Astronomy Archives

November 29, 2021November 29, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

The Decadal Survey is out! What new Missions and Telescopes are in the Works?

It’s that time again. Once every ten years, the American astronomy community joins forces through the auspices of the National Academies to produce one of the most important and influential reports in their discipline – the decadal survey. This report has been the impetus for some of the great observational instruments of our time, including Spitzer, the Large Millimeter Array, and Chandra. Upcoming heavy-hitting observatories, such as Nancy Grace Roman and Vera C. Rubin, also spawned from suggestions made in the Decadal Survey. In short, if you want to get a grandiose space telescope funded, your best bet is to have it supported by the National Academies in the form of the Decadal Survey. Now a new one is out – so what does it back for the upcoming decade and beyond?

August 5, 2021August 6, 2021 by Matt Williams

Astronomy and Geophysics is Rife With Bullying and Harassment

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden presents an award to Katherine Johnson, the African American mathematician, physicist, and space scientist, who calculated flight trajectories for John Glenn's first orbital flight in 1962, at a reception to honor members of the segregated West Area Computers division of Langley Research Center on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, VA. Afterward, the guests attended a premiere of "Hidden Figures" a film which stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, and Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson. Photo Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

It’s a common reassurance made by adults to teens and adolescents who constantly face the threat of violence, cyberbullying, and ostracism: “It gets better.” Once you graduate, once you grow up and join the workforce, all the mistreatment and abuse will cease and people will appreciate you for who you are. All the hard work and perseverance you’ve shown over these many years will finally pay off.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and even the STEM fields are not immune. This was the conclusion reached by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) based on a recent survey of 650 astronomers and geophysicists. What they found was that in 44% of cases, respondents reported bullying and harassment in the workplace during the preceding year, which was disproportionately high for women and minorities.

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May 15, 2021May 15, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Astronomers Measure the Background Brightness of the Night sky Across the World. Canary Islands are the Darkest in the Survey

Being able to look up at a clear, dark sky is becoming more and more rare in the rich world. Authors, artists, and even scientists have started to express concern about what our lack of daily exposure to a dark night time sky might mean for our psyche and our sense of place in the universe. Now a team has collected photometric data at 44 sites around the world in an attempt to quantify how dark the night sky actually is at different places on the globe. So where was the darkest place surveyed? The Canary Islands.

February 12, 2021February 12, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

The Crab Nebula Seen in 3-Dimensions

The Crab Nebula is arguably one of the most famous objects in the night sky. It was delineated as M1 in Messier’s famous catalogue. It is the remnants of a supernova that was actually visible in day time almost 1000 years ago. And its remnants have been astonishing both professional and amateur astronomers ever since.

Now thanks to modern technology, we can get an updated view of this iconic supernova remnant. Researchers from a variety of institutions, led by Thomas Martin from the Universite Laval, have created a three dimensional image of the nebula for the first time ever.

December 26, 2020February 10, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

One of the Largest, Most Complete Einstein Rings Ever Seen. Astronomers Call it the “Molten Ring”

The "Molten Ring" is one of the most complete Einstein Rings ever discovered. Credit: NASA

A very rare astronomical phenomenon has been in the headlines a lot recently, and for good reason. It will be hundreds of years until we can see Jupiter and Saturn this close to one another again. However, there are some even more “truly strange and very rare phenomena” that can currently be observed in our night sky. The only problem is that in order to observe this phenomena, you’ll need access to Hubble.

December 25, 2020December 25, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

A Single Filament of Gas Has Been Discovered That Stretches 50 Million Light-Years

Minute vibrating strings found in string theory are not the only ones that are of interest to physicists. The Standard Model of particle physics provides for a theory regarding a different type of string – this one is a string of very sparse gas strung over very long distances. In fact, the standard model predicts that a large percentage of “baryonic matter” (i.e. the type that makes up everything we can see and interact with) would be contained in these filaments. And now for the first time, scientists led by a team at the University of Bonn in Germany have detected one of these super long strings of gas.

November 25, 2020November 25, 2020 by Evan Gough

A New Artist’s Illustration of the Extremely Large Telescope. So Many Lasers

The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be the biggest ‘eye on the sky’ when it achieves first light later this decade. The telescope uses lasers as ‘guide stars’ to measure how much the light is distorted by turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. The deformable M4 mirror adjusts its shape in real time to compensate for these changes in the atmosphere, helping the ELT produce images 16 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. Image Credit: ESO

Everyone loves lasers. And the only thing better than a bunch of lasers is a bunch of lasers on one of the world’s (soon to be) largest telescopes, the E-ELT. Well, maybe a bunch of lasers on a time-travelling T. Rex that appears in your observatory and demands to know the locations and trajectories of incoming asteroids. That might be better. For the dinosaurs; not for us.

October 6, 2020October 6, 2020 by Evan Gough

The Carina Nebula. Seen With and Without Adaptive Optics

This image shows a comparison of the new image (top) of the western wall of the Carina Nebula taken by the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, and an image of the same region without Adaptive Optics (bottom). The top image was taken with the Gemini South telescope with the GSAOI instrument using the GeMS adaptive optics system, and the bottom image was taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory with the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope using the NEWFIRM instrument. Image Credit: International Gemini Observatory/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Ever wonder how modern astronomical observatories take such clear images of distant objects? Advances in mirror design have allowed for larger and larger primary mirrors. But adaptive optics play a huge role, too.

August 16, 2020August 16, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

What’s Possible When Earth and Space-based Telescopes Work Together?

Anyone who has ever worked on a team knows that their strength lies in coordination and a shared vision. However, it is not always easy to provide that coordination and shared vision, and any team that lacks that cohesiveness becomes more of a hindrance than a help.

Science is not immune to the difficulties of running effective teams. There is plenty to be gained from more coordination between differing silos and physical locations. Recently a meeting in Chile prompted a group of scientists to propose a plan to change that. The result is a white paper that points out the potential benefits of coordinating ground, orbital and in situ based observations of objects. But more importantly, it suggests a different path forward where all of the space science community can benefit from the type of coordinated output that can only come from a cohesive team.

August 6, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

Antarctica Is the Best Place On Earth for a Telescope, Is Also the Hardest Place to Put a Telescope

Image of a telescope at Dome Argus, one of the coldest places on Earth. Credit: Zhaohui Shang

Twinkling stars might make for spectacular viewing on a hot summer’s night, but they are an absolute nightmare to astronomers. That twinkling is caused by disturbances in the Earth’s atmosphere, and can wreak havoc on brightness readings, a key tool for astronomers everywhere. Those readings are used for everything from understanding galaxy formation to the detection of exoplanets.

Astronomers now have a new potential location to try to avoid the twinkling. Only one problem though: it’s really cold, especially this time of year. A team of astronomers from Canada, China, and Australia have identified a part of Antarctica as the ideal place to put observational telescopes. Now the challenge becomes how to actually build one there.