show things. I'm rounding out the end of the schedule. I don't start until 10:00 PM.

Lisa Barry:What things will you be showing?

Dr. Brian Ottum:Oh, what I'm going to be showing is the tour of the universe. We're going to start with stuff that's close by. We might chase a satellite across the sky. I chased the space station last week and got a video of that. And then, we'll move further out and maybe peek at the moon and then the planets and show the rings of Saturn and moons of Jupiter and then move out to the nearest stars, some star clusters, and then watch a star being born and also watch a star dying. And then, the end is far, far away. Other galaxies and show pictures of, like, Andromeda Galaxy. That's always a winner.

Lisa Barry:How often are stars born and die?

Dr. Brian Ottum:In just our galaxy, it's happening right now. Millions of places.

Lisa Barry: And how do you recognize it?

Dr. Brian Ottum: Well, stars are born out of clouds of gas. And these clouds of gas usually glow. And, to the camera, they glow red. And so, they're rather easy to take a picture of, and that's what I do. Take a quick snapshot, and then show everybody and then kind of narrate what it is. So, yeah, these are clouds of red gas--nebulas. It's where stars are born, and they're all over the sky in pockets. And so, we find these pockets, and we take a picture of them.

Lisa Barry: I'm sparing you my Barbra Streisand joke. If you're a movie watcher, a star is born. Anyway, Astronomy at the Beach is taking place when again?

Dr. Brian Ottum:Yes, I didn't even say. I'm sorry. It's this Friday and Saturday, the 24th and 25th. And our schedule is three p.m. to midnight. Both nights.

Lisa Barry: Both nights. And we'll put links to how people can see that with this interview on our website, WEMU dot org. Brian Ottum. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much.

Dr. Brian Ottum: Glad to be your guest. And it's always fun.

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Lisa Barry is the host of All Things Considered on WEMU. You can contact Lisa at 734.487.3363, on Twitter@LisaWEMU, or email her atlbarryma@emich.edu

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It's A Big Week For Sky Watchers With A Harvest Moon, Autumnal Equinox, & Astronomy At The Beach - WEMU

Imagine what it would be like to witness a sudden burst of light equivalent to over a million trillion times brighter than our Sun. But, is it even possible. YES, IT IS! Astronomers have now found the reason behind the brightest, most energetic blasts of light that happens in the universe.

Star-forming galaxies are responsible for this massive outburst of energy known as the Gama Ray Bursts (GRB). This is for the first time that astronomers have identified the reason behind this massive flare of energy that until now had not been associated with a known origin. The discovery could shed light on some of the biggest mysteries of the universe including Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

The study published in the journal Nature states that until now it has been unclear what created gamma-rays - one of the most energetic forms of light in the Universe - that appear in patches of seemingly "empty sky". "It's a significant milestone to finally discover the origins of this gamma-ray emission, solving a mystery of the Universe astronomers have been trying to decipher since the 1960s," Dr Matt Roth of the Australian National University, who is the lead author of the paper.

The short-lived bursts of gamma-ray light that are the most energetic form of light last anywhere from a few milliseconds to several minutes. These bursts shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and about a million trillion times as bright as the Sun.

According to Nasa, GRBs, the biggest mystery in high-energy astronomy were discovered in the late 1960s by US military satellites "which were on the lookout for Soviet nuclear testing in violation of the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty." The gamma-ray detectors onboard the satellite picked up bright bursts of gamma rays from beyond the solar system.

Researchers used data from Hubble Space Telescope and Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and analysed information about galaxies. (Photo: Getty)

When astronomers delved into the nuances of this phenomenon, they found there are two types of GRBs long-duration and short-duration. While the long-duration bursts last anywhere from two seconds to a few hundreds of seconds, short-duration bursts are those that last less than 2 seconds, from anywhere from a few milliseconds to 2 seconds with an average duration of about 0.3 seconds.

While initially, researchers had said that the source of these bright lights could be from gas falling into the supermassive black holes which are found at the centres of all galaxies, new research shows that it is associated with star formation in the disks of galaxies.

"We modelled the gamma-ray emission from all the galaxies in the Universe and compared our results with the predictions for other sources and found that it is star-forming galaxies that produce the majority of this diffuse gamma-ray radiation and not the AGN process," Dr Roth said in a statement. The researchers were able to pinpoint what created these mysterious gamma rays after obtaining a better understanding of how cosmic rays - particles that travel at speeds very close to the speed of light - move through the gas between the stars.

Researchers used data from Hubble Space Telescope and Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and analysed information about galaxies including their star-formation rates, total masses, physical size and distances from Earth. The tea is now looking to producing maps of the gamma-ray sky that can be used to inform upcoming gamma-ray observations from next-generation telescopes.

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Astronomers solve mystery of the brightest light in the universe - India Today

When purchasing a new phone or tablet, it is common practice to select the best technology that fits your needs within the available budget. This is also the strategy adopted by our research team at the Galileo Project, a new initiative to image unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) like those reported by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to the U.S. Congress on June 25, 2021.

To my amusement, I recently came across an online retailer that would allow us to add to cart a one-meter telescope for half a million dollars. Fortunately, cheaper telescopes are all that is needed for surveying the sky at the proper resolution to identify UAP.

Under typical weather conditions, Earths atmosphere is opaque to infrared light beyond a distance of about 10 kilometers or less. Resolving a feature the size of a cell phone on the surface of a UAP at that distance requires a telescope diameter on the order of 10 centimeters. Having a few such telescopes on a given site will allow us to monitor the motion of an object in three dimensions. These telescopes could be supplemented by a radar system that would distinguish a physical object in the sky from a weather pattern or a mirage.

If UAP are solid objects, they should heat up as they rub against air at high speed. The surfaces of objects that move in air faster than sound, such as supersonic airplanes or space rockets, are heated by hundreds of degrees. I calculated that the infrared glow of fast objects above a meter in size, supplemented by the heat from shockwaves in the air around them or an engine they carry, should be detectable with infrared sensors on telescopes out to the desired distance.

The data from a system of optical, infrared or radio telescopes will be fed to state-of-the-art video cameras linked to software that will filter out objects of interest for the telescope to track. If a bird flies above a common astronomical observatory, it will be ignored. The Galileo-Scopes will track it. Human-made drones or airplanes might be of great interest to some residents of Washington, D.C., but they are as uninteresting as birds for the Galileo Project.

My student Amir Siraj and I calculated that the number of UAP described in the ODNI report corresponds to about one object per hundred thousand square kilometers per year (with large uncertainties up to a factor of 100). This is well below the rate of unidentified objects from cell phone photographs or civilian eyewitness testimonies, implying that many of these unofficial sightings may have mundane explanations. Millions of cell phones with millimeter-size apertures are inferior to what Galileo proposes: a much smaller number of optimized telescope systems with apertures 100 times larger that are designed to rapidly track UAP.

The iceberg of classified reportsof which only the tip has been exposed publiclymay contain higher-quality images than those released to the public. Galileos goal is to capture new crisp images with better instruments than have ever been used by civilians. The full data set from the project will be open, whereas much of the data associated with the ODNI report is classified because it was obtained by government-owned sensors. Because the sky is not classified, Galileo-Scopes will operate just like common astronomical telescopesexcept that they will focus on nearby objects. We aim to change the intellectual landscape of UAP studies by bringing them into the mainstream of credible scientific inquiry.

In my book Extraterrestrial, published half a year ago, I argued that bringing the search for technological relics into the mainstream of astronomy would attract new funds and young talent to science. In recent weeks, this forecast became a reality. The Galileo Project has attracted millions of dollars from private donors and thousands of commitments from volunteers who offered to contribute their time and resources. Given the low incidence of UAP reported by ODNI, however, the project will need hundreds of telescopes to find UAP over a few years. That represents an order of magnitude more funding than we have collected so far.

With good enough data, extraterrestrial technologies can be distinguished from terrestrial technologies or natural objects. The Galileo Project will attempt to obtain this data from both UAP and unusual interstellar objects like `Oumuamua.

If prehistoric cave dwellers were to discover a cell phone, they would initially assume it to be a shiny rock of a type never seen before. But this might be the beginning of their learning experience. By pressing buttons on this weird rock, these early humans would record voices and images.

Similarly, the strange `Oumuamua has been interpreted as a new type of asteroid, such as a frozen chunk of pure hydrogen or nitrogen. But what if high-resolution images of such a weird object revealed buttons? It could encourage us to learn more by landing on the surface, just as the OSIRIS-REx craft recently landed on the asteroid Bennu. Heres hoping that astronomers will be open-minded enough to check.

This is an opinion and analysis article; the views expressed by theauthor or authorsare not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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Astronomers Should be Willing to Look Closer at Weird Objects in the Sky - Scientific American

Photographer Shuchang Dong has just been announced as the Overall Winner of the Royal Observatory Greenwichs title Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13, with his astounding image of the annular solar eclipse, The Golden Ring.

The beauty of simplicity and the technical excellence of Dongs image spellbound the judges. The photograph depicts the annular solar eclipse that occurred on 21 June 2020 in a powerful and atmospheric composition. Competition judge Lszl Francsics said: Perfection and simplicity lead to a winner image. A true masterpiece.

Winning images from other categories and special prizes include the mesmerising Aurora dance taken from the bridge of a ship by the Third Officer Dmitrii Rybalka (Russia), Venus rising over the rocky horizon of the Moon by Nicolas Lefaudeux (France), a poignant star trail image taken during lockdown by Deepal Ratnayaka (UK), and the outstanding image of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket passing the Moon by Paul Eckhardt (USA).

15-year-old Zhipu Wang (China) is taking home the top prize in the Young Competition category for his astonishing composition of the Sun, the Moon and the planets of the Solar System.

BBC Sky at Night Magazines Art Editor Steve Marsh, who is also a judge for the competition, said of this years contest: The incredibly talented global community of astronomers has once again shown us just what they are capable of. From stunning new takes on our own Solar System to new views of our Galaxy and the wider Universe and poignant reflections of our place in the cosmos.

An exhibition of winning photographs opening at the National Maritime Museum on 18 September 2021. Take a look through some of the fabulous winning images in our special gallery:

On 21 June 2020 there was an annular solar eclipse and the photographer made sure not to miss it. He decided to go to Ali in Tibet to shoot it because it has year-round sunny weather. However, during the annular eclipse, there were dark clouds all over the sky. The anticipation was high but within a minute of the annular eclipse, the sunshine pierced through the clouds and the photographer was lucky to capture that moment. Afterwards the Sun disappeared again.Photo by Shuchang Dong/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Check out our 2021 solar eclipse gallery here.

As Third Officer, the photographer was keeping watch that night on the bridge of the ship when he noticed in the sky a tiny white band approaching like a snake. He had a feeling that there was something in the air, that something great would happen and instantly knew that this was what he was waiting for. He took his camera, went to the bridge wing, took position and started waiting. A few minutes later, the sky was full of bright green lights dancing in darkness and shining over everything on their way. Photograph taken on the approach to the Kara Strait, Russia, 30 November 2020. Photo by Dmitrii Rybalka/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

With the UK being in full lockdown and travel restricted for many months due to the pandemic, astrophotography became the photographers focus. This photo sums up the year 2020, cramped but hopeful. The photographers six-year-old daughter, who is always very interested in the photoshoots, was around during the set up. Sat by the door, she was showing the stars appearing one by one in the sky to her soft toy Max, and this gave the photographer the perfect opportunity to get her in the frame which complimented the message behind the photo. Photographed atWindsor, Berkshire, UK, 20 & 21 January 2021.Photo by Deepal Ratnayaka/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

The California Nebula, otherwise known as NGC 1499, was captured over seven nights in 2021 using broadband and narrowband filters, with a total integration time of 16.1 hours. This emission nebula is around 100 light-years long and 1,000 light years away from Earth. It is named California Nebula because it appears to resemble the outline of the US State of California. The raw data was pre-processed and the stars were removed using a tool called Starnet, then later replaced during post-processing with the more naturally coloured stars from the RGB (red, green, blue) data. While the colours in this image are not the true colours, the narrowband filters reveal much more of the hidden gasses not visible in a broadband image. Photographed atWhitewater, Colorado, USA, 1631 January, 6 and 28 February, 2 March 2021.Photo by Terry Hancock/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

The smouldering crescent Moon floats in an ocean blue atmosphere above quiet, glowing dunes of sand and the red of the sunset has faded into the blue twilight. The photographer hiked deep into the dunes and eventually found the foreground he had imagined for this shot. Once everything was assembled, he looked up and there hung a shining sliver of a crescent moon outlining its dark but visible face. This HDR/perspective blend integrates four images, all shot that evening with the same lens, and from the same tripod location. The images were combined in Photoshop and together they effectively replicate the sublime scene the photographer witnessed that evening. Photographed atDeath Valley National Park, California, USA, 25 February 2020.Photo by Jeffrey Lovelace/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

An expanse of cosmic dust, stars and nebulae along the plane of the Milky Way galaxy form a magnificent ring in this image. The panorama covers the entire galaxy visible from planet Earth. It is an ambitious 360 mosaic that took the photographer two years to complete. Northern hemisphere sites in China and southern hemisphere sites in New Zealand were used to collect the image data. Like a glowing jewel set in the Milky Way ring, the bulge of the galactic centre is at the very top. The bright planet Jupiter is the beacon just above the central bulge and to the left of the red giant star Antares. Along the plane and almost 180 from the galactic centre at the bottom of the ring is the area around Orion. The ring of the Milky Way encompasses two notable galaxies in the southern skies, the Magellanic Clouds. Photographed atSichuan, Qinghai, China, and Lake Pukaki, New Zealand, January to February 2020 and August 2020January 2021. Photo by Zhong Wu/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

High clouds on Jupiter create intricate and beautiful shapes that swirl all over the planet. In order to get a colour image when there are only three colour channels (red, green, blue), some sort of filter-to-channel mapping must be done. PixInsight was used for the rest of the processing: custom white balance, deconvolution and wavelet transformation for detail enhancement, contrast and saturation curves. The areas corresponding to the poles were too bright and distracting so they were darkened by colour masking. Photo by Sergio Diaz Ruiz/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

The Cassini missions brought back some astounding imagery of our Solar System. The photographer used a selection of the CICLOPS teams photographs of Saturn to create this piece. The patterns formed by Saturn, its rings and its moons are truly magnificent. The photographs have echoes of architecture, nature, art and design, and are just as artistically inspirational as they are crucial for scientific study. The photographer edited several spectacular images before ordering the photographs into a grid pattern and assembled them in this particular way to have remnants of familiar and stable imagery, but in a fractured and disrupted way with undertones of science fiction symbolism. Photo by Leonardo Di Maggio/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Check out some more of our great image galleries:

This is an image of the Sun, the Moon and the planets of the Solar System (except Earth) taken during the year of the rat in China. In this special year, the photographer felt very lucky to produce the images of these celestial bodies and for a student who has only practiced astrophotography for one year it was a great accomplishment. Photographed atYongtai, Fujian, China, 14 August 2020 to 21 January 2021.Photo by Zhipu Wang/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Four hours before the Falcon 9 launch, the photographer downloaded the Photo Pills app, subscribed to flightclub.io and started an intensive research to understand both applications and pinpoint a location where the flight arc would overlap the Moon. When the photographer arrived at the launch location, he was blocked by a gate and ended up on a different dark road with trees blocking the launch pad. After making a quick calculation, he parked and ran a hundred feet in the dark and then the sky lit up as Falcon 9 soared straight up, tilted over, and aimed right at the Moon. Photographed atTitusville, Florida, USA, 4 February 2021.Photo by Paul Eckhardt/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

In a perspective reminiscent of the Apollo missions, the lunar horizon is crowned with a planet crescent. However, this is not Earth rising above the Moon captured by a probe orbiting our satellite, but Venus just before it gets occulted by the Moon, as observed from Earth in daylight on 19 June 2020. The rocky horizon of the Moon appears very dark in contrast with the gleaming crescent of the planet enshrouded by white clouds. Photographed atForges-les-Bains, le-de-France, France, 19 June 2020.Photo by Nicolas Lefaudeux/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

The photographer was shooting with two other friends on that cold January evening. They werent planning to capture meteors but distant galaxies and nebulas. After setting up the camera to shoot the Leo Triplet galaxies, the photographer and his friends saw a bright green meteor burning right before their eyes as it tore through Earths atmosphere. They were all in awe of witnessing a fireball meteor. After they caught their breath, one of the friends mentioned that the photographers camera was pointing in the comets direction, but the photographer thought there was no way he could have caught it as he had zoomed all the way in. Once he checked his camera there it was, perfectly framed. The photographer had made a mistake and the lens wasnt zoomed in, making the perfect composition for the meteor. This incredible image was a happy accident. Photographed atCook Station, Missouri, USA, 19 January 2021.Photo by Frank Kuszaj/Astronomy Photographer of the Year

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Winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year in pictures - BBC Focus Magazine

Soar Together @ Air and Space is a monthly family program from the National Air and Space Museum. Through live events and interactive activities you can do anytime, your family can explore a different air and space topic every month.

In September, well help you and your family get ready to gaze at the stars and enjoy all the sky has to offer. Through activities and live programs, your family will learn the basics of observing the sky, including how to prepare for observing, what amazing celestial objects you can find with just your eyes, and how to share that experience with each other. No matter where you are, or whether you're a beginner or a pro, you can use the following steps to feel prepared to look up and explore.

Observing the sky is a wonderful way to connect with nature and see amazing things! Participating in astronomy does not require any special equipment or skills, but there are some simple ways to ensure it will be a satisfying experience.

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Soar Together @ Air and Space: Astronomy Anywhere! - National Air and Space Museum

Antony Hewish, a pioneer of radio astronomy and a discoverer of a surprising class of stars known as pulsars, for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize, died on Monday. He was 97.

His death was announced by the University of Cambridge in England, where he had taught for many years. The announcement did not say where he died.

Pulsars, or pulsating radio stars, are the embers of massive stars that have exploded as supernovas. Dr. Hewish built a radio telescope that, though designed for other purposes, happened to have just the right properties to detect rapidly varying radio waves the signature emission of pulsars.

He shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics with another radio astronomer, Martin Ryle, his longtime friend and collaborator at Cambridge. But the Nobel committees citation of Dr. Hewish, for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars, attracted criticism. The astronomer Fred Hoyle noted that the signals from the first two pulsars had in fact been detected and analyzed by Jocelyn Bell, a 24-year-old Cambridge graduate student who was working on the new telescope. Dr. Hewish was her supervisor and doctoral thesis adviser.

Her finding was kept secret for six months while her superiors were busily pinching the discovery from the girl, or that was what it amounted to, Dr. Hoyle wrote in a letter to The Times of London.

Other astronomers noted that Ms. Bells assigned task had been to plot twinkling radio sources, but that she had noticed and pursued a different kind of signal.

Jocelyn was a jolly good girl, but she was just doing her job, Dr. Hewish told an interviewer for the journal Science after Dr. Hoyles criticisms became public in 1975. She noticed this source was doing this thing. If she hadnt noticed it, she would have been negligent.

Antony Hewish was born in the small seaside town of Fowey, in Cornwall, England, on May 11, 1924. His father was a banker. He started studying science at Cambridge in 1942 but was diverted during World War II to a Royal Aircraft Establishment research team, to work on designing ways to jam the radar of German fighter planes at night.

The leader of the team was Dr. Ryle, who after the end of the war began a distinguished career in developing radio astronomy at Cambridge. Dr. Hewish joined his group and became interested in determining which of the several thousand radio-emitting galaxies that Dr. Ryle had discovered were quasars.

Quasars, now known to be supermassive black holes, were at that time recognized as point sources of radio waves, as opposed to broad sources like radio galaxies. Quasars radio signals flicker in intensity as they pass through the solar wind. Dr. Hewish designed a special kind of radio telescope to detect those twinklings, which was completed in 1967.

He set Ms. Bell to scan the recordings produced by his telescope, and to distinguish the true stellar twinklings from artificial sources of interference, like pirate radio stations or aircraft altimeters.

The telescope churned out about 400 feet of paper charts for each full coverage of the sky. In October 1967, Ms. Bell noticed a blip, occupying half an inch, that seemed neither human-made nor stellar. She remembered that she had seen a blip with the same shape in a recording from almost 24 hours earlier. Further analysis showed that the blips consisted of highly regular pulses, just over a second apart.

The extreme regularity of the pulses pointed to some kind of manufactured source. But Dr. Hewish then established that the source was appearing not every 24 hours, but every 23 hours 56 minutes. It was keeping pace with the rotation of the stars, not Earth, and so it must have been extraterrestrial.

Astronomers are well aware that if there is intelligent life beyond Earth, they will probably be the first to know about it. This sidereal beacon with its precisely timed signal was so unexpected that no explanation could be ruled out, including the possibility that it was an intentional signal.

Only partly in jest, the source was named LGM-1, for little green men. Dr. Hewish later said in an interview that for a period of two months he believed it was possible that the signal might be coming from aliens.

While her elders were debating how they could publish the discovery without having any idea what it was, Ms. Bell made a decisive finding. She detected a second such source, this one emitting regular pulses but at a different rate. It seemed unlikely that two sets of extraterrestrials would be signaling Earth at different frequencies, so the source was more likely a new kind of star.

Dr. Hewish confirmed that there was no Doppler shift in the signal, as would be expected if the source were on a planet circling its sun. (The Doppler shift is the phenomenon that makes a train whistle, for example, appear to change in frequency as it passes an observer.)

The discovery of pulsars, kept a closely guarded secret by the Cambridge radio astronomy group, was published in the journal Nature on Feb. 24, 1968. By scientific convention, when a student makes a discovery that a professors intellect and instruments had made possible, the students name is put first on the authorship line and the professors last, with other helpers in between.

If this convention had been followed, Ms. Bell and Dr. Hewish would have been presented as joint discoverers of the remarkable new stars. But the Nature paper listed Dr. Hewish as the first author, followed by Ms. Bell, then several minor contributors. The implication, persuasive to the Nobel committee, was that Dr. Hewish had been the sole discoverer. (Dr. Ryle, who shared that years Nobel, was cited for his development of revolutionary radio telescopes that paved the way for the discovery of pulsars.)

Unlike the Nobel committee, the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia awarded a prize for the discovery of pulsars to Ms. Bell and Dr. Hewish jointly in 1973. That judgment was followed by most other accounts. In 2018, Ms. Bell, by then Dr. Bell Burnell, was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her work on pulsars. (The foundation that sponsors the prize was established by the Google co-founder Sergey Brin and the Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, among others.)

Dr. Hewish was professor of radio astronomy at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge from 1971 to 1989 and head of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory near Cambridge, founded by Dr. Ryle, from 1982 to 1988.

Survivors include his wife, Marjorie, whom he married in 1950.

Mathew Brownstein contributed reporting.

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Antony Hewish, Astronomer Honored for the Discovery of Pulsars, Dies at 97 - The New York Times

A man whose career is all about explaining science will make a presentation about the importance of communicating science at Nanaimo Astronomy Societys first meeting of the fall.

Matthew S. Williams will present Why Science Communication Matters on Thursday, Sept. 23, when he will explore why a science communicators job of making science accessible to the general public has become ever more important in a time when misinformation and data fatigue are making it increasingly difficult to sift fact from fiction.

In addition to making scientific concepts more easily digestible, its also the science communicators responsibility to be a trusted source who can make important information more engaging, according to a press release from the society.

Williams lives on the Island and is a regular contributor to space and astronomy news site Universe Today and to Interesting Engineering and is director of media communication for Mars City Design. He is also author of The Formist Series of hard science fiction works The Cronian Incident, The Jovian Manifesto and The Frost Line Factor.

Williams is co-author of podcast series The Martian Dispatches, which will premire on Space Channel this fall. In 2022 he and co-author Paul Patton will release The Fermi Paradox, a book that explores the mysteries of why humanity has yet to make contact with alien life.

His articles have also appeared in Phys.org, HeroX, Popular Mechanics, Business Insider, Gizmodo, I09, ScienceAlert, Knowridge Science Report and Real Clear Science.

Williams, who presented to the Nanaimo Astronomy Society in 2016 about Mars colonization and in 2017 about exploring ocean worlds in the Solar System, will give his talk following Nanaimo Astronomy Societys annual general meeting.

The societys meeting, via Zoom, runs 7-9 p.m. Non-members are welcome to attend one NAS meeting for free. Non-members interested in Williamss presentation are asked to e-mail info@nanaimoastronomy.com.

For more information, visit http://www.nanaimoastronomy.com.

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Nanaimo Astronomy Society's first meeting of the fall focuses on science communication Nanaimo News Bulletin - Nanaimo Bulletin