Mapping the Universe

One of the most powerful tools we have in trying to understand the properties of the universe as a whole (e.g how much normal matter is in there, how much dark matter, how much dark energy? - i.e, the entire field of cosmology) are galaxy surveys - figuring out both how many galaxies there are at a particular redshift / time after the Big band and how close they are too each other. Traditionally, this has been done using large optical surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - which finds galaxies by detecting their star light. Galaxies also contain a lot of hydrogen gas, which when cold emits light at particular wavelength - 21 cm, in the radio band. It is possible to a galaxy survey by detecting this emission, which may be more sensitive to low mass galaxies with few stars than optical surveys. Such radio galaxy surveys are now feasible using telescopes like NRAO's 100m Green Bank Telescope and NAIA's Arecibo Telescope. To read more about these surveys, and how they can help determine the answer to such questions like "the nature of dark energy" read this and this and this article, with the full research articles here and here(Subscription, required).

Speaking of stellar-mass black holes...

... it turns out that their formation might help their parent explode after all. Black holes as black widows seems fairly fitting, don't you think? Go here to read about it. This is one of the very few times where we actually observed the supernova and measured the properties of the produced compact object - and the first time for the limited set of explosions that it appears a black hole and not a neutron star was produced. Very exciting indeed.

Slow and steady...

but ALMA, the new sub-mm radio interferometer currently being constructed in the Atacama Desert in Chile, is coming online. Go here to read about a major milestone. Enjoy!

New Radio Astronomy Website

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the NSF-funded organization responsible for running some of the largest radio telescopes in the World (e.g. the Very Large Array, Very Long Baseline Array, the Green Bank Telescope, and the upcoming Atacama Large Millimeter Array) has a new snazzy-looking website. Enjoy!

Astronomy Gift Idea #1

If you are thinking of the perfect gift to get the (radio) astronomer in your life, how about “Under the Radar: The First Woman in Radio Astronomy, Ruby Payne-Scott.” Miller Goss, one of the authors of this book, is one of the most pre-eminent radio astronomers in the US and was a former director of the Very Large Array. Go here for more information, and check back this site soon for an interview with Dr. Goss on this fascinating subject (I know it is on my hard drive someplace....)

Want to be a radio astronomer?

The Lewis Center for Educational Research (LCER) has announced a pretty cool opportunity for elementary school teachers to get their classes involved in radio astronomy. Cribbed from their announcement: "The Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope Program (GAVRT) is an education partnership involving NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and LCER. It is a K-12 project using radio astronomy to provide an opportunity for students to experience real science and to learn that science is an ongoing process and actual discovery is possible. Using their classroom computer, 32,000 students have taken control of a 34-meter, 500-ton, 9-story-high radio telescope located at NASA's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, CA. They learn how to gather data, understand what the data mean and how to follow through with analysis. We are excited to include Radio JOVE with our training in 2010. Radio JOVE is a NASA education program: Solar and planetary radio astronomy for schools. It is a hands-on educational activity that brings the radio sounds of the sun, Jupiter, the Milky Way galaxy and terrestrial radio noise to students, teachers and the
general public. We target grade levels 6 - 14 to build a simple radio telescope kit, speak with professional radio astronomers, make scientific observations, and interact with radio observatories in real-time. For further information, see http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov
Teachers need to attend a 5-day class in order to take this program back to their
students, and can apply online at this time at http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt/opportunities.php. We are conducting a 5-day teacher training class at the Lewis Center on March 8 - 12, July 19 - 23, and October 25 - 29, 2010, at our facility in Apple Valley, CA. We strongly recommend at least two teachers attend the training from your school or area. While this is not a requirement, it will definitely serve to help in program support once back in the classroom. The cost of the 5-day class is $745. For questions, e-mail gavrt-info@lcer.org or call (760) 946-5414 X234.
More information about GAVRT can be found at http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt/ ."

One small step for a telescope...

... one big step for ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, currently being constructed by ESO, NRAO, and Japan to image the sky at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths in the Atacama dessert in Chile (the dryest place on Earth not in Antarctica) like never before. Go here for updates.

Radio bursts from Jupiter (and beyond)

Jupiter is actually an extremely bright radio source, and NASA has a pretty impressive program that lets you build your own radio telescope and observe Jupiter for yourself - and other sources as well I imagine. Go here for more information. Enjoy!

Description of December 31st Radio Show: Latest Astronomy News

Long available here, below is a description of the December 31st episode of this radio show, where I discussed the major Astronomical results to come out in December 2006. They were:

• Solar System News: Recent powerful solar flare produced both neutral and charged particles, first time neutral particles detected from such an event; ESA's Venus Express detects hydrogen leaving Venus's atmosphere from the day-side for the first time - gas appears to be result of water being broken down into hydrogen and oxygen in upper atmosphere, and might explain why there is so little water on Venus; NASA's THEMIS satellites detect the opening of a large hole in the Earth's magnetic field due to the interaction with a clump in the solar wind; NASA instrument on India's Chandrayaan-1 Lunar spacecraft measures changes in chemical composition of lunar surface on small physical scales (link, image); next NASA mission to the Moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Oribter; completes major milestone before April 2009 launch (website); evidence for climate change on Mars resulting from regular changes in the tilt of its orbit around the Sun - deduced from studying patterns of rock layers in a large crater (link); results from ESA's Mars Express satellite suggests that peculiar light-toned deposits result on ground water bursts onto the surface (link); NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter completes primary mission (website), releases new 3D images of surface (link), and found evidence for carbonite on Martian surface which requires the past presence of neutral or basic water on Mars's surface (article); evidence that site of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is currently going through a "dry" phase; next NASA mission to Mars - the Mars Science Laboratory - delayed until late 2011 due to cost over-runs, delay expected to have implications for future planetary missions; ongoing debate whether future joint NASA/ESA Solar System mission should be to Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Titan; recent flybys of Saturn's moon Enceladus by Cassini show continuing activity and of Titan show evidence for volcanos spewing ice in to this moon's atmosphere; Swift satellite detects X-ray emission from Solar System comets (link)
• Wednesday Morning Astronomer: Yes, an ice cream carton hurtling towards the Earth at 99% the speed of light would be a very bad thing (article); no, the astronomical theory for what Voorwerp might be is not an attempt to upstage the Dutch schoolteacher who found it, but is an attempt to understand a still very bizarre object (link); star formation in the universe is actually on a decline, and if the current thinking on the universe is correct, the ultimate fate is a starless night sky - a very depressing prospect indeed (link); and I think it is definitely a good thing that the more we look, the less we understand (link).
• Calendar of upcoming Astronomy/Science events in the greater Poughkeepsie/New York area.
• More News: Evidence that brown dwarfs form like stars not planets (link); up and coming sub-mm radio interferometer ALMA gets its first telescope; astronomers discover the two faintest brown dwarfs known (link); analog to young Sun identified by CoRoT satellite (link); turbulence in proto-planetary disk important in determining how planets form (link); Spitzer images massive stars destroying proto-planetary disks of their neighbors (link); Dutch undergrads discover first extrasolar planet orbiting a fast-rotating star (link); Hubble Space Telescope discovers carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet (link) and measure the size of a different extrasolar planet (link); proposal to look for moons around extrasolar planets through the "wobbles" they create in their orbits (link); new technique proposal to look for water in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet; direct imaging of extrasolar planets is Science magazine's #2 breakthrough of the year; Kepler spacecraft - which will search for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars - shipped to Florida (just launched last week!!!)

As always, please post below or email any questions, comments, or concerns you might have. Thank you for listening!

Interview with Prof. Mary Crone Odekon (Skidmore College)

Available here is my interview with Prof. Mary Crone Odekon of Skidmore College, which was originally broadcast on the January 14th episode of this radio show. I apologize for the bad sound quality during parts of this interview - I recorded them using an extension to Skype, which for some reason has been giving me grief lately. For more information on her research, check out her web page and the web page of the ALFALFA project, of which she is a member, which even has a blog! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please email me or leave them below. Thank you very much for listening!

January 14th Radio Show: Galaxies and Galaxy Formation

Finally available here is the January 14th episode of this radio show, feature an interview with Prof. Mary Crone Odekon of Skidmore College on using galaxies to study galaxy formation. Hope you enjoy, and sorry it took me more than two weeks to post it...

Very Large Array

Last month I was at the Eleventh Synthesis Imaging Workshop run by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) on how to reduce data from a radio interferometer. The summer school was located in Socorro, NM which is located near the Very Large Array (VLA),the world's premier radio astronomer. As part of the summer school, we got a guided tour of the VLA - which was pretty awesome - and here are the pictures:

Very Large Array

Hope you enjoy them, and get a chance to visit the VLA yourself.