Category Archives: Astronomy

In the vastness of space, astronomers are likely to find instances of almost every astronomical phenomena if they look hard enough. Many planetary phenomena are starting to come into sharper focus as the astronomy community continues to focus on finding exoplanets. Now a team led by Yifan Zhou at UT Austin has directly imaged a gas giant still in formation.

To do this, the team used that workhorse of astronomers for the last 30 years Hubble. They pointed it at the orange dwarf system PDS 70, which is known thought to have two planets in the formation stage. The system is located in the constellation Centaurus, about 370 light years away from our solar system. One of its planets, PDS 70b, is a gas giant that circles its star at about the same distance as Uranus from our Sun.

PDS 70b is still relatively young, at about 5 million years old, but it has already grown to the size of approximately 5 Jupiters. It also appears to be at the tail end of its growth phase, collecting only about 1/100 of a mass of Jupiter over the next million years if it maintains its current rate of growth.

That growth is fueled by a circumplanetary disk that collects material from a larger circumstellar disk and funnels it onto the planet. Those funnels follow magnetic field lines into the planets atmosphere, and can be viewed at extra hot specks in ultraviolet wavelengths.

Dr. Zhou and his team managed to directly image the planet, making it one of only about 15 that have been directly imaged so far, and the youngest of those imaged by Hubble. They used the space telescopes ultraviolet sensors to capture an image of both the PDS 70 star and its growing gas giant. The problem was filtering out the stars light, which was 3000 times brighter than the ultraviolet light from the planet.

Using a novel post processing technique, Dr. Zhou was able to block out the light from the star and leave only the light emitted from the planet to be analyzed. In doing so, he also decreased the maximum exoplanets maximum orbit around a star that can be viewed by Hubble by a factor of five.

The team points out that this observation is only a snapshot in time, so there is no data on any changes to the speed with which PDS 70b is continuing to grow or how close it is to completing its growth. However, string enough snapshots together over time and they begin to form a moving picture that provides more information than a single one ever could. With luck, Hubble will continue to collect more data on the PDS 70 system using Dr. Zhous techniques to track the progress of its planets fascinating creation process.

Learn More:Hubblesite Exoplanet PDS 70B Is Gobbling Up Gas And Dust As It Continues To Build MassThe Astronomical Journal Hubble Space Telescope UV and H?Measurements of the Accretion Excess Emission from the Young Giant Planet PDS 70 bSci-News Hubble Captures First-Ever Ultraviolet Image of ExoplanetSyFy HUBBLE SEES A NEARBY VERY YOUNG EXOPLANET FINISHING UP A GROWTH SPURT

Lead Image:Artists conception of the PD 70b planet being formed showing material flowing along magnetic fields into the atmosphere.Credit: McDonald Observatory UT, Yifan Zhou (UT), NASA, ESA, STScI, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

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Astronomers are Watching a gas Giant Grow, Right in Front of Their Eyes - Universe Today

Near a forest of skyscrapers in downtown Beijing, four dragons have combined their strength to lift a replica of the solar system. In Chinese culture, no image is more auspicious than the dragon, which symbolises power, wealth and fortune. It is fitting, then, that those mythical creatures are depicted by this steel statue as trying to come to grips with the universe. Because this is just what the Chinese have been attempting to do for thousands of years.

This metallic model, called an armillary sphere, is one of many historic scientific instruments scattered through the grounds of the 579-year-old Beijing Ancient Observatory. An offbeat tourist attraction, the huge building looks like a weathered fortress and is brimming with astronomical relics, some of which were influenced by Islamic science, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age in the 1200s. Back then, brilliant Muslim mathematicians were brought to Beijing to share their knowledge and alter how China analysed the universe.

A sliver of green lies about 700 metres south of the observatory, largely hidden behind high-rise buildings. This is the Ming Dynasty City Wall Relics Park. Within this small public space are some of the finest remains of the fortifications that surrounded and protected Beijing during Chinas Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). But it was during the previous Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) that Islamic astronomers first made their mark in China. By that stage, the country had long been paying close attention to the sky.

The small but informative museum inside this observatory complex displays Chinese ceramics up to 5,000 years old, which are embellished by images of the Sun and the stars. Elsewhere, solar eclipses are mentioned in Chinese texts dating back 2,700 years.

Not long after that, the ancient Greeks made a discovery that changed human perception of the physical world. In the 6th century BC, Greek academics produced evidence that our apparently flat planet was in fact spherical. They did this by highlighting how the skys appearance varied depending on the location from which it was viewed, and by documenting the curved shadows cast on to the Moon by the Earth during lunar eclipses.

What these Greek scientists did not know was that some of those stars they monitored so closely would eventually explode. Like a magnificent piece of abstract art, the dark canvas of space would be decorated by an eruption of light and colour marking the end of that stars long life. This was a supernova.

Stars had been dying in this spectacular fashion for millions of years before a human ever took note. It was in China in the year 185 that a supernova was first documented, as highlighted by the observatorys museum. Now known by scientists as SN 185, this exploding star created a unique pattern that remained visible to humans in the night sky for eight months. One Chinese observer recorded this unusual event, which was then included in the important Chinese historical text The Book of the Later Han.

The Chinese were not only intrigued by the mysteries of the stars, or beguiled by their beauty. They were also wary of their wrath. Chinese historical records, some dating back more than 2,000 years, make repeated mention of falling stars. These accounts are now widely believed to describe large meteors striking the Earth.

Official texts even detail deadly meteors, including a fallen star that supposedly killed 10 people after smashing into a rebel base in China in the year 616. While scientists whove investigated this account have been unable to prove its veracity, such stories fed into ancient Chinas fear of, and fascination with, the sky.

By the 1200s, China had a strong grasp of how the solar system operated. But it was not satisfied with that. During the Yuan Dynasty, its Emperor Kublai Khan recruited outstanding minds from all over the world. One of those foreign geniuses was Marco Polo, the Italian explorer who spent about 20 years serving as an ambassador for Khan.

In 1271, the same year that Polo first set off for China, Khan built an observatory in Beijing to be used specifically by Middle Eastern scientists. Islamic astronomers were then widely considered to be among the most advanced in the world. So the Yuan Dynasty gave them their own sophisticated facility, well equipped with Arabic texts and instruments.

In command of the more than 30 staff at Beijings Islamic observatory was Jamal Al Din, a renowned Persian astronomer. He oversaw the creation of a handbook that explained the methods of Islamic astronomy. This and other works by the Islamic scientists were later translated into the Chinese languages and studied by Beijings elite astronomers.

Particularly during the Ming Dynasty, Chinese astronomers began to double-check their own measurements and findings against those of Islamic astronomy, to try to hone this science. Accuracy was crucial. These comparisons with Islamic astronomy were particularly useful to the Chinese in predicting solar and lunar eclipses.

Equally influential was the precise Islamic method for calculating the latitudes of the Moon and the so-called Five Planets: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus. Those planets were especially important to the Chinese, who viewed them as representing the five elements of life water, fire, wood, earth and metal, respectively.

So great was Chinas respect for Islamic astronomy that the observatory continued to operate in Beijing for almost 400 years. Its highly respected scientists influenced their Chinese counterparts, who worked at the Beijing Ancient Observatory, which was opened in 1442.

This historic complex has not been used for scientific purposes since 1929. Yet in recent decades it has again become a centre for the international exchange of information and ideas. Not as a research facility, but rather as one of Beijings most unusual tourist sites, which attracts travellers who, like the ancient Chinese, are keen to better understand the stars.

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How Islamic astronomers changed Chinas view of the stars - The National

Kenneth Hicks| For The Columbus Dispatch USA TODAY NETWORK

The American Physical Society held their annual conference this past week, withallpresentations givenonZoom.Many new results in the area of astrophysics were presented, ranging from black holes to gravitational waves(as well asseveralother topics).

For me,a talk onasupermassive black hole at the center of ourMilky Way galaxy was the most interesting. Only 20 years ago, there was scant evidence that such an object existed in our galaxy.But now, withadvances in technology,the evidence is overwhelming.The black holetherehasthemassofamind-boggling4.6 million suns.When you consider that our sun is about a half-million times the mass of the entire Earth, then thisblack hole is more than atrilliontimes(or 1,000,000,000,000)more massive than the Earth.

So how can astronomers determine such a huge mass?It turns out that you can calculate the mass of any stellar object just by measuring the orbit of another body going around it.For example, we can measure the mass of the sun just by knowing the Earths orbit. Or we canfindthe mass of Jupiter just by measuring the orbit ofone ofJupiters moons.Its that simple along with a bit of math.

Advances in technology have madeitpossibleto get the mass of our galaxys black hole.There aretwoprimarycontributions.One is from building large telescopes that are designed to look at infrared lightin the night sky.

Although infrared light is invisible to our eyes, electronic sensors(like those in your phones camera)can be built to detect infrared light.It turns out that our Milky Way has a lot of gas and dust between Earth and the center of the galaxy, about 25,800 light-yearsaway.But infrared light can penetrate the dust, giving a clear view of stars that orbit the black hole.

The second contribution is a technique called adaptive optics, where the telescope can make near-instantaneous adjustments to the shape of the telescopes reflecting mirror to compensate for distortions of light passing through the atmosphere.

Think of looking past the top of a hot barbeque.Youll see a wavy distortion due to the hot swirling air above. Similarly, the air above a telescope is constantly moving, and causing distortions in the stars it is viewing.

With the new technology, astronomers can now clearly see stars that orbit the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Now that we know if exists, the next question is:how diditget so massive?Thats a mystery that likely wont be solved for many years.It may take the next generation of astronomers to figure out the answer.

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Astronomy: Supermassive black hole at center of Milky Way has mass of 4.6 million suns - The Columbus Dispatch

Astronomers have apparently found the closest known black hole to Earth,a weirdly tiny object dubbed "The Unicorn" that lurks just 1,500 light-years from us.

The nickname has a double meaning. Not only does the black hole candidate reside in the constellation Monoceros ("the unicorn"), its incredibly low mass about three times that of the sun makes it nearly one of a kind.

"Because the system is so unique and so weird, you know, it definitely warranted the nickname of 'The Unicorn,'" discovery team leader Tharindu Jayasinghe, an astronomy Ph.D. student at The Ohio State University, said in a new video the school made to explain the find.

Related: The strangest black holes in the universe

"The Unicorn" has a companion a bloated red giant star that's nearing the end of its life. (Our sun will swell up as a red giant in about five billion years.) That companion has been observed by a variety of instruments over the years, including the All Sky Automated Survey and NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

Jayasinghe and his colleagues analyzed that big dataset and noticed something interesting: The red giant's light shifts in intensity periodically, suggesting that another object is tugging on the star and changing its shape.

The team determined that the object doing the tugging is likely a black hole one harboring a mere three solar masses, based on details of the star's velocity and the light distortion. (For perspective: The supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy packs about 4.3 million solar masses.)

"Just as the moon's gravity distorts the Earth's oceans, causing the seas to bulge toward and away from the moon, producing high tides, so does the black hole distort the star into a football-like shape with one axis longer than the other," study co-author Todd Thompson, chair of Ohio State's astronomy department, said in a statement. "The simplest explanation is that it's a black hole and in this case, the simplest explanation is the most likely one."

That explanation, likely though it may be, is not set in stone; "The Unicorn" remains a black hole candidate at the moment.

Very few such super-lightweight black holes are known, because they're incredibly hard to find. Black holes famously gobble up everything, including light, so astronomers have traditionally detected them by noticing the impact they have on their surroundings (though we did recently get our first direct image of a black hole, thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope). And the smaller the black hole, the smaller the impact.

But efforts to find extremely low-mass black holes have increased significantly in recent years, Thompson said, so we could soon learn much more about these mysterious objects.

"I think the field is pushing toward this, to really map out how many low-mass, how many intermediate-mass and how many high-mass black holes there are, because every time you find one it gives you a clue about which stars collapse, which explode and which are in between," he said in the statement.

Jayasinghe and his team report the detection of "The Unicorn" in a paper that's been accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. You can read it for free at the online preprint site arXiv.org.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Tiny newfound 'Unicorn' is closest known black hole to Earth - Space.com

Some worry that the growth of space technologywhich originally sprang from humanitys fascination with the starsnow threatens access to the clear skies vital for research with a new generation of Earth-based telescopes.

A stack of multiple consecutive exposures, across a 30 minute timespan, captured the trails of Starlink satellites over Bryce Canyon, Utah, USA. [Spencers Camera and Photo]

SpaceXthe space-technology company founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Muskhad made no secret of its plans. The firm began talking in 2015 about putting a constellation of thousands of communication satellites into low-earth orbit (LEO), and launched the first two of its Starlink satellites on 22 February 2018. Yet the first mass launch of 60 Starlink satellites on 23 May 2019 caught astronomers flat-footed, as astronomical photos revealed streaks from the satellites, covering the sky with light pollution.

A new generation of telescopes promises dramatic advances in studies of the deep universe. To achieve their mission, however, these observatories depend on clear, dark skies.

Until we saw ... 60 of them clumped together in the sky, we had no idea how bright they were and no idea of their impact, says Constance Walker, a scientist at the NOIRLab of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in Tucson, Arizona.

The astronomy communitystunned, and embarrassed not to have seen what was comingimmediately contacted SpaceX, and Walker says the company responded graciously. Since then, astronomers and SpaceX engineers have worked together to understand why the satellites reflect so much light, how they might affect astronomy and what might be done to reduce that impact. In the nearly two years since the rude shock of the Starlink mass launch, meanwhile, the astronomy community has assembled two separate workshops stressing the need for urgent action to address the problemone that, if left unsolved, could spell big trouble for next-generation, Earth-based telescopes seeking new insights from deep-space surveys.

Astronomical image from Lowell Observatory, AZ, USA, showing trails of light from 25 SpaceX Starlink satellites passing the telescopes field of view, a few days after launch. The satellites tend to become dimmer when they reach final orbit. [Victoria Girgis/Lowell Observatory]

While SpaceX has led in commercializing space and in satellite constellations, it has plenty of company. A few weeks before the 2019 launch, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported that 32 firms had plans to launch a total of 13,529 communication satellites into LEO. By the time of the astronomy communitys workshops last year, the total number of proposed LEO communication satellites, by some estimates, had mushroomed to around 100,000.

In 2018, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved deployment of a fleet of 4,425 Starlink satellites, in orbits ranging from 550 to 1325 km; later, it increased the approved number to 12,000, in orbits as low as 340 km. (SpaceX has announced plans for another 30,000 Starlinks.) The agencys main interest lies in improving broadband internet service in underserved U.S. areas. But the Starlink service will be global. Laser links will transport signals between satellites, with radio transmitters connecting the satellites with ground terminals.

A British company, OneWeb, is also building a constellation chasing the same market. Only 74 of its originally planned fleet of 47,844 satellites had been launched when the firm entered bankruptcy in March 2020. Astronomers hoped the scheme was dead, but the British government later took part-ownership, bailed OneWeb out of bankruptcy in November 2020, and paid to launch 36 more satellites in December. In January 2021 OneWeb obtained outside funding to complete a much-shrunken constellation of 648 satellites; current plans are to later expand the constellation to 6,372.

Another familiar name, Amazon, has plans for its Project Kuiper to loft 3,236 satellites into LEO, but has so far launched none and released no timetable. Startups such as AST SpaceMobile and Swarm plan smaller constellations of more than a hundred satellites aimed at niche markets such as mobile communications and the Internet of Things. Companies in China also reportedly have their own plans, filed with the International Telecommunications Union, for 12,992 satellites; still other plans are evolving, with total numbers hard to pin down.

Space technology has given astronomers a vital observing post above Earths blurry atmosphere, most notably in the Hubble Space Telescope and in next-gen projects such as the expensive, complex James Webb Space Telescope. Ground-based telescopes are cheaper, larger and can be remarkably sharp with adaptive optics. A new generation of such telescopes coming online in the next decade promises dramatic advances in studies of the deep universe (see A Deeper View of the Cosmos, OPN, September 2020, p. 42).

The large CCD array at the heart of the Vera C. Rubin Observatorys ultrasensitive camera. [J.Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory]

To achieve their mission, however, those new observatories depend on clear, dark skies. In the past, large observatories dodged light pollution by locating in remote, dark areas such as the Atacama Desert in Chile, or on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Now, for the first time, light pollution from spacecraft threatens Earth-based astronomys view of the skyand a remote location offers no escape.

Under particular threat is the 8.4-m Vera C. Rubin Observatory, high in the Chilean mountains. With a 3200-megapixel imaging camera, the Rubin telescope has the largest etenduethe product of its effective light-collecting area and its angular fieldof any camera in the world. Built to sweep the whole sky visible from Chile repeatedly for the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), the camera will focus, every 30 seconds, on 9.6 square degrees of sky, recording objects down to an incredibly faint magnitude 24.5. (In astronomy, the lower the magnitude number, the brighter the object. The faintest stars visible to the unaided eye on a very dark night are magnitude 7; the sun has a negative magnitude, 26.74.)

A simulation by Peter Yoachim, University of Washington, USA, showing the tracks of 47,708 illuminated LEO satellites from the point of view of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile over a 10-minute period shortly after twilight, gives some suggestion of the difficulty of scheduling observations around the impact of the satellite tracks. [Courtesy of P. Yoachim, in SATCON1 report]

The LSST will yield vast amounts of data for scientific analysismaking it especially vulnerable to systematic errors likely to arise from trails of satellites following regular orbits across the sky, according to Tony Tyson, chief scientist of the Rubin observatory. Also, the cameras use of extremely-low-noise charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors to observe ultra-faint sources makes it vulnerable to an effect called blooming: If bright light saturates a pixel, it can wipe out the data recorded in a whole column of sensors.

Even if satellite brightness can be reduced, the sensitive camera will record trails that will have to be masked out to keep from obscuring the images. That, Tyson has warned, will add to the observing time needed, and the three-arcsecond-wide images of satellites in 550-km orbits would inevitably wipe out data for such sensitive telescopes. In addition to hobbling observations of the deep sky, this could affect another major mission of the Rubin Observatorysearching for potentially threatening near-Earth asteroids and comets.

In mid-2019, when astronomers first awoke to the threat from the SpaceX constellations, it was obvious the satellites reflected sunlight down toward Earth, but the details were unclear. An early bit of good news was that the scattered sunlight faded somewhat as the satellites moved from their initial 380-km parking orbit to their final 550-km elevation. The reduction, SpaceX explained, came from adjustment of the solar cells to track the sun more efficiently in the final orbit. However, that only reduced the averaged measured visual magnitude to 4.63, leaving the satellites visible to the unaided eye except in areas with serious light pollution.

In mid-2019, when astronomers first awoke to the threat from the SpaceX constellations, it was obvious the satellites reflected sunlight down toward Earth, but the details were unclear.

SpaceX next tried darkening the diffuse white material that had been applied to the satellite radio antennas to keep them cool in orbit. These DarkSats went up on the next available mass Starlink launch, and showed solar scattering some 55 percent below standard Starlinksa decrease of about 0.77 magnitudewhich was not as much as hoped. And darkening the satellite surface also caused undesired heating and increased reflectivity in the infrared, a potential problem for NIR observations.

The Starlinks unusual shape offered other possible ways to reduce reflections. The satellites consist of two largely flat components that can bend along their junction: a chassis including the antennas, transmitters and circuitry, and a flat metal frame containing solar cells. One trick the design made possible was reducing the reflected light within a week after launch by changing the attitude at which the satellites fly on their way to their operational orbit, so that the thin edge of the solar panel faces the sun and only a very narrow area can reflect sunlight to the ground.

[Illustration by Phil Saunders/Background: ESO] [Enlarge graphic]

Once in operational orbit, with the solar panels turned to face the sun and collect energy, the bright reflections, according to SpaceX modeling, come when the sun illuminates the underside of the satellite. This geometry happens only in twilight, when the sun is below the horizon but the satellite is not yet in Earths shadow, so sunlight strikes the bottom of the satellite at a low angle and can be reflected down to the ground.

Thanks to this odd geometry, the brightness of the reflected light does not vary with phase angle as for other satellites. The unusual geometry also opened the possibility for SpaceX to add a light-blocking rim or visor around the edge of the satellite. The visor could be turned down to block sunlight from reaching the antennas that might otherwise reflect sunlight, and also avoid the heating caused when the dark surface absorbed light. (The visor is opaque optically, but not to radio frequencies, which must reach the antennas.)

The first VisorSat was launched on 4 June 2020 in the seventh batch of Starlinks. From 430 observations after the satellite has reached 550-km orbit, Anthony Mallama, a retired astronomer in Maryland, USA, found that VisorSat had a visual magnitude of 5.921.29 magnitudes fainter than the magnitude 4.63 of the original Starlink design. That meant VisorSat reflected only 31% as much light as the original design, which Mallama calls a marked improvement (though its still plainly visible in a dark sky). SpaceX has used the VisorSat design for all Starlinks since the ninth mass launch on 7 August 2020, and says its goal is magnitude 7 or fainter for most phases of satellite operation.

Calculations comparing visibility (during summer, at the location of the Vera Rubin Observatory) of proposed Starlink Generation 2 satellites, most at around 350-km altitude, and phase two of the plans of OneWeb, which would place tens of thousands of satellites at a higher altitude of 1200 km. While the higher-altitude OneWeb satellites would be dimmer, they would be illuminated and visible during the entire night, whereas the Starlink craft would cease to be illuminated shortly after twilight. [O. Hainaut, ESO, in SATCON1 report][Enlarge graphic]

Notwithstanding these efforts, by mid-2020, astronomers were seeing more and more images of the night sky contaminated by satellite trails. Scientists who just 14 months earlier had looked forward to a new age of exploring the dark sky now feared a juggernaut of light that would blind their latest and greatest telescopes.

The SATCON1 workshop identified six approaches to mitigate the threat of satellite megafleets to optical and infrared astronomy.

1. Launch fewer or no LEO satellite constellations. Would require turning off/deorbiting existing satellites to achieve zero impact

2. Orbit satellites at altitudes no higher than 600 km. Would require deactivating/deorbiting satellites in higher orbits

3. Darken satellites by lowering their albedo or shielding them from sunlight. Requires action by companies; SpaceX is doing this with VisorSat

4. Control each satellites attitude to minimize reflection of sunlight to the ground. Requires action by satellite operators

5. Computationally remove or mask satellite trails from being recorded on images. Requires action by observatories

6. Schedule telescope observations to avoid recording trails. Requires coordination between observatories and satellite operators

To assess the constellations potential impact, and how to lessen it, astronomers gathered at two virtual workshops. One, SATCON1, was convened by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and NSF from 29 June to 2 July. The other formed part of the Dark and Quiet Skies for Science and Society meeting conducted by the International Astronomical Union from 5 to 9 October. SATCON1 identified six potential approaches for mitigating the threatranging from the quixotic (not launching any of the satellites at all) to the numerical (computer processing to remove satellite trails).

In particular, both workshops recommended avoiding orbits above 600 km. OneWeb already has satellites at 1200 km, and some other companies have planned similar orbits. Spacecraft at these altitudes reflect less light to the ground, and telescopes focus that light to smaller spots, than at lower altitudes. But satellites at 1200 km would reflect sunlight to Earth all night long, unlike those below 600 km, which stay in the Earths shadow for several hours in the middle of the night.

This has different implications for different programs. As of February 2021, SpaceX had more than a thousand Starlink satellites in orbit near 550 km. It had obtained FCC approval to orbit more than 2,800 Starlinks in four shells ranging from 1100 to 1325 km, but after talking with astronomers it asked the agency to let them orbit at 550 km instead. (So far, the FCC has not acted.) Amazon, which has not yet launched satellites under its Project Kuiper program, says it picked orbits at 590 and 630 km for its planned 3,236-satellite constellation in light of the workshop recommendations.

The U.K.-based firm OneWeb has near-term plans for a fleet of 648 satellites, with plans to expand to 6,372 spacecraft in the future. The satellites are boxier in design than those of SpaceX, giving them a different reflectivity profile. [NASA/JPL]

The third big player, OneWeb, has already deployed satellites at 1200 km. Its boxy spacecraft include microwave antennas on short arms and a pair of large solar panels on longer arms, giving them a different reflective profile than Starlinks. Mallama measured the mean brightness of the OneWeb craft already in orbit at magnitude 7.58, with a fairly wide standard deviation of 0.7, probably because of their complex shapes. Thats about 1.6 magnitudes fainter than a VisorSat at 550 kmbut, because of the higher orbit, the OneWeb satellites would be visible most of the night.

That makes them much more problematic for astronomers, according to simulations by Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which concluded that constellations at 1200 km would have much more impact on professional astronomy than fleets at lower altitude. Qualitatively, Starlinks are really annoying but manageable, he says. OneWeb is, Pack up your telescope and go home.

Maurizo Vanotti, OneWebs senior director of technology, told a 14 January 2021 AAS virtual meeting that the company plans to complete its 648-satellite first-generation constellation at 1200 km. Moving existing satellites is impractical, and the design of the remaining spacecraftmany of which have already been builtwould need changes for orbits under 600 km. That would be tantamount to starting over. Vanotti did say that OneWeb pursued responsible space design but gave no details.

The worlds of satellite communications and astronomy have been using the same space, but didnt realize they might interfere until the first 60 Starlinks lit up the sky in front of astronomers. With most satellites actively emitting radio waves for communications, radio astronomy faces even tougher problems (see A death ray for radio astronomy?, p. 34).

Satellite communications and astronomy have been using the same space, but didnt realize they might interfere until the first 60 Starlinks lit up the sky in front of astronomers.

Meanwhile, a vast population of new, privately managed satellites also increases another threat: collisions in space. In 1978, NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler used two decades of military space tracking data to argue that space junk in LEO was accumulating to a point where high-velocity collisions might eventually threaten human activity in space. Subsequently, Kessler warned that continued accumulation of collisional debris could lead to a cascading chain reaction that would shred satellites into shrapnelthe dreaded Kessler syndrome.

NASA has tracked space debris since 1979, and routinely issues warnings to move Hubble, the International Space Station and other satellites out of the way of hazardous objects. The only known collision between two satellites took place on 10 February 2009, when an Iridium satellitepart of the first commercial fleet of communication satellites in LEOsmashed into an inoperative Russian Kosmos military communication satellite at a speed of 11.7 km/s at 789 km altitude. The event scattered nearly 2,300 fragments large enough to track from the ground. In September 2019, the European Space Agency had to move its Aeolus wind-measurement satellite out of the way of one of the 60 Starlinks launched a few months earlier.

Collisions and close calls depend on the populations of spacecraft and some 200,000 pieces of orbital debris, only about 20,000 of which are now trackable. Almost all close encounters thus far have involved spacecraft and debris, but that will change as satellite populations increase. A late 2019 simulation by the Center for Space Standards and Innovation found that having 60,000 spacecraft in LEO could increase close encounters between spacecraft to about 40 per year, excluding those involving the much larger population of uncontrollable, largely untrackable space debris.

Unfortunately, projecting future growth of satellite constellations is difficult, as estimatesbased on press releases, news reports and regulatory filingsare continually in flux. On the one hand, planned telecom systems often fall through for lack of funding, regulatory approval or demand. On the other, declining launch costs are opening LEO to more ventures, in communications, education and other applications. Whatever the number, once in space, those ventures will share a region increasingly cluttered with satellites and space debris ranging from chips of paint to spent rocket stages.

Because of these imponderables, the anticipated number of LEO satellites has varied over time. In summer 2020, according to astronomer Pat Seitzer of the University of Michigan, the firm Analytical Graphics Inc. projected a total of 107,000 LEO communication satellites by 2029. When OneWeb downsized its planned fleet in bankruptcy proceedings, however, estimates dropped to around 80,000.

[C. ORear/Getty Images]

Radio astronomys problems with satellite constellations differ from those faced by optical astronomy. Satellite-reflected light is noise, so getting rid of it doesnt jeopardize the satellites mission. However, satellites use radio waves to deliver their signals to users, and cant do their job if their radio output is blocked.

Radio astronomy competes for usable spectrum with other radio applications. During the 20th century, agencies such as the International Telecommunications Union and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission were charged with allocating frequencies to commercial carriers and government agencies as well as to astronomers. Radio astronomers managed to secure protection for important parts of the radio spectrumwhen frequencies were readily available.

In recent decades, however, the radio spectrum has become more crowded, and most bands now are shared by multiple users, including satellites. Looking ahead, expansion of radio transmission to higher frequencies and the proliferation of radio transmission in space could put radio astronomy on the endangered list.

The beams of communication satellites in low Earth orbit scan continually across the ground, which is a huge problem if their tracks scan across radio telescopes. Thats because transmitter signals are 60100 dB stronger than the faint astronomical sources in the sky that the telescopes were built to record. The signals can overload antennas and destroy sensitive receivers, says Harvey Liszt, spectrum manager at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, VA, USA. Satellite signals also can spill over into adjacent frequencies, which he says has been a problem for 20 years with the Iridium fleet. The Dark Skies report of the International Astronomical Union specifically recommended avoiding illumination of radio telescopes or quiet zones with satellite beams or side lobes.

Other satellite businesses pose new threats. A drop in the price of synthetic aperture radar for Earth mapping launched a half-dozen startups with plans to scan the world with a few dozen radar satellites. Radio astronomers can ask companies not to illuminate their telescopes, but the companies dont have to follow those requests. With kW-class powers, these beams are like death rays for radio astronomy receivers, Liszt says.

Were just a few years in, and perhaps 20% of [the satellites] wed seen applied for have been realized in this time notes Dan Oltrogge, administrator of the Space Safety Coalition, an organization including space companies, government agencies and other groups. This is very difficult to forecast, and yet it is a critical element to determining whether well have a problem or not. What is certain, he adds, is that in the last three years alone, the number of conjunctions [close approaches] between active satellites in certain orbits have as much as doubled the increase over the previous decade.

And avoiding collisions in such encounters requires a human responseto warnings sent by email. While operational satellites and large debris are tracked, and while their orbits are calculated, there is no automated control system.

Unfortunately, protection of space falls in a vast legal loophole. In the United States, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 established a broad framework for environmental protection, but allowed government agencies to decide their responsibility. In 1986, the FCC ducked, accepting responsibility only for special locations such as wildlife preserves; for high-intensity lighting; and for human exposure to dangerous radio-frequency power.

That exemption is now being challenged. In December 2020 Viasat, which is building military LEO communication satellites, filed a complaint opposing SpaceXs request to launch more Starlinks in 600-km orbits, because the crowding would cause collisions that would pollute spaceand, presumably, affect Viasats own spacecraft. That challenge, nominally intended to protect the space environment, has stalled FCC approval of SpaceXs request to put its satellites in the lower orbit preferred by astronomers.

Another challenge came in March 2021 in the form of an emergency petition from four groups asking the FCC to delay launches into LEO for 180 days, and to also pause a planned US$886 million grant to SpaceX. Astronomers are represented by the Safeguarding the Astronomical Sky Foundation; other groups include opponents of 5G wireless networks, radio transmission and the militarization of space. These groups promote broadband fiber transmission as a proven and economical alternative to the satellite radio networks.

Indeed, despite the money being spent on LEO constellations, it remains unclear whether they can deliver affordable broadband internet to those now unserved, which is touted as their main potential benefit. While there undeniably is a need for high-speed, accessible, affordable Internet service, writes astronomer Meredith Rawls of the Univerity of Washington, USA, and colleagues, corporate satellite constellations are not humanitarian projects. The US$80-per-month subscription planned by SpaceX, the group maintains, is prohibitive to all countries in greatest need of access, and does not include installation costs of US$100US$300 per user.

Aparna Venktesan, chair of the physics and astronomy department at the University of San Francisco, USA, views the space and sky as an ancestral global commons, and has called for careful deliberation about the satellite megafleets. [University of San Francisco]

The issue goes further than protecting ground-based astronomy from light pollution. Opposition to the siting of some high-profile observatories on land deemed sacred by indigenous groupssuch as the Thirty Meter Telescope project on Mauna Kea, Hawaiihas made many astronomers more sensitive to the impact of their craft on nature and indigenous peoples. For many of these groups, the sky and the constellations themselves, as well as the mountains hosting telescopes, are part of their culture.

Aparna Venktesan, a cosmologist at the University of San Francisco whose first language is Tamil and who grew up in India and Singapore, was one of the astronomers speaking at the January AAS meeting. She has written of space and the sky as an ancestral global commons for all of the worlds people. The satcom industry is extremely fast, she said, but stressed the need for slow, careful collaboration that includes all stakeholders.

Aparna Venktesan, a cosmologist at the University of San Francisco, has written of space and the sky as an ancestral global commons for all of the worlds people.

Part of SpaceXs pitch for its Starlink system, of course, is its ability to bring broadband internet to a wider range of people around the world. In late 2020, the company opened up a beta test of Starlink to the members of the Hoh Tribe on a remote reservation in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Washington. The tribe members, who had lacked broadband, wrote that they felt like wed been paddling upriver with a spoon.

But while satellite constellation technology is plausible, it has never operated on the scale, complexity and bandwidth promised by SpaceX and is not a sure thing. It also faces the real risk of triggering the Kessler syndrome, which could shut down LEO for everyone. In contrast, high-speed fiber is well established, with the potential for more backbone bandwidth; the challenge is to make the costs work for dispersed populations.

The situation raises an important question for the world to answer: Is the prospect of a riskier but potentially cheaper short-cut to universal broadband worth allowing satellite fleets to bulldoze their way across the sky? Some believe that looking up at night and pondering what might be out there is part of what has made us human. If you cant go outside and see a placid night sky, says Harvey Liszt of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, I dont know what will happen to humanity.

Jeff Hecht is an OSA Fellow and freelance writer who covers science and technology.

For references and resources, visit: http://www.osa-opn.org/link/satellites-vs-astronomy.

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Will Satellites Cripple Ground-Based Astronomy? - Optics & Photonics News

THE grave of a forgotten space art pioneer has been discovered in Nab Wood Cemetery.

Scriven Bolton was an amateur astronomer and also a skilled artist and commercial illustrator, specialising in astronomical subjects. The Yorkshiremans work appeared in books, newspapers and magazines in Britain and America and was widely considered to be scientifically accurate; reflecting the astronomical knowledge of the early 20the century.

But little has been published about him and he remains, says local historian Andrew Bolt, largely forgotten.

Despite having the same surname as the space enthusiast, Mr Bolton isnt related to him and wasnt familiar with him when he came across the grave. On one of my walks around Nab Wood Cemetery I spotted headstone of an astronomer, Scriven Bolton. So I delved into the internet and found that he was quite the character and famous for illustrations of space and the planets in the Illustrated London News, said Mr Bolton.

He must have done hundreds of amazing drawings. Looking on the internet I could find very little and no mention of where hes buried. He was from Leeds, mainly located in Bramley, but buried in Nab Wood Cemetery. I have no idea what led to his burial here.

He was Yorkshires very own pioneer on planets, but seems largely forgotten. I thought his headstone may be of interest to your readers, especially with the recent Mars landing (NASAs Mars helicopter mission).

Simeon Scriven Bolton, known as Scriven, was born in 1883 to a family of textile manufacturers. In the late 19th century his father bought into a mineral oil merchant business, which Scriven worked for, but astronomy was his passion.

In the early 1900s the family moved to Bramley in Leeds and Scriven set up his own private observatory. He also used equipment at Leeds Universitys Duncombe Observatory and was a member of Leeds Astronomical Society, among others.

Scrivens day job was an oil merchant but he also wrote astronomical observations which regularly appeared in various journals.

He was however best known for his space art and illustrations and he was on the staff of the Illustrated London News for 15 years, contributing astronomical drawings.

He developed a new method for producing realistic lunar landscapes that involved building detailed plaster models of the surface of the moon, which he would then photograph then paint over. He often painted stars and other details onto the final print.

His work is said to have influenced other astronomical illustrators and, later, special effects specialists working in the movies.

Scrivens space art became popular with academics and amateur enthusiasts at a time when there was much speculation about the planets, and debates on whether the earth had a second moon.

His illustrations included lunar landscapes and scenes on Mercury, Venus and Mars and he took care in making his art scientifically accurate, illustrating astronomical ideas of the time.

His work appeared in a popular astronomy publication Splendour of the Heavens, which featured around 1,000 illustrations.

Scriven died aged 46 on Christmas Day 1929, after catching influenza.

He had been in the process of installing a new telescope in his observatory.

The University of Leeds pays tribute to Scriven with an annual lecture named in his honour.

But why is he buried in Nab Wood Cemetery?

* Anyone with information about Sriven Bolton is asked to email emma.clayton@nqyne.co.uk

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Did forgotten astronomy artist have Bradford connections? - Bradford Telegraph and Argus

Apr 22nd 2021

OVER THE past two decades Alexander Szalay, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has helped create the most detailed maps of the cosmos yet made. His raw material comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which began in 2000. So far, this project has charted a third of the heavens and observed nearly 1bn astronomical objects.

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The surveys telescope, which sits on a mountain top in New Mexico, collects its data by recording the arrival of photons of light on a charge-coupled device. This turns them into an electrical signal that Dr Szalay and his confrres translate into a representation of reality by winnowing out the noise and determining, from what remains, what sorts of objects the telescope is looking at and how far away they are.

Now, Dr Szalay has added a microscope to his telescope. In collaboration with Janis Taube, a colleague at Johns Hopkins who is a pathologist, he is developing AstroPath. This is a project that combines his knowledge of astronomy with hers of pathology into a system which does for images of cancer cells and tissues what the Sloan survey does for images of the universe.

Dr Szalay, ever handy with an astronomical analogy, compares the most common current approach to the examination of images of cancerswhich is to look in great detail, but at only a few tumoursto studying the universe using the Hubble Space Telescope. This instrument can focus on only a restricted area of the sky, but is then able to record what it sees with immense precision by spending lots of time taking long exposures.

As a consequence, the Hubble has surveyed only 45 of the 41,253 square degrees which constitute the celestial sphere. By contrast, the Sloan survey has so far covered, in a more cursory manner, about 15,000 square degrees of that sphere. This sweeping approach lets astronomers understand the universes large-scale structure by seeing entire clusters of galaxies and the relationships between them.

Both methods are valuable. But because fewer cancer biologists use the second than the first, AstroPath is designed to fill the gap. The specialised microscopes the project uses capture images of broad slices of tumours, and do so in multiple wavelengths. These images are then subjected to data-analysis techniques developed as part of the Sloan survey.

In particular, AstroPath employs a technique called immunofluorescence to make its images. This works by using antibodies to attach fluorescent tags to specific sorts of protein molecules. That permits the distributions of these proteins throughout a tumour to be mapped cell by cell. So far, AstroPath can do this simultaneously for between 20 and 30 proteins. Dr Taubes long-term goal is to do likewise for hundreds of individual tumours of more than 20 different types, enabling comparisons to be made both within and between types.

Currently, AstroPath has scanned more than 226m cells from three types of tumourlung cancer and two skin cancers, melanoma and Merkel-cell carcinoma. Dr Szalay points out that dealing with these three alone meant processing more pixels than the whole Sloan survey to date. But this is only a start. Eventually, he and Dr Taube aspire to collect and process 1,000 times more data than this.

For herself, Dr Taube particularly hopes AstroPath will flag up molecules that will help her develop blood tests for melanoma and lung cancer, and will improve her understanding of how tumours respond to a form of treatment called immunotherapy. Some cancers are able to put the brakes on the immune systems anti-tumour activity. Disable this ability and the immune system can return to the fray. She hopes to identify markers, such as the levels of a substance called PD-1, a so-called immune checkpoint protein, that will be able to predict whether a patient will respond to such therapyand, if so, precisely which sort of it.

The projects wider aim, though, is to make the results available to the world as a cancer atlas in a format similar to Google Maps. Then, any interested oncologist can take a look and draw conclusions relevant to his or her own area of interest and expertise. If that can be done, it really will enable cancer researchers to reach for the stars.

A version of this article was published online on April 21st, 2021.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline "An inward observatory"

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Mapping cancer as if it were the universe - The Economist

If you look up at the Super Pink Moon this Monday (April 26), don't expect to see anything rosy this full moon is named after a flower, the wild ground phlox, which proliferates during April and has a distinctive pinkish coloration. But with binoculars, you may be able to spot a magnificent lunar feature.

While most amateur and professional astronomers detest a full moon because its dazzling light blots out all but the brightest stars, the lunar disk appears flat and one-dimensional, and its topography is hard to distinguish, there is one feature that appears at its best during a full moon: Tycho, a crater named after Tycho Brahe, a 16th-century Danishnobleman, astronomer and writer known for his accurate and comprehensiveastronomicalobservations.

Tycho is a spectacular target, thanks primarily to its magnificent system of rays that emanate in all directions, in some cases for more than a thousand miles.

Related: The moon has way (way) more craters than we thought

To some, Tycho looks like a sunflower on the moon. Others see something else. "Tycho and its amazing rays give the full moon the general appearance of a peeled orange, the crater marking the point where the sections meet," Ernest H. Cherrington Jr. wrote in his book "Exploring the Moon Through Binoculars" (McGraw Hill Publishing, 1969).

At 53 miles (85 kilometers) in diameter, Tycho is a fairly large crater. Yet it can be completely overlooked when it's positioned near the lunar terminator the line separating day and night on the moon because of the abundance of other craters on this part of the moon, some of which are even larger.

But from a few days before to a few days after the full moon, there is no way you can miss Tycho. Indeed, at full phase, the crater appears most dazzling so bright that no details within it can readily be seen. And around its periphery, there appears to be a gray ring, or collar, from where its bright rays radiate in all directions.

In terms of lunar topography, the walls of Tycho rise more than 12,000 feet (3,660 meters) above the lunar surface and contain peaks 5,000 feet (1,500 m) higher. Near the center of the crater lies a central mountain, some 5,200 feet (1,600 m) tall. On the crater's northwest flank is a smaller mountain and, between the two, a short cleft.

Check out these mountains, as well as many of the other features of Tycho, in this incredible 3D video composed of images taken by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kaguya (Selene) Terrain Camera.

The moon is approximately 3.9 billion years old, but Tycho is a relatively "new" feature. Based on analysis of samples from one of the crater rays recovered during theApollo 17 mission at Mare Serenitatis in December 1972, scientists think Tycho is "only" about 108 million years old.

Around that time, a meteoroid a projectile from space likely measuring 5 or 6 miles (8 to 10 km) across crashed into the rock of the moon, seemingly at a relatively low angle. The intense heat of impact vaporized that rock as it rose high above the lunar surface. Then, it quickly condensed into a liquidy substance, forming spherical shapes and freezing almost immediately not into crystalline material but into baubles of glass, which were collected and brought back to Earth by the last crewed lunar mission.

Indeed, yet another subjective impression one might get by gazing at Tycho is its resemblance to a pane of shattered glass surrounding a bullet hole.

A full moon can be blindingly bright; glare dazzles the eye and can make you squint too much to perceive any real detail. And after just a minute or two of gazing through the eyepiece, you may need to turn away to relax your eyes. Therefore, you can get the best views of a full moon through a small telescope at low power (25x to 40x) or good binoculars.

You can easily spot Tycho through handheld 7-power binoculars by looking about one-third of the way up from the center of the lunar disk.

Historically, some astronomers have claimed that Tycho is even visible to the naked eye at the full moon. If you think you have better-than-average eyesight, you might want to try.

As exciting as it is to gaze at Tycho around the time of the full moon, next month's full moon, on May 26, will offer even more excitement, with the occurrence of the first total lunar eclipse in nearly two and a half years.

Space.com will have much more to say about that event next month, so stay tuned!

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York'sHayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy forNatural History magazine, theFarmers' Almanacand other publications. Follow uson Twitter@Spacedotcomand onFacebook.

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In the light of the Super Pink Moon, look for the radiant Tycho crater - Space.com

It will take until at least 2080 before women make up just one-third of Australias professional astronomers, unless there is a significant boost to how we nurture female researchers careers.

Over the past decade, astronomy has been rightly recognised as leading the push towards gender equity in the sciences. But my new modelling, published today in Nature Astronomy, shows it is not working fast enough.

The Australian Academy of Sciences decadal plan for astronomy in Australia proposes women should comprise one-third of the senior workforce by 2025.

Its a worthy, if modest, target. However, with new data from the academys Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) program, I have modelled the effects of current hiring rates and practices and arrived at a depressing, if perhaps not surprising, conclusion. Without a change to the current mechanisms, it will take at least 60 years to reach that 30% level.

However, the modelling also suggests that the introduction of ambitious, affirmative hiring programs aimed at recruiting and retaining talented women astronomers could see the target reached in just over a decade and then growing to 50% in a quarter of a century.

Before looking at how that might be done, its worth examining how the gender imbalance in physics arose in the first place. To put it bluntly: how did we get to a situation in which 40% of astronomy PhDs are awarded to women, yet they occupy fewer than 20% of senior positions?

On a broad level, the answer is simple: my analysis shows women depart astronomy at two to three times the rate of men. In Australia, from postdoc status to assistant professor level, 62% of women leave the field, compared with just 17% of men. Between assistant professor and full professor level, 47% of women leave; the male departure rate is about half that. Womens departure rates are similar in US astronomy.

Read more: 'Death by a thousand cuts': women of colour in science face a subtly hostile work environment

The next question is: why?

Many women leave out of sheer disillusionment. Women in physics and astronomy say their careers progress more slowly than those of male colleagues, and that the culture is not welcoming.

They receive fewer career resources and opportunities. Randomised double blind trials and broad research studies in astronomy and across the sciences show implicit bias in astronomy, which means more men are published, cited, invited to speak at conferences, and given telescope time.

Its hard to build a solid research-based body of work when ones access to tools and recognition is disproportionately limited.

There is another factor that sometimes contributes to the loss of women astronomers: loyalty. In situations where a womans male partner is offered a new job in another town or city, the woman more frequently gives up her work to facilitate the move.

Encouraging universities or research institutes to help partners find suitable work nearby is thus one of the strategies I (and others) have suggested to help recruit women astrophysicists.

But the bigger task at hand requires institutions to identify, tackle and overcome inherent bias a legacy of a conservative academic tradition that, research shows, is weighted towards men.

A key mechanism to achieve this was introduced in 2014 by the Astronomical Society of Australia. It devised a voluntary rating and assessment system known as the Pleiades Awards, which rewards institutions for taking concrete actions to advance the careers of women and close the gender gap.

Initiatives include longer-term postdoctoral positions with part-time options, support for returning to astronomy research after career breaks, increasing the fraction of permanent positions relative to fixed-term contracts, offering women-only permanent positions, recruitment of women directly to professorial levels, and mentoring of women for promotion to the highest levels.

Most if not all Australian organisations that employ astronomers have signed up to the Pleiades Awards, and are showing genuine commitment to change.

Seven years on, we would expect to have seen an increase in women recruited to, and retained in, senior positions.

And we are, but the effect is far from uniform. My own organisation, the ARC Centre of Excellence in All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), is on track for a 50:50 women-to-men ratio working at senior levels by the end of this year.

The University of Sydney School of Physics has made nine senior appointments over the past three years, seven of them women.

But these examples are outliers. At many institutions, inequitable hiring ratios and high departure rates persist despite a large pool of women astronomers at postdoc levels and the positive encouragement of the Pleiades Awards.

Using these results and my new workforce models, I have shown current targets of 33% or 50% of women at all levels is unattainable if the status quo remains.

I propose a raft of affirmative measures to increase the presence of women at all senior levels in Australian astronomy and keep them there.

These include creating multiple women-only roles, creating prestigious senior positions for women, and hiring into multiple positions for men and women to avoid perceptions of tokenism. Improved workplace flexibility is crucial to allowing female researchers to develop their careers while balancing other responsibilities.

Read more: Isaac Newton invented calculus in self-isolation during the Great Plague. He didn't have kids to look after

Australia is far from unique when it comes to dealing with gender disparities in astronomy. Broadly similar situations persist in China, the United States and Europe. An April 2019 paper outlined similar discrimination experienced by women astronomers in Europe.

Australia, however, is well placed to play a leading role in correcting the imbalance. With the right action, it wouldnt take long to make our approach to gender equity as world-leading as our research.

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Looking at the stars, or falling by the wayside? How astronomy is failing female scientists - The Conversation AU

W. Vincent Liu, a professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been elected to serve the U.S.-based International Organization of Chinese Physicists and Astronomers (OCPA) on the six-year track of secretary to vice presidentto president,transitioning to thenextrole every two years.

Liu, a fellow of the American Physical Society, is interested in the theory of novel emergent phenomena of quantum condensed matter. He has considerable experience in interacting Bose and Fermi gases of cold atoms, quasionedimensional electronic, charge and/or spin liquids, and quasi 2D strongly correlated electronic systems such as high temperature superconductors. He also has a background in quantum field theory and is interested in all applications of it to condensed matter. His current research focuses on the rapidly developing field of ultracold atomic gases, driven largely by many ongoing experiments worldwide.

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W. Vincent Liu Elected to Physics and Astronomy Organization Leadership - UPJ Athletics