Category Archives: Astronomy

A mysterious repeating radio signal from space revealed last year is now the fifth fast radio burst to be tracked back to its source galaxy.

It's a location unlike any of the others, and astronomers are having to rethink their previous assumptions about how these signals are generated.

The origin of this repeating signal is a spiral galaxy, located 500 million light-years from Earth, making it the closest known source of what we call fast radio bursts (FRBs) yet.

And the FRBs are emanating specifically from a region just seven light-years across - a region that's alive with star formation.

"This object's location is radically different from that of not only the previously located repeating FRB, but also all previously studied FRBs," said astronomer Kenzie Nimmo of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

"This blurs the differences between repeating and non-repeating fast radio bursts. It may be that FRBs are produced in a large zoo of locations across the Universe and just require some specific conditions to be visible."

Fast radio bursts are among the Universe's strangest mysteries. They are extremely brief spikes in electromagnetic radiation detected by radio telescopes, lasting no more than a few milliseconds at most. But in that time, they can discharge more energy than 500 million Suns.

Most of the fast radio bursts detected to date have only appeared once. These are impossible to predict, which makes them extremely difficult to trace - to date, only three have had their origin localised to a galaxy.

But in recent years, we've begun to find FRBs that repeat - popping off repeat signals with no discernible pattern - and in 2017, scientists managed to track down the origin of one of them.

Then last year, scientists announced that the CHIME experiment in Canada had detected a massive eight new repeating FRBs, bringing the number of known repeaters to a total of 10. It is one of these new repeaters - a signal called FRB 180916.J0158+65 (FRB 180916 for short) - that astronomers have now traced.

An international team of astronomers used eight telescopes participating in the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network to conduct follow-up observations in the direction of FRB 180916. Over the course of five hours, they detected four more bursts - which allowed them to home in on the source of the signal.

And that led them to a normal spiral galaxy called SDSS J015800.28+654253.0.

The first repeating fast radio burst to belocalised was FRB 121102. It was found to be emanating from a dwarf galaxy poor in metals over 3 billion light-years away, and the signal had been distorted by something called the Faraday effect, which occurs when electromagnetic radiation interacts with a magnetic field.

This suggested that FRB 121102 was produced in an extreme environment, like the region around a supermassive black hole at the galactic centre. Interestingly, it, too, seemed to be close to a star-forming region.

The three other non-repeating FRBs, on the other hand, were found in much more conventional galaxies - but only one of them was near a star-forming region.

FRB 180916 was not nearly as distorted by the Faraday effect as FRB 121102, which indicates that its location was not as magnetic; and it was found pretty far from the galactic centre.

"The multiple flashes that we witnessed in the first repeating FRB arose from very particular and extreme conditions inside a very tiny (dwarf) galaxy," said astronomer Benito Marcote of the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC.

"This discovery represented the first piece of the puzzle but it also raised more questions than it solved, such as whether there was a fundamental difference between repeating and non-repeating FRBs. Now, we have localised a second repeating FRB, which challenges our previous ideas on what the source of these bursts could be."

Possible explanations for FRBs put forward to date include neutron stars, black holes, pulsars with companion stars, imploding pulsars, a type of star called a blitzar, a connection with gamma-ray bursts (which we now know can be caused by colliding neutron stars), and magnetars emitting giant flares.

This research has not answered that burning question, but it could be starting to help rule out what it isn't.

"With the characterisation of this source, the argument against against pulsar-like emission as origin for repeating FRBs is gaining strength," said Ramesh Karuppusamy of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany.

"We are at the verge of more such localisations brought about by the upcoming newer telescopes. These will finally allow us to establish the true nature of these sources."

The research has been published in Nature.

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Astronomers Have Tracked a Repeating Radio Signal Across Space to an Unexpected Origin - ScienceAlert

If you follow space news and astronomy, the past year offered no shortage of highlights. Astronomers provided humanitys first glimpse of a black hole. China landed on the moons far side. And the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing inspired us to look ahead to our future in space.

The year to come will be no less eventful:

No fewer than four missions to Mars could leave Earth this summer.

NASA may finally launch astronauts into orbit aboard capsules built by SpaceX and Boeing.

We expect to learn more secrets about the interstellar comet Borisov.

And private companies are working to demonstrate new abilities in space.

However much you love space and astronomy, it can be challenging to keep up with the latest news in orbit and beyond. Thats why weve put dates for some of these events on The Timess Astronomy and Space Calendar, which has been updated for 2020. Subscribe on your personal digital calendar to be automatically synced with our updates all year long. (We promise not to collect any personal information from your private calendar when you sign up.)

[Sync your calendar with the solar system.]

Below are some of the launches, space science and other events to look forward to.

Roughly every two years, the orbits of Earth and Mars come closer than usual. Space agencies on Earth often send missions to the red planet during that window, and in 2020 four such launches are scheduled.

Three of the missions will carry rovers. The United States is launching the soon-to-be-renamed Mars 2020 rover, which also carries a small helicopter. It will try to land in Jezero Crater, which once contained a lake and could preserve evidence of life, if life ever existed there.

Neither China, Europe nor Russia has deployed a rover on the Martian surface. But they will try, in a pair of missions. Chinas mission, its first on its own to the red planet, includes an orbiter in addition to a rover. The European Space Agency and Russia cooperated to build Rosalind Franklin, a rover named for the English chemist whose work was essential to finding the structure of DNA.

The rovers could be joined on Mars by Hope, an orbiter commissioned by the United Arab Emirates. It is being built in Colorado, and is to be launched on a Japanese rocket. If it succeeds, it could represent a new model for space programs, in which small, wealthy countries pay for off-the-shelf spacecraft to get themselves into orbit and beyond.

Since the space shuttles last flight, in 2011, NASA has relied on Russias Soyuz spacecraft for trips to and from the International Space Station. In 2019, NASA hoped to begin flying astronauts aboard capsules built by two private companies, SpaceX and Boeing, but persistent delays knocked back the timeline another year.

NASAs commercial crew program could finally achieve its goal in 2020. SpaceXs Crew Dragon is scheduled to conduct an uncrewed test of its in-flight abort system on Jan. 11. If the test succeeds, the capsule could carry astronauts to the space station not long after.

Boeings Starliner experienced problems during its first uncrewed test flight in December and was unable to dock with the space station. An upcoming review of that test will determine whether Starliner might still be able to fly into orbit with astronauts in the first half of this year.

Virgin Galactic, the space-plane company run by Richard Branson, conducted two successful test flights with crew aboard in the past 13 months. In the year to come, the company could carry its first passengers to the edge of space. Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, may follow suit; it has conducted 12 crewless tests of its capsule for short tourist jumps to suborbital space. For now, only the very wealthy will be able to afford such jaunts.

Other private companies are looking to Earth orbit for the future of internet service. SpaceX launched 120 Starlink satellites in 2019 and could launch many more in 2020. A competitor, OneWeb, could send more of its satellites to orbit in the coming year, too. These companies are blazing the trail for orbital internet a business that Amazon and Apple are also pursuing and upsetting astronomers, who fear that large constellations of internet satellites will imperil scientific study of the solar system and stars.

In September, a comet called Borisov 2I was spotted in our solar system, only the second ever confirmed interstellar object. Unlike Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2017 only as it was leaving the solar system, astronomers caught sight of Borisov and its 100,000-mile-long tail as it flew toward the sun, before it turned and began its exit.

In 2020, scientists will continue to point ground and orbiting telescopes at Borisov as it speeds back toward the stars beyond unless, as some astronomers hope, it explodes into fragments after being heated by the sun. Whatever happens, other interstellar visitors are sure to follow, and professional sky gazers hope to find them with powerful new telescopes in the years ahead.

Before the end of 2020, the moon could see one more visitor from Earth. Change-5, a robotic probe built by China, aims to collect moon rock and soil samples and send them back to Earth. The last set of lunar samples was gathered in 1976 by a Soviet spacecraft.

The year to come may also bring greater clarity about American designs for returning to the moon. NASA is aiming to put the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024, with a program called Artemis. A wide range of political, budgetary and technological hurdles stand in the way of meeting that ambitious timeline.

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Rocket Launches, Trips to Mars and More 2020 Space and Astronomy Events - The New York Times

This is a composite of 27 images of the Super Blood Wolf moon as it goes from being a full moon into the full lunar eclipsed moon while rising over Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Jan. 20 in Golden. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

This weekend could offer one of the best celestial events of2020 when the Quadrantids meteor shower reaches its peak, assuming the weather cooperates.

Thats just one of the nighttime shows for stargazers to note on their calendars this year. There also will be some fun things to watch regarding the planet Mars in February and October, a special full moon in April and the super conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in December, when the two largest planets in the solar system appear to come together. That also will coincide with the Winter Solstice.

Here are eight astronomical events to watch for this year:

According to the International Meteor Organization, the Quadrantids have the potential to be the strongest meteor shower of the year, and they are peaking this weekend. The average hourly rates one can expect under dark skies is 25, the IMO says. These meteors usually lack persistent trains (vaporized rock that glows after the meteor burns up in the atmosphere) but often produce bright fireballs.

Get out your binoculars or a telescope if you have one for Feb. 18, when the moon will pass in front of the planet Mars in an event called an occultation. The moon will glide in front of reddish, star-like Mars for viewers across North America, Central America, extreme northern South America, Cuba and Haiti, according to Space.com. A couple of hours later, Mars will show up on the other side of the moon (as seen from Earth). The moon will appear 23% full on that night.

This one comes recommended by John Keller, director of the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado.

Venus will be high in the evening sky in April and pass very close to the Pleiades star cluster, an easy naked-eye target, said Keller, adding that the Pleiades star cluster is easy to spot because it looks like the stars in the Subaru logo. Venus will be highest in the evening sky on March 24, passing by the Pleiades April 2 and April 3. Also of potential interest, Venus will then dive down towards the sun during the month of May and re-emerge in the morning sky in mid-June after passing by the sun on June 3. The waning crescent moon will pass very close by Venus on June 19 and provide a nice guide for observers looking for their first view of Venus in the morning sky.

The moon will be full when its orbit takes it closest to the Earth (called perigee) for the year at 221,772 miles. The moon has an elliptical orbit, and its average distance from Earth is 238,855 miles. Its apogee (farthest distance) is 252,088 miles. Because there is no consensus on what constitutes a supermoon its a matter of how close the moon is to the earth there will be one, two or three other supermoons this year (February, March and May). There also will be a second full moon in October, a so-called blue moon, and it will occur on Halloween.

This will be another highlight of the year for meteor lovers. Peaking Aug. 11-12, the Perseids are the most popular meteor shower in North America.

Normal rates seen from rural locations range from 50-75 shower members per hour at maximum, the International Meteor Organization reports. The Perseids are particles released from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle during its numerous returns to the inner solar system. They are called Perseids since the radiant (the area of the sky where the meteors seem to originate) is located near the prominent constellation of Perseus the hero when at maximum activity.

The moon will be about half-full when the Perseids peak this year.

According to Space.com, Mars will be spectacular in October. Because of its proximity to Earth, Mars will appear brighter than Jupiter and will be the third-brightest object in the nighttime sky, after the moon and Venus. On Oct. 6, Mars will be only 38.6 million miles from Earth. It wont be that close again until 2035.

According to the IMO, the Geminids meteor shower is usually the strongest of the year, and this year we get a bonus: There will be no moonlight to obscure the view when the Geminids peak Dec. 13-14. Fans of meteor showers may recall that the Geminid peak in 2019 coincided with a nearly full moon.

The Geminids are often bright and intensely colored, the IMO says. Due to their medium-slow velocity, persistent trains are not usually seen.

A conjunction occurs when two planets come closest together on their individual orbits. Conjunctions for these two planets occur approximately every 20 years. On the Winter Solstice this year, Jupiter and Saturn will be the closest they have been to each other since 1623, a so-called super conjunction.

Finally, courtesy of the folks at the Fiske Planetarium, a list of National Aeronautics and Space Administration highlights for 2020:

Feb. 5: Launch of the Solar Orbiter, which was developed by the European Space Agency to study the sun at close approaches every five months

April 11: 50th anniversary of Apollo 13

April 24: 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope launch

June 30: International Asteroid Day

July 14: 55th anniversary of the first flyby of Mars by Mariner 4

July 17-Aug. 5: Launch window for the Mars 2020 Rover Mission, which will drill for core samples from Martian rocks and soil. The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, according to the Mars 2020 mission website, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself.

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Astronomy 2020: Every major meteor shower, supermoon and more - The Know

EAST HAVEN, CT - Break out the binoculars and take out the telescope The Astronomical Society of New Haven is bringing their wide range of viewing equipment and knowledge to East Haven's organic cafe One World Roasters on the evening of Friday January 24th at 6:30 p.m. for a winter sky viewing session open to all.

"The mission of our society is to bring interest to the general public about the topic of astronomy," says Al Washburn, member at large and former president of the Astronomical Society of New Haven.

The retired North Branford High School science teacher of 38 years speaks with an inexhaustible passion of the special sights guests can expect to see on this particular night. "One of the best objects to see in the sky is in the cold winter months and hopefully it will be a good, clear evening and we'll be taking a look at that," he says.

Washburn speaks of the Orion Nebula, a giant hydrogen gas cloud and one of the most photographed objects in the sky. "You can actually see it with your naked eye if you know where to look for it, but collecting more light from it with the mirror of a telescope will allow you to see the magnificent Orion Nebula," he says.

The evening's other astronomical attractions include an ideal view of the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, a potential glimpse of the Andromeda Galaxy, and a great number of open star clusters, which Washburn describes as "diamonds and sprinkled on a black velvet napkin."

As for the Society's choice of location, Washburn concedes that the proximity to coffee shop is a definite perk, but also mentions the unique elevation of the viewing site. "It has a nice low Eastern Horizon so we will be pointing our telescopes mostly to the East and South East to see the constellations of the wintertime as they take their positions above our skies," he says.

If you are new to the world of astronomy, telescopes, and viewing sessions, fear not, as the members of the society will be happy to assist all first time attendees. "People can expect just to walk over to a particular telescope, most everybody says "Hi, welcome, it's good to see you," and the person running the telescope will say what is inside the view so that they'll know what to look for when they look inside," Washburn says.

The former Astronomical Society president does have one request for first time stargazers "I would ask those who are arriving to bring a pair of binoculars," Washburn says. "There is an excellent star cluster called M 45 (also known as Pleiades or The Seven Sisters) and it is easily seen with the naked eye but in a pair of very simple binoculars it is magnificent," he adds.

Society members also encourage new telescope owners to bring their equipment for friendly tutorials and instruction on how to properly use their viewing tools.

One World Cafe will open at 6:30 p.m. on Friday January 24th and the viewing will begin at 7:00. "Astronomy is a fun science and everyone has a front row seat and you can do it with a pair of binoculars," Washburn says.

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East Haven Coffee Shop To Host Astronomy Night on January 24th - East Haven, CT Patch

Saturday, January 4The Quadrantid meteor shower reaches its peak this morning. The slightly gibbous Moon sets around 1 a.m. local time, leaving nearly five hours of darkness for watching. The Quadrantid shower typically produces up to 120 meteors per hour, an average of two per minute, so observers should be in for a great show if the weather cooperates. The meteors appear to radiate from a spot in the northern part of the constellation Botes an area once occupied by the now-defunct constellation Quadrans Muralis a region that climbs highest just before dawn.

Sunday, January 5Earth reaches perihelion, the closest point to the Sun during its year-long orbit, at 3 a.m. EST. The two then lie 91.4 million miles (147.1 million kilometers) apart. It surprises many people to learn that Earth comes closest to the Sun in the dead of winter, but the cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere at this time of year arises because the Sun lies low in the sky.

The Sun is in the news more than once today. Although people in the Northern Hemisphere experienced the shortest day of the year two weeks ago (at the winter solstice December 21), the Sun has continued to rise slightly later with each passing day. That trend stops this morning for those at 40 north latitude. Tomorrows sunrise will arrive a second earlier than todays. This turnover point depends on latitude. If you live farther north, the switch occurred a few days ago; closer to the equator, the change wont happen until later this month.

Monday, January 6Venus gleams in the southwestern sky after sunset. The brilliant planet stands out just a half hour after sunset, when it appears 20 above the horizon, and remains on display until 7:30 p.m. local time. Shining at magnitude 4.0, it is by far the brightest point of light in the night sky. A telescope shows Venus disk, which spans 13" and appears about 80 percent lit.

Tuesday, January 7The brightest star in the sky (after the Sun, of course) puts on quite a show on January evenings. Gleaming at magnitude 1.5, Sirius shines nearly four times brighter than the next brightest star visible from mid-northern latitudes: Arcturus in the constellation Botes. Sirius currently rises before 7 p.m. local time and ascends in the southeast throughout the evening hours.

Wednesday, January 8If youre game for a quick evening challenge, try to spot Neptune through binoculars. The distant planet lies 30 high in the southwest near the end of evening twilight and doesnt set until nearly 10 p.m. local time. The magnitude 7.9 world appears against the backdrop of Aquarius, 1.0 west-southwest of the 4th-magnitude star Phi (f) Aquarii. Youll need binoculars to spy Neptune and a telescope to see its blue-gray disk, which spans 2.2".

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The Sky This Week from January 3 to 12 - Astronomy Magazine

In September 2019, the Hubble team announced a social media initiative to celebrate three decades of success in discoveries with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The campaign showcased 30 hidden gems from the Hubble image archive. The 12 images that received the most likes were compiled to produce a special 30th Anniversary Calendar for 2020 (.pdf file, high-resolution print-ready .pdf file).

The cover page of the Hubbles Hidden Gems 2020 Calendar. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

The images featured in the Hubbles Hidden Gems 2020 Calendar are described below:

Cover: the calendars cover features NGC 3256, a distorted galaxy located some 131 million light-years away in the constellation of Vela; the galaxy is approximately the same size as our own Milky Way Galaxy and belongs to the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster complex; it is the relic of a collision between two spiral galaxies, estimated to have occurred 500 million years ago.

January: this picture is the result of the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field project; it contains approximately 10,000 distant galaxies.

February: this colorful image shows a small section of the Veil Nebula, one of the best-known supernova remnants; also known as NGC 6960, the Cirrus Nebula and the Filamentary Nebula, this object spans approximately 110 light-years and lies in the constellation Cygnus, about 2,100 light-years away.

March: this Hubble picture shows IRAS 14568-6304, a young star that is cloaked in a haze of golden gas and dust.

April: this image shows Trumpler 14, one of the largest gatherings of hot, massive and bright stars in our Milky Way Galaxy.

May: this snapshot features the fine detail and exceptionally perfect spiral structure of NGC 634, a spiral galaxy located 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Triangulum.

June: this composite image shows Sh 2-106, a compact star forming region in the constellation of Cygnus, which combines two images taken in infrared light and one that is tuned to a specific wavelength of visible light emitted by excited hydrogen gas.

July: this image shows Saturn and six of its 82 known moons: Dione, Enceladus, Tethys, Janus, Epimetheus, and Mimas.

August: this Hubble image shows NGC 5189, a planetary nebula located in the constellation Musca, some 3,000 light-years away; the intricate structure of the stellar eruption looks like a giant and brightly colored ribbon in space.

September: this colorful and star-studded view of our Milky Way Galaxy was captured in 2016 when Hubble pointed its cameras towards the constellation of Sagittarius.

October: in January 2002, a moderately dim star called V838 Monocerotis suddenly became 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun; a Hubble snapshot shows remarkable details in the shells of dust that were lit up during the titanic stellar eruption.

November: in 2011, Hubble captured a stunning close-up shot of part of the Tarantula Nebula; this is a star-forming region rich in ionized hydrogen gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

December: in 2002, Hubble revealed a rainbow of colors in IC 4406, a planetary nebula located 2,000 light-years away near the western border of the constellation Lupus; like many other planetary nebulae, IC 4406 exhibits a high degree of symmetry; the nebulas left and right halves are nearly mirror images of each other.

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This article is based on text provided by the European Space Agency.

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Hubble Team Produces 30th Anniversary Calendar for 2020 | Astronomy - Sci-News.com

An event described as the Super Bowl of astronomy kicks off Saturday in Honolulu as thousands of scientists descend on the Hawaii Convention Center for the biggest meeting of the year for American astronomers.

With the high-profile Thirty Meter Telescope controversy continuing to rage in Hawaii, it would be no surprise if the attendees are greeted by anti-TMT demonstrators.

Thats what happened four years ago when the worlds largest astronomy convention, the International Astronomical Union General Assembly, convened at the same venue.

This years convention, which runs through Wednesday, is the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. More than 3,400 astronomers, educators and students are planning to take in numerous presentations, panels, lectures, town halls, exhibits and the unveiling of new discoveries.

Organizers said the meeting is shaping up to be the biggest and busiest in the societys 120-year history.

Anti-TMT organizer Laulani Teale said TMT opponents have asked the events organizers to let them address the convention.

We want to make sure the astronomers get the correct information, Teale said. We want them to know what it really means to align science with indigenous protection. Hopefully, we will find people who can understand that stopping the TMT is the first step in that alignment.

Teale said the convention hasnt responded to the request yet, but she did acknowledge it was made at the last minute.

Weve been a little busy on the mountain, she said.

For the last five months, protesters have been blocking Mauna Kea Access Road to prevent construction of the $1.4 billion project, planned as one of the worlds most powerful telescopes and highly anticipated within the astronomy community.

Last week Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim gave his personal guarantee there would be no attempt to move TMT equipment up the mountain to start construction in January or February, and the demonstrators agreed, moving to the side of the road.

According to the conventions web page, the American Astronomical Society plans to engage the controversy directly with a series of panels and presentations.

Among other things, there will be special sessions to discuss Innovative Collaborations of Integrity With the Hawaiian Community, The Many Facets of Hawaii Astronomy and Astronomy and Culture Best Practices for Systematic Transformation in an Increasingly Diverse and Interconnected Global Society.

No one who is directly involved in the ongoing protest appears to be involved in the sessions.

I hope they have a substantial dialogue about the TMT, science and the cultural aspect. You cant just look at it in a vacuum. The science needs to evolve into its own humanity, said Mauna Kea Hui leader Kealoha Pisciotta, a former Mauna Kea telescope technician.

In a news release, society President Megan Donahue of Michigan State University said the controversy is about much more than the construction of a new telescope on a mountain many Hawaiians consider sacred.

Its also about the historical mistreatment of indigenous people, the islands economy and many other complex and interrelated issues, she said.

There are a number of public events, including a talk called Physics of Po, by Larry Kimura, UH Hilos College of Hawaiian Language &Hawaiian Studies, and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Executive Director Doug Simons. The Monday presentation explores the intersection of astronomy and Hawaiian culture by examining the first 11 lines of the 2,102-line Kumulipo, a 1,000-year-old Hawaiian creation chant whose name has been translated to beginning in deep darkness.

On Sunday evening University of Hawaii astronomer Roy Gal will host a free star party at Ala Moana Park featuring telescopic views of Hawaiis winter sky.

On Sunday UH Institute for Astronomy professor emerita Ann M. Boesgaard will present the Henry Norris Russell Lecture about her work using light-element abundances to test big-bang nucleosynthesis and to probe stellar structure and stellar evolution. Last year Boesgaard was awarded the 2019 Henry Norris Russell Lectureship, the societys top award, bestowed each year on the basis of a lifetime of eminence in astronomical research.

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Thousands of astronomers are gathering in Honolulu as TMT discord looms - Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Our Friday weekly round-up curates opportunities that are still open for applications. TheOpportunities portalaggregates job vacancies, internships, scholarships, calls for abstracts, fellowships, contests, exchange programmes and other opportunities that are available for Africans who are interested in space science and technology. Simply put, its an aggregator for space and astronomy-related opportunities for Africans.

Have you missed any opportunities this week? Check out the weekly round-up below:

IAU Open Call for Participation in the 2020 Open Astronomy Schools Project

To harness the vast skills in education, outreach, and inspiration of astronomy educators around the globe, IAU100 is launching a second call for proposals for the promotion of the Open Astronomy Schools (OAS) teacher training events in 2020.

The first Open Astronomy Schools call in 2019 received 100 proposals from 49 different countries. 20 proposals were selected to receive a small grant from IAU100, enabling the participation of hundreds of teachers in teacher training sessions around the world. In continuation of the first Teacher Training Call issued in early 2019, asecond callhas been launched for the IAU100Open Astronomy Schools(OAS) teacher training events to be offered during 2020.

The successful applicants will receive at least 12 telescopes kits to distribute to teachers attending the workshops. In total, up to 20 proposals will be awarded telescope kits. This call aims to promote innovative astronomy teacher training events following the criteria established for the OAS, with a special focus on practical astronomy.

The call for teacher training includes 250 telescope kits, kindly offered by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan telescope kit is a newly designed, easy-to-assemble kit produced by Vixen, Japan. The 50mm lens aperture and two eyepieces providing 16x and 66x magnification allow children and adults to observe the moon and planets in detail. The focuser barrel is compatible with standard 1.25 eyepieces. The kit also includes an adaptor that facilitates the use of smartphone cameras.

Each proposal will be reviewed by the OAS task force and the approved sessions will be eligible to use the OAS-IAU100 logo, to be announced in both IAU100 and OAS site and social media. Participants will be entitled to receive the OAS-IAU100 participation certificate and promoters the OAS-IAU100 ambassadors certificates.

The deadline to receive proposals is January 31, 2020.

Click IAU Open Call for Participation in the 2020 Open Astronomy Schools Project to apply and get further information

Application Open For A Space Weather Project Specialist at SANSA

The South African National Space Agency requires a project specialist for a period of three years to apply sound project management principles to the operational space weather centre project. The aim of the project is to move the limited operational space weather centre to a full 24/7 operational centre with all the identified products and services in place, the capability and knowledge strengthened and the required certification (which includes ISO 9001:2015) achieved. The project has already started and a number of mechanisms have already been applied. The incumbent will need to take these over.

The space weatherproject specialistwill be required to plan, budget, oversee and document all aspects of this project. The project specialist will have the overall responsibility for the successful initiation, planning, design, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of the project. The successful incumbent will also be required to assist in developing a marketing strategy and exploring funding opportunities for the centre.

Requirements:

Responsibilities will include:

Closing date: 24 January 2020

Click Application Open For A Space Weather Project Specialist at SANSA to apply and get further information

Nomination Open For 2020 Royal Society Medal & Award

The Royal Society Africa Prize is to recognize outstanding research scientists based in Africa who are making an innovative contribution to the sciences which contributes significantly to capacity building in Africa.

The winner will receive a bronze medal, accompanied by a 15,000 grant towards their research project and a gift of 2,000.

Awards open for nominations 2020 are:

Premier awards

Copley MedalThe worlds oldest scientific prize will be awarded in 2020 for outstanding achievement in any field of biological sciences. Open to international nominations.

Royal MedalsFor outstanding achievements in the biological, physical and applied sciences.

Croonian Medal and LectureThe premier lecture in biological sciences. Open to international nominations.

Bakerian Medal and LectureThe premier lecture in physical sciences. Open to international nominations.

EligibilityAwards are open to citizens of a Commonwealth country or of the Irish Republic or those who have been ordinarily resident and working in a Commonwealth country or in the Irish Republic for a minimum of three years immediately prior to being proposed. Three of our Premier Awards are open internationally and the Milner Award is open to European citizens and residents of 12 months or more.

Nominees cannot be members of the Royal Society Council, Premier Awards Committee, or selection Committees. If the award is externally funded, nominees cannot be employed by the organization funding the medal. Self-nominations are not accepted and members of the selection committee cannot nominate for their own awards.

Nominations are valid for three cycles of the award unless otherwise stated. Nominators are given the opportunity to update nominations in December each year.

TheTerms and Conditions(PDF)of the Royal Society Africa Prize should be read beforesubmitting a nomination.

Deadline: Nominations close on Monday 27 January 2020 at 3 pm.

Click Nomination Open For 2020 Royal Society Medal & Award to nominate and get further information

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Weekly Round-Up Of Space And Astronomy Opportunities For Africans - Space in Africa

It's been an interesting year for astronomy news.

I could start every year-end article with that line. The sheer number of telescopes and spacecraft poking and prodding the Universe practically guarantees that we'll see a few breakthroughs or at least significant jumps every few months in one field or another.

As I went through the articles I've written and the press releases I've received these past 12 months, it wasn't too hard to find the brain-grabbing headlines, as you'll see below. But I was also struck by how much solid progress is being made in astronomy (and other sciences of course) that weren't big banner stories. Some were about incremental but important discoveries, some about missions that ended, and some that were just interesting and worth reading about.

Because of that, this isn't really a Top Five list. It's more of a "here are a lot of cool stories, and five of them I'll bring special attention to, but hey you should look at a bunch of others as well!"

As for the five, three of them are close to home, one of them is close to home but hearkens to distant unknown realms, and the fifth is about as not close to home as you can get, metaphorically at least.

OSIRIS-REx is a NASA mission that arrived at the 500-meter-wide asteroid Bennu on the last day of 2018. The goal of the mission, among other things, is to survey the surface, do mineralogical studies, and grab some samples that it will eventually return to Earth. The overall goal is to understand asteroids better, what they're made of, their structure, what their environment is like.

Bennu is not a solid monolithic rock, but is instead a rubble pile, a big collection of rocks held together by their own meager gravity. We knew these existed, but we knew very little of their behavior up close. And that's why it was a pretty dang big shock to find out that Bennu is active: It's spitting small rocks into space!

This was unexpected, to say the least. But the images make it pretty clear: Rocks up to 10 centimeters in size were being shot out into space at speeds of up to 3 meters per second! Given that Bennu's surface gravity is something like 1/100,000th of Earth's, that's an appreciable velocity. Some of these bits orbited the asteroid and fell back, but others escaped entirely.

A paper just published posits three mechanisms that might cause this: rocks fracturing due to thermal stress between the hot days and frigid nights on the asteroid's surface, water outgassing from phyllosilicates (clays) in the rocks applying pressure to smaller bits and ejecting them, and micrometeorite impacts dislodging material and blasting them away. It's not clear which of these three is the culprit, or if they're working in some combination.

Asteroids, it turns out, are pretty surprising in many ways; they're certainly not just dead rocks floating around the Sun. Perhaps OSIRIS-REx will get more info on this weird behavior, since it'll be hanging around Bennu until March 2020. Hopefully it'll find other strange stuff, too.

Noteworthy related articles: The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 has left its own target asteroid Ryugu behind, and is heading back to Earth (arriving in 2023) with samples. It got them by firing a cannon at the surface, and also dropped four rovers down to land on the asteroid as well.

On 17 January, 2019, the Moon slipped into the shadow Earth casts into space, creating a total lunar eclipse.

While beautiful, these events are relatively common, and of limited scientific potential. But this one threw a monkey into the wrench: While millions of people watched the event either outside for themselves or in the many livestreams, a small asteroid slammed into the shadowed lunar surface, creating a fireball easily visible in small telescopes!

It was later determined that the interplanetary debris was a 45-kilogram rock roughly the size of a beach ball, and it hit the Moon at a speed of about 61,000 kilometers per hour. The resulting release of energy was equivalent to the detonation of about 1.5 tons of TNT, carving out a crater something like 1015 meters wide. Oof.

Impacts happen on the Moon pretty often, but they're not usually this well characterized; it helped a lot that so many telescopes were trained on the Moon at the time, so that high-quality video could be analyzed. It also happened in the darkest area of the eclipsed surface, so the contrast was high.

My own connection to this impact is that I was out in my driveway doing a live feed on Periscope with my cell phone attached to a small spotting telescope. I was having a hard time keeping the 'scope aimed and the phonecam focused, and I was adjusting the setup right when the impact occurred. I missed seeing it by seconds!

Lesson learned. Next time I'll do more prep and use my big scope, which is easier to control and track. But I'm honestly really glad so many people got to see such a rare and cool event.

Noteworthy related articles: A meteorite hit a house in Uruguay, and the comet 42/P Wirtanen was impacted by some debris that caused it to outburst. Also, getting to the Moon isn't easy; India lost a lander, as did Israel, though China landed a rover on the far side which was seen by LRO from orbit.

The New Horizons spacecraft zipped by Pluto in July 2015, returning amazing detailed images and data of the tiny, icy world. But this was a flyby, and New Horizons continued on into the dark after the encounter.

Projecting its path into the future, astronomers looked for more potential targets for the spacecraft, and discovered 2014 MU69, what's called a Kuiper Belt Object, an icy rock that orbits the Sun past Neptune. The mission was given the green light, and it fired its engine to set course for its frigid destination.

The flyby was on 1 January 2019 (so it counts for this list!), and due to the distance 6.6 billion kilometers from Earth the data transmission rate was low, so we had to wait almost two months to get the high-res images. But it was so worth that wait.

This is a mosaic taken from a distance of about 6,600 km, when the spacecraft was still 6 minutes from closest approach. The shape wasn't unexpected; previous observations had indicated it was double-lobed or possibly binary. MU69 now officially named Arrokoth looks like a contact binary, with two separate objects touching at a single neck region. Weirdly, it looks like the two lobes are actually very flat, which is surprising.

New Horizons is still out there, moving away from the Sun. It's possible it may visit another KBO, but its power source is good for another decade or two, so it will measure the environment of the outer solar system and provide scientists with data for some time to come.

Noteworthy related articles: Where do the big moons of KBOs come from? and a new idea about how one of Neptune's small weird moons formed.

In 2017, astronomers discovered an object moving so rapidly through our solar system that it must have come from another star. Called Oumuamua, it was the first confirmed interstellar visitor ever seen. The question naturally arose: How often do these things pass through?

In late 2019 we got another clue: A second object was discovered, also moving so rapidly there was no way it could've come from our own solar system. Another alien visitor was confirmed.

Named 2I/Borisov (the second interstellar object ever seen, discovered by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov), it was immediately pounced upon by observatories across our planet (and above it). Unlike 'Oumuamua, which was discovered after it had passed the Sun and Earth and was on its way out, 2I/Borisov was discovered while still on its way in, which was critical: For one thing it gave astronomers more time to study it, and for another we could watch it approach the Sun, warm up, and become active.

Sure enough, it was seen to have a gaseous head around it, and a tail, too. As I've written many times before, the weirdest thing about 2I/Borisov is just how ordinary it is. Except for its exceptional speed, it looks exactly like any run of the mill solar system comet! 'Oumuamua was pretty weird; it appears to very elongated, and no outgassing was directly seen from it. It's unclear why 'Oumuamua is so odd.

But 2I/Borisov? It has the same molecules and elements in it as solar system comets, and it behaves in the exact way you'd expect our local artisanal comets do. Remember, this comet formed around another star! Something happened to eject it from its home (maybe a close encounter with a giant planet) and send it into deep space, traveling who knows how many light years hundreds of trillions of kilometers, certainly before zipping past us. Yet for all that, it looks like a twin of any comet of our own.

I love this! It shows us that the basic ingredients, the basic conditions, of environments around other stars are much like they are here. If, like me, you wonder if other Earths dot the sky, if there may be other beings out there looking up in curiosity and awe, then the mundanity if this object is the most exciting thing about it.

2I/Borisov has already passed its closest point to the Sun, and will be nearest Earth late in December (though still nearly 300 million km away). It'll be months before it's too far away to see, so there will be many, many more observations of it to come. And the other lesson here is that it's only a matter of time before we spot more voyagers like it. What will we learn from them?

Noteworthy related articles: Could the weird behavior of Boyajian's Star be due to an evaporating exomoon? and exocomets are raining down on Beta Pictoris.

Nothing in astronomy captures people's attention and wonder like a black hole. Capable of utter destruction yet the engines of the formation of stars in galaxies as well, everything about them is fascinating and weird.

Yet for all the articles written about them, all the observations made of them, all the theoretical calculations made about them, we still have never actually seen one. And you can't. There's a reason we call them black holes.

But we can see their impact on the environment around them. Some are actively feeding, matter piling up in huge disks around them before falling over the cliff of infinity, and that material is extremely hot, glowing across the electromagnetic spectrum. The problem is that even though these disks can be light years across, they're so far away from Earth that distance shrinks them to irresolution.

until now. Over the course of four nights in 2017, an array of seven telescopes across the planet were aimed at the heart of M87, a galaxy 55 million light years away in the constellation of Virgo. It's the nearest active galaxy, one with a supermassive black hole equal to 6.5 billion times the Sun's mass, and one that is accreting vast amounts of material. The observations were so difficult and complex it took nearly two years to process them, but when the results were released in April 2019, people across the planet gave out a collective gasp:

That picture is amazing. It's the actual image of material circling the black hole some few dozen billion kilometers out and of course there's that gaping dark hole in the center. That's not the black hole itself! It's where material orbiting the black hole is so close that the light from it can actually orbit the hole a few times before falling in. That region is called the photon sphere, and is about 2.5 times bigger than the event horizon (the point of no return for anything getting too close to a black hole; for M87 the event horizon is about 40 billion kilometers across, roughly eight times the distance of Neptune from the Sun). This area is sometimes called the shadow of the black hole, but I prefer to think of it as the silhouette. Either way, it's just an analogy. But it's where light cannot get out, so it looks like a donut hole.

The image closely matches what we expected to see from a close-up image of a black hole. And it's only the first of its kind: The Event Horizon Telescope, as the array is collectively called, will be aimed at more soon, including Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole in our own galaxy. At just 26,000 light years away it's much closer, but far less massive and therefore smaller; coincidentally the two black holes appear to be about the same apparent size our sky. I can't wait to see that one!

And with this new powerful technology, we'll be seeing a lot more from this array. We've known about black holes for a long time, but there's still a lot about them we don't understand. This image, and the ones that will no doubt follow, will help us wrap our heads around these objects that literally wrap space and time around them.

Noteworthy related articles: Our local supermassive black hole erupted and we don't know why, it also ejected a star right our of the galaxy, and how astronomers measured the staggering 2.3 billion solar mass black hole in a galaxy 100 million light years away.

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The top 5 astronomy stories for 2019 - SYFY WIRE

While the mission Aditya of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will play a crucial role towards ensuring safety of satellites, the 3.6 metre optical telescope at Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Devsthal will be the future of astronomy in India. Stating this, the recently appointed director of the institute professor Deepankar Banerjee further informed that ARIES is also participating in the construction of the worlds biggest 30 metre telescope.

Banerjee said that ISRO will launch mission Aditya within the next two years. He said that this mission can not really be compared to NASAs Parker solar probe. However, the Indian mission will prove to be a milestone for the protection of satellites from the powerful solar particles which affect satellites. He said that information will be relayed by the Aditya probe about the highly charged solar particles on their emission.

This will not only help in protection of satellites from such particles but also help address the hindrances created by solar storms in operation of aircraft flights. The mission was slated to be launched in 2013 but was delayed due to factors related to high level equipment and development of high level technology.

He further informed that ARIES will be playing the lead role in the TMT project involving five nations. With the institute working at a brisk pace for this, the results will be visible soon. Regarding the institutes 3.6 metre telescope, he said that about a dozen research papers based on work through this telescope have been published so far.

This shows that this telescope will play a major role in astronomy in the future. However, for this, various new equipment have to be incorporated into the telescope. Work to facilitate this is being undertaken at a swift pace, he added. Meanwhile, institute officials said that a visitor centre will also be established at ARIES soon. The plan for this will be finalised soon. Establishment of the visitor centre will enable the visitors and local youngsters to gain knowledge related to astronomy. It will also help in boosting the interest of the youth the sphere of astrology.

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ARIES to play bigger role in astronomy - Daily Pioneer