The undergrad research series is where we feature the research thatyouredoing. If youve missed the previous installments, you can find themunder the Undergraduate Research category here.

Are you doingan REU thissummer? Were you working onanastro research project during this past school year? If you, too, have been working on a project that you want to share,we want to hear from you!Think youre up to the challenge of describing your research carefully and clearly to a broad audience, in only one paragraph? Then send us a summary of it!

You can share what youre doing by clickinghereand using the form provided to submit a brief (fewer than 200 words) write-up of your work. The target audience is one familiar with astrophysics but not necessarily your specific subfield, so write clearly and try to avoid jargon. Feel free to also include either a visual regarding your research or else a photo of yourself.

We look forward to hearing from you!

************

Francisco Mendez

University of Florida

Francisco Mendez is an alumnus from the University of Florida who recently graduated with a BS in Astrophysics. As part of his senior thesis, he worked with Dr. Jian Ge on detecting the stellar activity of FGK stars. The results of this research project were presented at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at the University of Florida and the AAS 236th meeting.

The detection of Earth-like exoplanets has now become a reality. With the new spectrographs, we can now detect small radial velocity (RV) signals caused by the gravitational pull of the planet(s) on the host star. However, as the mass of the planet drops, the RV signals get weaker. Small RV signals are contaminated by stellar phenomena known as stellar activity, and it can mimic the same periodic RV signals caused by the planet. Therefore, studying stellar activity is crucial for the detection of Earth-like planets.

Whether a RV signal is due to a planet or stellar activity can be distinguished by studying the stellar spectra. We are interested in measuring both magnetic cycles and stellar rotation periods for FGK type stars as part of our stellar activity analysis by using two activity indicators seen in the spectra: the H alpha line and the Ca Infrared Triplet (IRT) lines. The stellar spectra were taken from the Dharma Planet Survey, and this is the first in-depth analysis of stellar activity coming from this survey.

We analyze a sample of 23 stars and by computing the long-term variability of the activity indicators, we expect to detect the magnetic cycles of these stars. To visualize the long-term variability (magnetic cycle) we binned the nightly calculated indices every 150 days, so the short-term noise could be removed. In order to measure the significance in the long-term variability we used a statistical test, known as the F-test, to compare the scatter of the binned data with their uncertainties (see the figure). If the associated probability values (or p-values) were less than 5%, the long-term variability was considered significant. We identified the periodicity of the activity indicators using a Lomb-Scargle Periodogram to find the stellar rotation period.

Our observation time span is not long enough to cover whole magnetic cycles to measure the long-term variability. We were only able to distinguish three different parts of these cycles: Active, Quiet, or Transition phases. For significant long-term variability, 8 stars from the sample show significant variability in the H alpha index and 12 stars in the Ca IRT index. By considering both activity indicators, we were able to measure the rotation period of 12 stars. The most remarkable result is seen for the star HD 115043, for which we measured a rotation period of ~6 days in both activity indicators, matching literature values.

In summary, identifying periodic signals from stellar activity, especially due to rotation, gives confidence that other periodic signals are caused by Earth-like exoplanets. In future work, we will investigate additional activity indicators, including the Ca H & K lines in ultraviolet light, and compare them to those investigated here.

If you are an undergraduate that took part in an REU this summer and would like to share your research on Astrobites, please contact us atsubmissions@astrobites.org!

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UR #23: Investigating the Stellar Activity of FGK Dwarfs in the Dharma Planet Survey - Astrobites

Sure, space looks pretty, but just because it sparkles doesn't make it welcoming.

Because, as astrophysicist Paul Sutter realized when he began thinking about phenomena he wanted to write about to share his field with readers, high-energy astrophysics is pretty brutal up close. Dying stars, black holes, the vacuum of space, even unknown dangers like hostile aliens those fascinating-but-brutal scenarios became the beastly specimens catalogued in his new book, "How to Die in Space: A Journey Through Dangerous Astrophysical Phenomena" (Pegasus Books, 2020).

In the excerpt below, Sutter (whose writing you may recognize as a frequent contributor to Space.com) introduces planetary nebulas and explains why, while they're a perennial star of Hubble Space Telescope images, they're best admired from a distance. (Read an interview with Paul Sutter about the book.)

Related: Best space and sci-fi books for 2020

We've come to an interesting place in our journey through the galaxy.

We've broken out of our home solar system after dodging rogue asteroids, evading circuitry-frying coronal mass ejections from the sun, and simply accepting the flood of tiny cosmic rays constantly bombarding our delicate flesh.

Once we reached interstellar distances, we've seen stars born from clouds of vicious turbulence, and we encountered our first truly exotic creatures of this everlasting night that we call outer space: the black holes.

Those black holes are tombstones.

Markers. Memories of what once was. Almost-forgotten remnants of the past. The black holes of our galaxy used to be stars, shining with heat and light and warmth. Dead, gone now, generations ago. Their fusion finished, their hydrogen depleted, their spirit withered.

The stars of our universe will die, one by one. And those deaths are, to a number, nasty.

Many of the hazards that we're about to explore and explain will come from the variety of ways that stars can end their lives, and turn into other, far less pleasant, things.

Needless to say, it won't be pretty.

And when it comes to stars, everybody wants to go out with a bang. Make a big deal out of it. Sadly, not everybody can shine as brightly, as intensely, as ferociously as a supernova. Don't fret, eager explorer, we'll get to supernovas and other overly powerful explosions soon enough. It's best we start small, with weaker explosions and their consequences, and work out way up to the big leagues. Wouldn't want to get ahead of ourselves.

The Earth's own sun will die someday. Best to accept that fact now, deal with it, internalize it. When the moment comes you don't want to be caught off guard, your eggs half boiled, your grilled cheese sandwich only toasted on one side. We'll use the sun as a textbook lesson, so you won't be caught unawares in an unfamiliar system, so you won't pick a star to call home that will go giant on you in a thousand years.

All stars die. Some, the very largest, go out in a tremendous flash of energy, turning themselves inside out to light up the universe. Others, the smallest, slowly fade, never quite sputtering out, never making a scene, spending a trillion years tending to a weak fire.

The middle ones, like the sun, have the most miserable fates. Before they finally die, they become red and bloated, spewing out their innards through the local system. Spasm after spasm, they slowly lose themselves, leaving only a faint dying heart behind.

It's in these later years when they're most dangerous, when their violence overwhelms them, reducing any hapless inner planets to cinders.

Every year, old stars fade while new ones light up. A continuous cycle in the galaxy. Beautiful and poetic, really, except for the fact that when these stars go they cause mayhem and destruction for anybody unfortunate enough to live within their influence.

You can buy "How to Die in Space" on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Book excerpt: 'How to Die in Space' on the beauty and danger of nebulas - Space.com

Armenia will showcase the world's great scientific minds and Rockstar talent in celebration of Mars exploration

YEREVAN, Armenia, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- STARMUS, one of the world-scale science and art festivals will take place in September 2021 in Yerevan, Armenia, to celebrate science communication with world-class scientists, artists and astronauts.

STARMUS VI will be dedicated to Mars, from the very first Soviet MARS 3 and American MARINER 9 to the spectacular NASA missions and ambitious manned landing plans of Space X. It has been 50 years since MARS 3 performed the first soft landing on the Red Planet and sent back to the Earth the first data from its surface. The same year, in 1971, NASAs MARINER 9 became the first Orbiter around Mars. These milestones were followed by dozens of successful missions by NASA providing us with more accurate images and information from our neighbor in the Solar System. In the summer of 2020, three space agencies around the world plan to launch pioneering missions to arrive at Mars in 2021.

Following the established tradition, the Festival will address pressing issues and screen films about the exploration of Mars. Previous film screenings included the documentary Apollo 11 and The Spacewalker, a film about the legendary Russian astronaut and Starmus Board Member Alexei Leonov.

The festival will be held under the high patronage of the President of Armenia, Dr. Armen Sarkissian. The President has invited Starmus to Armenia during his invited speech in 2019 at the opening ceremony of Starmus V "A Giant Leap" in Zurich.

The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Armenia (MoESCS) on behalf of the RA Government will support, and working in close partnership with the Ministry of High-Tech Industry of the Republic of Armenia make the festival an outstanding eventthus playing an important role in different educational, scientific and artistic activities of the festival.

As in the previous years, the sixth Starmus Festival will welcome to the stage world-class scientists, artists and astronauts to share breakthrough discoveries, reflect upon pressing questions and inspire new generations of scientists and explorers.

The Starmus Advisory board will announce a further line-up of speakers from art and music later this year. Nobel Laureate scientists Edvard Moser and Michel Mayor, Apollo 16 Moonwalker Charlie Duke, co-inventor of CRISPR gene-editing technology Emmanuelle Charpentier and "the father of ipod" and NEST founder Tony Fadell are among confirmed speakers. For more information visit http://www.starmus.com.

Photos available to download from: here

About Starmus

Since the very first Homo Sapiens looked up at a star-filled sky we have been awestruck by the vastness of the cosmos. Even today we remain humbled by the sheer immensity of space, especially as through our progress in physics and astronomy, we are now aware of the tremendous distances involved even to our closest neighbouring stars.

Created by Dr. Garik Israelian, astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) and Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist and the lead guitarist of the iconic rock band Queen, the Starmus Festival is a combination of science, art and music that has featured presentations from Astronauts, Cosmonauts, Nobel Prize Winners and prominent figures from science, culture, the arts and music.

Stephen Hawking and Alexei Leonov, together with the rock star and astrophysicist Dr. Brian May, worked to create the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, awarded to individuals and teams who have made significant contributions to science communication. Previous Stephen Hawking Medal winners include Elon Musk, Jean-Michel Jarre, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Eno, Hans Zimmer and The Particle Fever documentary.

The Starmus Festivals join Nobel laureates, eminent researchers, astronauts, thinkers, men and women of science, culture, arts and music to share their knowledge and experiences in the common search for answers to the great questions of today.

http://www.starmus.com/

SOURCE STARMUS

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STARMUS Returns: The world-renowned festival supported by Stephen Hawking, Brian May and Alexei Leonov announces a landmark event dedicated to Mars in...

Another telescope is helping us better understand the age of the universe and its future.

Using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile, a group of astronomers say their observations support an earlier estimate as to the age of the universe: 13.77 billion years, give or take 40 million years. Their paper was released on the pre-print publishing service arXiv.org on Wednesday and submitted to the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

The estimate supports observations taken by the European Space Agency's Planck space telescope in the early 2010s.

Over the years, there have been other studies that have disputed that number. For example, in 2019, a study published in the journal Sciencesuggested the universe was 11.2 billion years old.

"For a half dozen years, I'd say even more ... within the past three years, there has been one conference after another all over the world completely focused on this issue where one group comes up and they say, 'Oh, this is what we get,' and the other group comes up and says, 'This is what we get," said Richard Bond, co-author of the paper and director of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto.

"We call it the Hubble tension."

Why isn't there a clear-cut answer?

It all comes down to the methods used to calculate the expansion of the universe.

In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble found that the universe is expanding. Ever since, scientists have attempted to calculate just how fast that's occurring. The rate of expansion is called the Hubble Constant.

But the challenge with determining the age of our universe which in turn helps us better understand not only its past but also its future is that there are a few methods used to make the calculations.

One involves looking at things that are relatively nearby, cosmologically speaking, such assupernovas (exploding stars) and a particular type of star that varies in brightness, called a Cepheid variable.

Yet another involves looking far, far back, to a time shortly after the universe came to be in particular at the cosmic microwave background radiation, or CMB, left over from the rapid birth of the universe, some 380,000 years following the Big Bang.

ACT also used this method, though from a ground-based telescope. But one advantage it had over Planck was the ability to better measure polarization of the CMB, which tells the scientists in what direction the light is moving. This allows it to be more precise.

Just how close were their findings to Planck's?

The space telescope put the rate of the expansion of the universe at 67.5 kilometres per second per megaparsec (one megaparsec is 3.26 million light years). The new findings put that at 67.6 kilometres per second per megaparsec.

"What ACT has done is taken away the option that the CMB measurements were just a fluke of some kind," said Mark Halpern, a professor at the University of British Columbia's department of physics and astronomy in Vancouver and co-author of the paper.

This is an important step, the authors say, in trying to determine whether astrophysicists truly understand the universe.

"If we want the universe to be consistent, then what we need to understand is: [Is] it that we have [something] we haven't accounted for in any of the measurements?Or is there some kind of new physics?" said Renee Hlozek, co-author and a professor of astrophysics at the Dunlap Institute at U of T's department of astronomy and astrophysics.

"Because it could be that we're living in a universe that looks a certain age close to us, but then either the expansion rate changes over time or there's exotic physics that means it's a different age."

Wendy Freedman is an astronomy professor at the University of Chicago's department of astronomy and astrophysicswho was not involved in the study. She also researches the expansion of the universeand has used a particular type of star a red giant as a method of calculating the expansion.

"I think it's a really superb piece of work," she said of the new paper. "It's a major study andlooking through the papers, they have paid a huge amount of attention to details and possible uncertainties and errors and run tests and checked through their data."

Freedman said while the data supports Planck, there's still something fundamental that we don't understand, something that the authors themselves acknowledge.

Butwith the new ground-based findings, they hope that this will be another piece in the puzzle in an attempt to understand what's going on in our universe in particular how it will ultimately cease to be.

"If we understand the age of the universe now, that can actually help us have a better view of how this is going to end," Hlozek said.

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How old are we? Debate over the age of the universe just got a bit more complicated - CBC.ca

A short gamma ray burst known to astronomers as SGRB181123B is the second most-distant well-established SGRB ever seen, and the most distant to ever known to display an optical afterglow. Examination of this object could reveal data about the behavior of the densest stars in the Universe at a time when our Universe was still in its adolescence.

Short gamma ray burst are incredibly short-lived events (sometimes lasting for a matter of hours before fading), occurring far from Earth. These characteristics combine to make these events notoriously difficult to detect and study.

The discovery of such an event nearly two years ago led to a hasty coalition oftelescopesaimed at the enigmatic object.

We certainly did not expect to discover a distant SGRB, as they are extremely rare and very faint. We perform forensics with telescopes to understand its local environment, because what its home galaxy looks like can tell us a lot about the underlying physics of these systems, saidDr. Wen-fai Fong, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University.

[Read: The Solar Orbiter just snapped the closest-ever pictures of the Sun]

On Thanksgiving night in 2018, astronomers found a feast of data from the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, revealing a previously-unseenSGRB. The team managing observations for the space-borne observatory contacted astronomers at one of the words greatest ground-based telescopes,Gemini Northon Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

It was unreal. I was in New York with my family and had finished having a big Thanksgiving dinner. Just as I had gone to sleep, the alert went off and woke me up. While somewhat of a nuisance, you literally never know when youll land a big discovery like this! I immediately triggered the Gemini observations and notified Kerry. Thankfully, she happened to be observing at Keck that night and was able to rearrange her original observing plan and repoint the telescope towards the SGRB, Wen-fai recalls.

The international Gemini Observatory (a program of NSFs NOIRLab), quickly confirmed the finding, utilizing their 8.1 meter telescope onMauna Kea. Astronomers there also dated the event to the teenage years of the Universe, less than four billion years after the Big Bang.

We took advantage of the unique rapid-response capabilities and exquisite sensitivity of Gemini North and its GMOS imager to obtain deep observations of the burst mere hours after its discovery. The Gemini images were very sharp, and allowed us to pinpoint the location to a specific galaxy, saidKerry Patersonof the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) at Northwestern University.

These observations were reinforced by data recorded at theW.M. Keck Observatoryin Hawaii and Multi-Mirror Telescope (MMT) at Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins in Arizona.

This was a triumph for this international collaboration of astronomers, quickly networking several observatories, to observe this short-lived event.

Read more:

Burst of gamma rays from 10 billion light years away offers glimpse into the early universe - The Next Web

Overview

We are seeking an R&D Section Head for Nuclear Science and Advanced Technology in the Physics Division. The Division builds on ORNL strengths to perform outstanding leadership research for the Nation in fundamental nuclear science, national security and related areas. Our focus is in the areas of novel Advanced Radiation Detector Development, Applied Data Science, Nuclear Structure Physics, Theoretical Physics and Nuclear Astrophysics

The Nuclear Science and Advanced Technology Section delivers foundational knowledge in nuclear science and astrophysics through world-leading theoretical and experimental studies, as well as associated radiation detection technologies for next generation nuclear solutions needed by the nation and the world.

Purpose

Provide Research and Development (R&D) leadership to a thematic area of science and technology that integrates several thematically aligned R&D groups consistent with ORNLs aspiration to be the worlds premier R&D institution and ORNLs science culture.

The R&D Section Head works closely with the Division Director and section Group Leaders to establish and implement the science and technology directions for the section; support the Group Leaders to ensure their success and the success of the R&D groups as world-recognized leaders in their fields; ensure that staff members understand business opportunities; identify links to current and future funding opportunities and R&D programs; develop and implement consistent processes for the peer-review of proposals consistent with lab standards; model proper Environment, Safety, Security, Health, and Quality practices; and ensure a diverse and inclusive work environment where every employee feels safe, heard and appreciateda workplace that sets an example for the broader community

Major Duties/Responsibilities:

Research

Scientists/engineers/analysts who have significantly advanced knowledge/technology in their respective field. Their work directly impacts the present or future of the laboratory in significant ways. Initiates, leads and performs R&D programs and initiatives on an ongoing basis.

Leadership

Service

Accountabilities:

Authorities:

Follow this link:

Section Head, Nuclear Science & Advanced Technology in Oak Ridge, TN for Oak Ridge National Laboratory - Physics

LOS ANGELES, United States: The global Security Screening market is comprehensively analyzed in the report with the main objective of providing accurate market data and useful recommendations to help players to gain strong growth in future. The report is compiled by subject matter experts and experienced market analysts, which makes it highly authentic and reliable. Readers are provided with deep analysis of historical and future market scenarios to get sound understanding of market competition and other important aspects. The report offers exhaustive research on market dynamics, key segments, leading players, and different regional markets. It is a complete package of thorough analysis and research on the global Security Screening market.

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Table of Contents

About Us:

QY Research established in 2007, focus on custom research, management consulting, IPO consulting, industry chain research, data base and seminar services. The company owned a large basic data base (such as National Bureau of statistics database, Customs import and export database, Industry Association Database etc), experts resources (included energy automotive chemical medical ICT consumer goods etc.

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Security Screening Market Size, Growth Analysis by Key Manufacturers, Regions, Types and Applications, Forecast 20202026| Leidos, Nuctech, OSI...

A portion of a new picture of the oldest light in the universe, aka the cosmic microwave background. This part covers a section of the sky 50 times the moons width, representing a region of space 20 billion light-years across. Image via Atacama Cosmology Telescope/ ACT Collaboration/ Simons Foundation.

Written by Thomas Sumner for the Simons Foundation. Originally published July 15, 2020.

From a mountain high in Chiles Atacama Desert, astronomers with the National Science Foundations Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) have taken a fresh look at the oldest light in the universe [otherwise known as the cosmic microwave background]. Their new observations plus a bit of cosmic geometry suggest that the universe is 13.77 billion years old, give or take 40 million years.

The new estimate matches the one provided by the standard model of the universe and measurements of the same light made by the Planck satellite. This adds a fresh twist to an ongoing debate in the astrophysics community, said Simone Aiola, first author of one of two new papers on the findings posted to arXiv.org.

In 2019, a research team measuring the movements of galaxies calculated that the universe is hundreds of millions of years younger than the Planck team predicted. That discrepancy suggested that a new model for the universe might be needed and sparked concerns that one of the sets of measurements might be incorrect. Aiola, a researcher at the Flatiron Institutes Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City, commented:

Now weve come up with an answer where Planck and ACT agree. It speaks to the fact that these difficult measurements are reliable.

The age of the universe also reveals how fast the cosmos is expanding, a number quantified by the Hubble constant. The new measurements from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope suggest a Hubble constant of 67.6 kilometers per second per megaparsec. That means an object 1 megaparsec (around 3.26 million light-years) from Earth is moving away from us at 67.6 kilometers per second due to the expansion of the universe. This result agrees almost exactly with the previous estimate of 67.4 kilometers per second per megaparsec by the Planck satellite team, but its slower than the 74 kilometers per second per megaparsec inferred from the measurements of galaxies.

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope. Using new measurements from this telescope of the cosmic microwave background, scientists have refined calculations of the universes age. Image via Debra Kellner/ Simons Foundation.

Steve Choi of Cornell University, first author of the other paper posted to arXiv.org, said:

I didnt have a particular preference for any specific value. It was going to be interesting one way or another. We find an expansion rate that is right on the estimate by the Planck satellite team. This gives us more confidence in measurements of the universes oldest light.

The close agreement between the ACT and Planck results and the standard cosmological model is bittersweet, Aiola said:

Its good to know that our model right now is robust, but it would have been nice to see a hint of something new.

Still, the disagreement with the 2019 study of the motions of galaxies maintains the possibility that unknown physics may be at play, he said.

Like the Planck satellite, ACT peers at the afterglow of the Big Bang. This light, known as the cosmic microwave background, marks a time 380,000 years after the universes birth when protons and electrons joined to form the first atoms. Before that time, the cosmos was opaque to light.

If scientists can estimate how far light from the cosmic microwave background traveled to reach Earth, they can calculate the universes age. Thats easier said than done, though. Judging cosmic distances from Earth is hard. So instead, scientists measure the angle in the sky between two distant objects, with Earth and the two objects forming a cosmic triangle. If scientists also know the physical separation between those objects, they can use high school geometry to estimate the distance of the objects from Earth.

Subtle variations in the glow of the cosmic microwave background offer anchor points to form the other two vertices of the triangle. Those variations in temperature and polarization resulted from quantum fluctuations in the early universe that got amplified by the expanding universe into regions of varying density. (The denser patches would go on to form galaxy clusters.) Scientists have a strong enough understanding of the universes early years to know that these variations in the cosmic microwave background should typically be spaced out every billion light-years for temperature and half that for polarization. (For scale, our Milky Way galaxy is about 200,000 light-years in diameter.)

ACT measured the cosmic microwave background fluctuations with unprecedented resolution, taking a closer look at the polarization of the light. Suzanne Staggs, ACTs principal investigator and the Henry deWolf Smyth Professor of Physics at Princeton University, said:

The Planck satellite measured the same light, but by measuring its polarization in higher fidelity, the new picture from ACT reveals more of the oldest patterns weve ever seen.

As ACT continues making observations, astronomers will have an even clearer picture of the cosmic microwave background and a more exact idea of how long ago the cosmos began. The ACT team will also scour those observations for signs of physics that doesnt fit the standard cosmological model. Such strange physics could resolve the disagreement between the predictions of the age and expansion rate of the universe arising from the measurements of the cosmic microwave background and the motions of galaxies. Mark Devlin, ACTs deputy director and the Reese W. Flower Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Pennsylvania, said:

Were continuing to observe half the sky from Chile with our telescope. As the precision of both techniques increases, the pressure to resolve the conflict will only grow.

Bottom line: Astronomers have taken a fresh look at the oldest light in the universe, otherwise known as the cosmic microwave background. Their new observations suggest that the universe is 13.77 billion years old, give or take 40 million years.

Source: The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR4 Maps and Cosmological Parameters

Source: The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: A Measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background Power Spectra at 98 and 150 GHz

Via the Simons Foundation

See the article here:

New view of old light adds twist to debate over universes age - EarthSky

Many exoplanets known today are either super-Earths with a radius of 1.3 times the Earths radius, or mini-Neptune with 2.4 Earth radii. Mini-neptunes, which have always been less dense, have long been thought of as gaseous planets composed of hydrogen and helium. Now scientists from the Marseille Astrophysics Laboratory have explored the new possibility and presented their research in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Astrophysicists have suggested that the low density of mini-neptune-type planets can be explained simply by the presence of a thick layer of water, which is subject to an intense greenhouse effect.

Where does the greenhouse effect come from on these exoplanets? It is caused by radiation from a star whose radiation the planet is exposed to.

These results indicate that mini-neptuns may be super-Earths with a rocky core surrounded by supercritical water. Water takes on this state at very high pressures and temperatures. This study also suggests that two types of exoplanets super-earths and mini-neptune can form in the same way.

Another study, recently published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, looked at the effect of stellar radiation on the radius of Earth-sized planets containing water. French scientists from the Bordeaux Astrophysics Laboratory used a model of the planets atmosphere developed at the Laboratory of Dynamic Meteorology in their study.

Their results show that the size of the atmospheres of such planets increases significantly when they are exposed to a strong greenhouse effect, in accordance with studies of planets such as mini-neptune. Future observations should allow us to test these new hypotheses put forward by French scientists who are contributing to our knowledge of exoplanets.

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Scientists: mini-neptunes could be planets that have oceans of water - FREE NEWS

The Mars 2020 mission is scheduled to launch at the end of July. Its goal is to land the Perseverance rover on the Red Planet and collect samples in the hope of finding signs of past life.

While Mars remains an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Hollywood films, it equally fascinates NASA, which has made its exploration a priority. Since the early 2000s, the US space agency has successfully carried out eight missionsdesigned to study its geological and climate history. The next step in this programme is the upcoming launch from Cape Canaveral of a massive Atlas V rocket carrying the Perseverance rover on a new mission dubbed Mars 2020, which will land on the Red Planet on 18 February 2021.

Packed with cameras and high-tech scientific instruments, the rover, approximately the size of a car, aims to answer the question that has been nagging the astrophysics community ever since the early days of Martian exploration: could Mars have once been home to life? After focusing on the presence of water on the planet and on its habitability, Mars 2020 marks the third and latest step in a series of missions, and will be primarily dedicated to the search for signs of fossil life, says Sylvestre Maurice, an astronomer at the IRAPin Toulouse (southwestern France). With the support of around 200 scientists, engineers and technicians from several CNRS and French university laboratories,the scientist helped develop the SuperCam laser camera, one of seven scientific instruments carried by the Perseverance rover. Based on many of the features of the Curiosity rovers ChemCam deployed on Mars in 2012, SuperCam was enhanced with new functionalities such as Raman and infrared spectrometers. These techniques, the first of their kind to be used on the Red Planet, can identify bonds between atoms and the way in which molecules are organised. As a result, they are able to detect complex structures favourable to the preservation of biosignatures in SuperCams targets, he explains.

To maximise their chances in the search for Martian biosignatures, the Mars 2020 team chose the Jezero crater as their landing site. Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, this area, 45 kilometres in diameter, was home to a vast lake to which several rivers converged, forming deltas whose remains are still visible today. The very early presence of water, together with extensive sedimentary deposits, makes Jezero a particularly promising environment for the detection of traces of life. The site also includes a wide range of geological features, which will help Mars 2020 achieve its other primary goal, namely the collection of some thirty soil core and rock samples reflecting the geological diversity of the planet. Once the samples have been enclosed in metal tubes kept inside the rover, they will be sealed and stored on the Martian surface, and eventually brought back to Earth during a future sample return mission scheduled by 2030, Maurice explains.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL/ESA

This unprecedented sampling operation will be carried out using the SuperCam instrument. Its high-resolution colour camera attached atop Perseverances mast will make it possible to accurately determine the geological and environmental context associated with each sample of rock or regolith thanks to the analysis performed by the instruments three spectrometers.In addition, SuperCam will be the very first scientific instrument sent to Mars to be equipped with a microphone. By listening to the impact on the rocks each time the laser is fired, this system will provide information about the hardness of the geological samples targeted, Maurice says. The device will also be used to pick up the sound of the Martian wind and detect possible signs of wear and tear to the equipment by continuously recording the noises made by the rover.

Filled with cutting-edge technology, the SuperCam laser camera took five long years to develop by several French research laboratories. Although from the outside the instrument looks like Curiositys ChemCam, which our team had previously helped to design, it contains three additional analysis technologies packed into exactly the same volume. This required the miniaturisation of numerous components, explains Pernelle Bernardi, a systems engineer at the LESIA,in charge of the specifications and performance of the SuperCam. This was a major challenge that the French team met with flying colours. However, just as the production of the flight model to be mounted on the rover neared completion, things went badly wrong when the optical component of the instrument was being tested inside a heat chamber in November 2018. The temperature rose to nearly 250 C, well above the acceptable limits, quite literally roasting the instrument.

Following a crisis meeting with US mission officials and representatives from the French space agency, CNES,the decision was taken to rebuild the entire laser camera, using all the available spare parts. The French team worked flat out, day and night, and rebuilt the instrument in six months, even managing to enhance its performance. The primary mirror of the first SuperCams telescope had a tendency to deform when cold, which resulted in a significant widening of the focus point of the infrared laser beam, Bernardi explains. The November 2018 incident therefore gave us the opportunity to replace this defective mirror and thereby significantly improve the laser shot.

Completed in June 2019, the upgraded version of the SuperCam was then shipped to NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California in order to be attached to the top of the rover mast. We visited the site several times last year to ensure that the instruments laser beams were still perfectly aligned during tests carried out in an environment very close to that of Mars, and it was indeed the case, says Bernardi, who was awarded the CNRS 2020 Crystal Medal for her key role in the construction of the device. A few weeks before the Covid-19 crisis broke out, the fully-assembled rover had reached the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and was docked to the descent vehicle. It was then placed in the capsule that will enter the Martian atmosphere, this structure being itself attached to the cruise stage, which will fly the entire system to its final destination. Sheltering behind its heat shield, Perseverance is now waiting for the green light from NASA to begin its long journey to Mars.

Originally posted here:

A new rover to land on Mars - ScienceBlog.com

Today's Google Doodle celebrates the life of Prof. Dr. Dilhan Eryurt (Image: Google)

Today's Google Doodle celebrates Dilhan Eryurt, a Turkish astrophysicist who played a huge role in the way we understand how the Sun was formed.

But who was she, what were some of her notable achievements, and why has Google chosen today to honour her?

Here's everything you need to know.

Who was Dilhan Eryurt?

Born in 1926 in zmir - Turkey's third most populous city - Prof. Dr. Dilhan Eryurt grew up across the country, first moving to Istanbul with her family, and then on to Turkey's second city, Ankara, a few years later.

After developing an interest in mathematics in high school, Eryurt enrolled in the Istanbul University Department of Mathematics and Astronomy, and upon graduation, was assigned to open an Astronomy Department at Ankara University.

She relocated to the US to continue her graduate studies at the University of Michigan, and while there completed her doctorate at the Ankara University Department of Astrophysics, becoming Associate Professor.

From 1961, Eryurt held a position at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, her appointment extra notable for the fact she was the only female astronomer working at the institution at the time.

What did she study?

Eryurt's work at Goddard revealed some facts about the Sun that were not yet understood.

For instance, she observed that the brightness of the Sun had not increased - it had in fact decreased - since its formation 4.5 billion years ago, revealing that our nearest star was much brighter and warmer in the past.

Her studies influenced the course of the scientific and engineering research aims of space flights - a new and uncharted territory at the time.

In 1969 she was awarded the Apollo Achievement Award for contributions to the Apollo 11 mission. Today (20 July) marks 51 years since Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins landed and walked on the moon.

Aldrin and Armstrong spent a total of 21 hours and 36 minutes on the moon, but the Apollo 11 mission itself lasted a total of eight days, three hours, 18 min, and 35 seconds.

This is likely the reason Google have chosen today to celebrate Eryurt's life; her research provided NASA engineers with crucial information for modelling solar impact on the lunar environment

She later moved on to work at the California University, where she studied the formation and development of Main Sequence stars - a continuous band of stars that appear on plots of stellar colour versus brightness.

What else did she do?

Throughout her long and successful career, Eryurt became an award-winning astronomer, picking up all sorts of nods for her contributions and work.

Other notable achievements of hers include the organising of Turkey's first National Astronomy Congress in 1968, and the establishment of the Astrophysics Department at the Middle East Technical University.

She retired in 1993 after a long career, and sadly died in September 2012 at the age of 85, suffering a heart attack in Ankara.

Original post:

Here's why today's Google Doodle is celebrating the Turkish astrophysicist Dilhan Eryurt - Morpeth Herald

Michael Troxel has always liked puzzles, especially challenging ones. Which is fortunate, since his job is solving some of the most perplexing, fundamental mysteries of the universe.

At some point in middle school I asked myself, Whats the hardest thing that I could try to do? he said. And at that point the hardest thing I knew about was astrophysics, so I think that was probably the first motivation for choosing this career, if Im honest. But that was before I understood what it actually meant.

A cosmologist and assistant professor in the Department of Physics, Troxel has spent the past two years as the cosmology analysis coordinator in the Dark Energy Surveyan international collaboration involving 500 scientists analyzing a massive dataset of about 400 million celestial objects. It has been what I think is one of the most complex and difficult analyses ever performed in cosmology, which has only been possible with the contributions and leadership of dozens of my colleagues, Troxel said. The outcome will span about 30 published research papers with more than 200 contributing scientists.

Today, in recognition of his contributions to the field, Troxel was granted an award through the Department of Energy Early Career Research Program. Founded to bolster the nations scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work, the program will support 76 scientists in 2020. It is a welcome validation that my time supporting this project has been well spent, Troxel said. It will also give my research group the resources to tackle some of the hardest problems we face in cosmology.

The award offers five years of funding for a specific project, which Troxel will partly use to support his work on a successor to the Dark Energy Survey: research using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which is scheduled to begin operations in 2023, within the Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC). Located in Cerro Pachon, Chile, the facility is one of the three large, state-of-the-art telescopes that will come online in the coming decade, including the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope that Troxels group also works with. Rubin and Roman will do many of the same things that the Dark Energy Survey does, but 10 times better, Troxel said.

This DES collaboration map of dark matter was made from gravitational lensing measurements. Credit: Chihway Chang/Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago/DES Collaboration

All focus, in part, on the two most pressing cosmological mysteries left to solve: dark matter and dark energy. Theyre the pieces of the universe that we just dont understand, Troxel said. And a bit frighteningly, they seem to make up 95 percent of the universe.

The first, dark matter, is difficult to research because scientists have yet to see itit doesnt interact with light in the way ordinary matter does. But it does interact with gravity, and current astrophysical modelswhich have been very successful at predicting how the universe has evolvedimply that there is five times as much matter as we can see in the form of this dark matter.

Troxel specializes in gravitational lensing, or how gravity bends the path of light and distorts images of distant galaxies. By taking large-scale images of the universe from observatories like Rubin and Roman and analyzing those distortions, he can map where dark matter is located. Through the Dark Energy Survey, Troxel and others have made such maps for about an eighth of the sky. Rubin will allow them to map the entire southern hemisphere.

The other mystery, dark energy, involves the expansion of the universe. Since the Big Bang, all of the universes cosmological objects have been moving away from each other. Until the last few decades, scientists largely expected that the objects would slow down due to the gravitational force pulling them back together. But the opposite is happening.

What we observed is that instead of slowing down, everything is speeding up and accelerating away from each other, Troxel said. This is like throwing a ball up in the air and instead of having it fall back down, it starts shooting up faster and faster.

Duke cosmologists pose together. Troxel is third from left. Walter is to his right and Scolnic is the last on the right. Credit: Duke University

Since the acceleration is inexplicable through gravity from massive objects, scientists have concluded that there must be another force or component of the universe at play. In fact, this other component of the universe makes up 70 percent of the dynamics of the universe, Troxel said. It is also invisible to observation, but through gravitational lensing, Troxel and his colleagues can use data from the Rubin and other telescopes to learn more about it.

With the funding from his Department of Energy Award, Troxel said he will be able to hire another graduate student and postdoc to support Dukes cosmology research, which also includes professors Dan Scolnic and Chris Walter, expanding the departments recent focus on the field. One of the benefits for students is that they will have the opportunity to visit the observatory in Chile as the commissioning of Rubin starts.

Its those opportunities to support future scientists that are most meaningful to Troxel. A first-generation student, Troxel credits those who supported his career for his current success. My path to where I am now was not easy, and I only made it due to the support of my teachers and mentors, he said.

But he also hopes to welcome a more diverse group of students into cosmology. It was only last week [with the US Supreme Court ruling on Title VII], for the first time in my life, that I am protected at the national level from being fired from my job solely for who I am, said Troxel, who is LGBTQ.

The story of modern physics and cosmology has been one of turning around our perspectives and viewing the physical world in a new light, leading to fundamental new insights about how the world works, he added. Physics and cosmology benefit from new and diverse perspectives, but we must ensure that the field is worthy of those new voices. The most rewarding part of my role now as a teacher at Duke is to help make sure the next generation of diverse voices are heard and supported while they find their own paths to grappling with the mysteries of the universe.

See more here:

Exploring the Fundamental Mysteries of the Universe by Seeing the Invisible - SciTechDaily

The release of the closest-ever images of the Sun understandably grabbed the headlines this week (you can read Richard A Lovetts report for Cosmos here) but there was other news of note. Here are some announcements that took our fancy.

Astronomers reported watching as a supermassive black holes own corona, the ultrabright, billion-degree ring of high-energy particles that encircles a black holes event horizon, was abruptly destroyed.

The cause is unclear, though they guess it was a star caught in the black holes gravitational pull. Like a pebble tossed into a gearbox, it may have ricocheted through the disc of swirling material, causing everything in the vicinity, including the coronas high-energy particles, to suddenly plummet into the black hole.

The result was a precipitous and surprising drop in the black holes brightness, by a factor of 10,000, in under just one year.

We expect that luminosity changes this big should vary on timescales of many thousands to millions of years, says Erin Kara, from Massachussetts Institute of Technlogy, but in this object, we saw it change by 10,000 over a year, and it even changed by a factor of 100 in eight hours, which is just totally unheard of and really mind-boggling.

Following the coronas disappearance, Kara and colleagues watched as the black hole began to slowly pull together material from its outer edges to reform its swirling accretion disc. In just a few months it was able to generate a new corona, with close to its original luminosity.

Journal abstract

Another group of astronomers at the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile took a fresh look at the oldest light in the Universe and, combining these observations with a bit of cosmic geometry suggest the Universe is 13.77 billion years old, give or take 40 million years.

The new estimate matches one provided by the Standard Model of the Universe and measurements of the same light made by the Planck satellite. This adds a fresh twist to an ongoing debate in the astrophysics community, says Simone Aiola, from the Centre for Computational Astrophysics in New York.

In 2019, a research team measuring the movements of galaxies calculated that the universe is hundreds of millions of years younger than the Planck team predicted. That discrepancy suggested that a new model for the Universe might be needed and sparked concerns that one of the sets of measurements might be incorrect.

Now weve come up with an answer where Planck and ACT agree, says Aiola. It speaks to the fact that these difficult measurements are reliable.

Journal abstract

Astrophysicists from Russia, South Korea and the US are suggesting that carbon is an indication of how long a comet has been in our Solar System; the less carbon, the longer its been in the proximity of the Sun.

The proof, they say, is the comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4), which approached the Earth in May but disintegrated, displaying a major outbreak of the carbonaceous particles.

ATLAS was expected to be the brightest comet of 2020, visible from the Earth with a naked eye. However, instead of observing the comet itself, we witnessed its disintegration, says Ekaterina Chornaya, from Russias Far Eastern Federal University.

Luckily, we had begun photometric and polarimetric studies before the process started, and because of that, we are able to compare the composition of the coma before and after the disintegration.

The researchers say the polarimetric response of the particles from Comet ATLAS matches that of one of the brightest comets in the history of Earth Comet Hale-Bopp, or C/1995 O1.

Journal abstract

To finish, a couple of important dates were revealed this week.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Australian Space Agency jointly announced that the Hayabusa2 spacecraft containing samples from the asteroid Ryugu will arrive back on Earth in Woomera, South Australia, on 6 December this year. (You can read our most recent coverage of the mission here).

And NASA announced a new target date of 31 October 2021 for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana. The ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and technical challenges have required a move from the original planned launch in March.

See the rest here:

Spacewatch: Black holes, comets and key dates - Cosmos

A simple model explains a wide range of observations by describing a contest between galaxy halos and their central black holes that eventually turns off star formation.

Astronomers studying galaxy evolution have long struggled to understand what causes star formation to shut down in massive galaxies. Although many theories have been proposed to explain this process, known as quenching, there is still no consensus on a satisfactory model.

Now, an international team led by Sandra Faber, professor emerita of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, has proposed a new model that successfully explains a wide range of observations about galaxy structure, supermassive black holes, and the quenching of star formation. The researchers presented their findings in a paper published on July 1, 2020, in the Astrophysical Journal.

The model supports one of the leading ideas about quenching which attributes it to black hole feedback, the energy released into a galaxy and its surroundings from a central supermassive black hole as matter falls into the black hole and feeds its growth. This energetic feedback heats, ejects, or otherwise disrupts the galaxys gas supply, preventing the infall of gas from the galaxys halo to feed star formation.

The idea is that in star-forming galaxies, the central black hole is like a parasite that ultimately grows and kills the host, Faber explained. Thats been said before, but we havent had clear rules to say when a black hole is big enough to shut down star formation in its host galaxy, and now we have quantitative rules that actually work to explain our observations.

The basic idea involves the relationship between the mass of the stars in a galaxy (stellar mass), how spread out those stars are (the galaxys radius), and the mass of the central black hole. For star-forming galaxies with a given stellar mass, the density of stars in the center of the galaxy correlates with the radius of the galaxy so that galaxies with bigger radii have lower central stellar densities. Assuming that the mass of the central black hole scales with the central stellar density, star-forming galaxies with larger radii (at a given stellar mass) will have lower black-hole masses.

What that means, Faber explained, is that larger galaxies (those with larger radii for a given stellar mass) have to evolve further and build up a higher stellar mass before their central black holes can grow large enough to quench star formation. Thus, small-radius galaxies quench at lower masses than large-radius galaxies.

That is the new insight, that if galaxies with large radii have smaller black holes at a given stellar mass, and if black hole feedback is important for quenching, then large-radius galaxies have to evolve further, she said. If you put together all these assumptions, amazingly, you can reproduce a large number of observed trends in the structural properties of galaxies.

This explains, for example, why more massive quenched galaxies have higher central stellar densities, larger radii, and larger central black holes.

Based on this model, the researchers concluded that quenching begins when the total energy emitted from the black hole is approximately four times the gravitational binding energy of the gas in the galactic halo. The binding energy refers to the gravitational force that holds the gas within the halo of dark matter enveloping the galaxy. Quenching is complete when the total energy emitted from the black hole is twenty times the binding energy of the gas in the galactic halo.

Faber emphasized that the model does not yet explain in detail the physical mechanisms involved in the quenching of star formation. The key physical processes that this simple theory evokes are not yet understood, she said. The virtue of this, though, is that having simple rules for each step in the process challenges theorists to come up with physical mechanisms that explain each step.

Astronomers are accustomed to thinking in terms of diagrams that plot the relations between different properties of galaxies and show how they change over time. These diagrams reveal the dramatic differences in structure between star-forming and quenched galaxies and the sharp boundaries between them. Because star formation emits a lot of light at the blue end of the color spectrum, astronomers refer to blue star-forming galaxies, red quiescent galaxies, and the green valley as the transition between them. Which stage a galaxy is in is revealed by its star formation rate.

One of the studys conclusions is that the growth rate of black holes must change as galaxies evolve from one stage to the next. The observational evidence suggests that most of the black hole growth occurs in the green valley when galaxies are beginning to quench.

The black hole seems to be unleashed just as star formation slows down, Faber said. This was a revelation, because it explains why black hole masses in star-forming galaxies follow one scaling law, while black holes in quenched galaxies follow another scaling law. That makes sense if black hole mass grows rapidly while in the green valley.

Faber and her collaborators have been discussing these issues for many years. Since 2010, Faber has co-led a major Hubble Space Telescope galaxy survey program (CANDELS, the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey), which produced the data used in this study. In analyzing the CANDELS data, she has worked closely with a team led by Joel Primack, UCSC professor emeritus of physics, which developed the Bolshoi cosmological simulation of the evolution of the dark matter halos in which galaxies form. These halos provide the scaffolding on which the theory builds the early star-forming phase of galaxy evolution before quenching.

The central ideas in the paper emerged from analyses of CANDELS data and first struck Faber about four years ago. It suddenly leaped out at me, and I realized if we put all these things togetherif galaxies had a simple trajectory in radius versus mass, and if black hole energy needs to overcome halo binding energyit can explain all these slanted boundaries in the structural diagrams of galaxies, she said.

At the time, Faber was making frequent trips to China, where she has been involved in research collaborations and other activities. She was a visiting professor at Shanghai Normal University, where she met first author Zhu Chen. Chen came to UC Santa Cruz in 2017 as a visiting researcher and began working with Faber to develop these ideas about galaxy quenching.

She is mathematically very good, better than me, and she did all of the calculations for this paper, Faber said.

Faber also credited her longtime collaborator David Koo, UCSC professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics, for first focusing attention on the central densities of galaxies as a key to the growth of central black holes.

Among the puzzles explained by this new model is a striking difference between our Milky Way galaxy and its very similar neighbor Andromeda. The Milky Way and Andromeda have almost the same stellar mass, but Andromedas black hole is almost 50 times bigger than the Milky Ways, Faber said. The idea that black holes grow a lot in the green valley goes a long way toward explaining this mystery. The Milky Way is just entering the green valley and its black hole is still small, whereas Andromeda is just exiting so its black hole has grown much bigger, and it is also more quenched than the Milky Way.

Reference: Quenching as a Contest between Galaxy Halos and Their Central Black Holes by Zhu Chen, S. M. Faber, David C. Koo, Rachel S. Somerville, Joel R. Primack, Avishai Dekel, Aldo Rodrguez-Puebla, Yicheng Guo, Guillermo Barro, Dale D. Kocevski, A. van der Wel, Joanna Woo, Eric F. Bell, Jerome J. Fang, Henry C. Ferguson, Mauro Giavalisco, Marc Huertas-Company, Fangzhou Jiang, Susan Kassin, Lin Lin, F. S. Liu, Yifei Luo, Zhijian Luo, Camilla Pacifici, Viraj Pandya, Samir Salim, Chenggang Shu, Sandro Tacchella, Bryan A. Terrazas and Hassen M. Yesuf, 7 July 2020, Astrophysical Journal.DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab9633

In addition to Faber, Chen, Koo, and Primack, the coauthors of the paper include researchers at some two dozen institutions in seven countries. This work was funded by grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Link:

How Galaxies Die: New Insights Into Galaxy Halos, Black Holes, and Quenching of Star Formation - SciTechDaily

This open letter is written in response to the Australian governments proposed reforms to the university sector, announced by Education Minister Dan Tehan on June 19, 2020. The so-called job-ready graduates package seeks to make courses in areas such as science, maths and teaching cheaper to encourage more students to get degrees in what the government sees to be job-growth areas. By contrast, fees for many humanities courses will more than double.

Read more: Fee cuts for nursing and teaching but big hikes for law and humanities in package expanding university places

Dear Minister,

We write regarding the recently proposed changes to Australian higher education funding. We welcome the much-needed intent to boost domestic student enrolments. But the complicated and inconsistent nature of the funding changes and the intent to identify work-relevant qualifications risk further undermining the nations fourth largest export industry at a time the Australian economy can ill afford it.

As laureate researchers spanning a wide range of disciplines in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) and other fields, we believe this proposal will bring severe negative national consequences for future university training. It is likely to have the unintentional effect of amplifying inequities in higher education, and will work against the very economic goals it is trying to achieve.

Successive Australian governments have refrained from picking winners in industry, but here we see that approach applied to education precisely at a time when future needs are becoming more heterogeneous and unpredictable.

Bracketing the humanities and social sciences as a category deemed less useful for future employment flies in the face of what we see among leaders in both politics and business. More Liberal frontbenchers, for instance, have received an arts degree than studied economics.

Business leader Jennifer Westacott, Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia, emphasises the importance of a humanities education and Deloitte Access Economics stresses its value in teaching students to ask innovative questions, think critically for themselves, explain what they think, form ethical constructs and communicate flexibly across a range of perspectives.

Read more: If the government listened to business leaders, they would encourage humanities education, not pull funds from it

The proposed changes reflect an outdated view of both HASS and STEM. Each is concerned with advancing our understanding of the world and providing the intellectual framework and critical thinking skills needed to acquire that understanding.

These will be critical for creating a flexible, responsive workforce in an increasingly diverse economy. In the face of our uncertainty about where future needs will lie, what we can be sure of is that interdisciplinary training will become ever more important.

It is unhealthy for a democratic and inclusive society to make some fields the province of those who can pay more for them.

Different pricing is unhealthy for every academic field: the best outcomes grow from an optimal match between disciplines and the talents and interests of those who want to study them, undistorted by arbitrary price signals.

Even within its own premises, many of the subjects it claims to promote (such as maths) will suffer severe cuts. Universities may be discouraged from offering such subjects, or boost their offerings in fields that are cheaper to teach, to cross-subsidise the more expensive courses.

The recently floated patch of an integrity unit to prevent this would simply increase regulatory burdens and consume resources better spent directly on education.

Complex sets of discipline categories greatly reduce the transparency and efficiency of the system. Energy will needlessly be diverted into defining subjects into or out of categories favoured or disfavoured by the funding model.

Universities need to be able to plan intelligently, delivering world-class education and training in an uncertain 21st century. Well-intended but counter-productive distortions in the funding model will not help.

The national economic impacts of these decisions have not been convincingly worked through.

A forward-looking policy of higher-education funding thus needs to do three things:

1. Avoid complex different policies

These will necessitate increased regulation, while failing to achieve either the diversion of student numbers that are sought, or the social and technological goal of better preparing our students for the future.

The simplest way to achieve this is to reinstate a flat HECS rate a simple way to optimise the match between talent, interest and enrolment without distortions from family wealth, easy to administer, and immune from highly uncertain guesses about future trends.

2. Increase funding to universities in real terms

This will assure the growth in quality and capacity of one of Australias transformative success stories and its fourth greatest export. This should be a real increase, not funded from an arbitrary subset of future students at the outset of their careers in a time of great uncertainty.

We appreciate that the COVID-19 epidemic has put unprecedented pressures on the budget, but the need for greater support to our universities is more necessary than ever during this present time of huge financial stress, caused by the plummeting income of overseas students. Wise investment now will pay huge dividends later in the economic, scientific, social and cultural growth of the nation.

3. Integrate the systems for funding university and vocational education, which have long drifted apart

This will ensure every school-leaver has access to the level of training they need for a successful career. What is really needed is not a vocational approach to university education but a more systematic and thoughtful approach to vocational education.

In the modern economy, all kinds of work, including trades, require a broader range of skills than in the past, including communications and IT skills. We have much to learn here from the success of countries like Germany in integrating these two systems of higher education.

We urge this current piece of legislation be shelved in its current form, and replaced by one that has been drafted after proper consultation with a range of experts in the sector who are able to devise an optimal mechanism for building this vital part of our societys future.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Nicholas Evans, School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University

Professor Chris Turney, Faculty of Science, University of New South Wales

Professor Joy Damousi, President, Australian Academy of the Humanities

Professor Christine Beveridge, School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland

Professor John Quiggin, School of Economics, University of Queensland

Professor Matthew England, Climate Change Research Centre, The University of New South Wales

Professor Mathai Varghese, Mathematical Sciences, The University of Adelaide

Professor Sue O'Connor, Archaeology and Natural History, The Australian National

Professor Barry Brook, School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania

Professor Bostjan Kobe, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland

Professor Michael Bird, College of Science & Engineering, James Cook University

Professor Ben Andrews, Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian National University

Professor Ian Reid, School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide

Professor Trevor J McDougall, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales

Professor Tamara Davis, School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland

Professor Steven Sherwood, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales

Professor Peter Goodyear, Centre for Research on Learning and Innovation, The University of Sydney

Professor Madeleine JH van Oppen, Institute of Marine Science, The University of Melbourne

Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik, School of Chemistry &Physics, Queensland University of Technology

Professor Hong Hao, Centre for Infrastructural Monitoring and Protection, Curtin University

Professor Paul S.C. Tacon, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University

Professor Matthew Bailes, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology

Professor Warwick Anderson, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney

Professor Malcolm McCulloch, Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia

Professor Lynette Russell, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University

Professor Ping Koy Lam, Research School of Physics, The Australian National University

Professor Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, College of Arts, Society & Education, James Cook University

Professor Chennupati Jagadish, Research School of Physics, Australian National University

Professor Margaret Jolly, School of Culture, History and Language, The Australian National University

Professor Justin Marshall, Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland

Professor Jason Mattingley, Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland

Professor George Zhao, Faculty of Engineering,Architecture and Information Technology, The University of Queensland

Professor John Dryzek, Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis, University of Canberra

Professor Brad Sherman, School of Law, University of Queensland

Professor Richard G. Roberts, ARC Centre of Excellence for AustralianBiodiversity and Heritage, University of Wollongong

Professor Geoffrey Ian McFadden, School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, University of Melbourne

Professor Peter Taylor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical andStatistical Frontiers, The University of Melbourne

Professor Belinda Medlyn Hawkesbury, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University

Professor Fedor Sukochev, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales

Professor Michelle Coote, Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University

Professor Michael Tobar, Department of Physics, The University of Western Australia

Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Melboure Law School, The University of Melbourne

Professor Mark Finnane, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University

Professor Katherine Demuth, Faculty of Medicine, Macquarie University

Professor Jolanda Jetten, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland

Professor Jon Barnett, Faculty of Science, Melbourne University

Professor Matthew Spriggs, College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University

Professor Kate Smith-Miles, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

Professor Shizhang Qiao, School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, The University of Adelaide

Professor Peter Visscher, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland

Professor Zheng-Xiang, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Curtin University

Professor Toby Walsh, School of Computer Science & Engineering, UNSW Sydney

Professor Martina Stenzel, ARC Training Centre for Chemical Industries, University of New South Wales

Professor David James, School of Life and Environmental Science, University of Sydney

Professor Ross Buckley, School of Law, University of New South Wales

Professor Alex Haslam, School of Psychology, University of Queensland

Professor Stuart Wyithe, School of Physics, University of Melbourne

Professor Sara Dolnicar, Faculty of Business, The University of Queensland

Professor Lesley Head, School of Geography, University of Melbourne

Professor Glenda Sluga, Department of History, University of Sydney

Professor Ann McGrath, School of History, Australian National University

Professor Bernard Degnan, School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland

Professor Philip Boyd, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

Professor Richard Shine, Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University

Professor Loeske Kruuk, Research School of Biology, Australian National University

Professor Kaarin Anstey, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, UNSW

Professor Paul Mulvaney, School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne

Professor Lianzhou Wang, School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland

Professor Peter Waterhouse, Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy, Queensland University of Technology

Professor George Willis, Mathematical and Physical Science, University of Newcastle

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An open letter to Australia's Education Minister Dan Tehan signed by 73 senior professors - The Conversation AU