Daily Archives: June 29, 2017

Supermassive black holes are the monstrous objects found in the centers of galaxies. The Milky Ways own supermassive black hole weighs nearly 4 million times more than our Sun. Although massive and often active, these objects are still difficult to see in the traditional sense of the word for many reasons. But now, using the uniquely sharp vision afforded by the National Science Foundations Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), astronomers have spotted for the first time a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting each other in a galaxy 750 million light-years away.

The discovery, which appears in the Astrophysical Journal, utilized radio information to determine that the two supermassive black holes are a mere 24 light-years apart and have a combined mass of about 15 billion times the mass of our Sun. It takes them about 30,000 years to complete a single orbit.

The pair of supermassive black holes is located in a giant elliptical galaxy called 0402+379, which was first observed to have two core regions in data taken in 2003 and 2005 with the VLBA. The VLBA is part of the Long Baseline Observatory, a radio telescope system utilizing 10 antennas located between Hawaiis Big Island and St. Croix. Such a long baseline, or large distance between the dishes, allows astronomers to combine the data taken from each to observe objects with significantly greater detail than using one dish alone.

New observations of 0402+379 were taken in 2009 and 2015; when this information was combined with the previous observations, astronomers was finally able to identify the motion of two distinct supermassive black holes. This is the first pair of black holes to be seen as separate objects that are moving with respect to each other, and thus makes this the first black-hole visual binary, said Greg Taylor of the University of New Mexico, one of the studys authors, in a press release.

Why does this galaxy have two supermassive black holes? The presence of two such objects simply indicates that the galaxy has undergone a merger in the relatively recent cosmic past. When two galaxies combine, each contributes a supermassive black hole to the final product; in time, these two supermassive black holes should also combine, leaving behind a single object. In the case of 0402+379, this just hasnt happened yet, and likely wont happen for a few million years yet. Thats how long it will take for the orbits of the supermassive black holes to spiral inward via the loss of energy through gravitational radiation, such as the gravitational waves detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Such pairs of supermassive black holes should actually be quite common, given the fact that galaxy mergers are themselves common events. Mergers are how galaxies grow over cosmic time, morphing from young, active spiral galaxies into old, quiescent ellipticals. Now that we've been able to measure orbital motion in one such pair, we're encouraged to seek other, similar pairs. We may find others that are easier to study, explained Karishma Bansal, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico and lead author of the study.

But the confirmation of a pair of supermassive black holes in 0402+379 isnt the end of astronomers interest in this galaxy. We need to continue observing this galaxy to improve our understanding of the orbit, and of the masses of the black holes, stressed Taylor. This pair of black holes offers us our first chance to study how such systems interact.

Read more here:

Astronomers spot a pair of orbiting supermassive black holes - Astronomy Magazine

Here's the latest roundup of what's open in the park this summer and what's not, and details on summer fun.

Happy birthday, Olympic National Park. Thursday, June 29, is the 79th anniversary of the day in 1938 that Congress created the park.

You can help celebrate with a visit this Independence Day weekend. Heres the latest roundup of whats open in the park this summer and whats not. The top of the news: Access to the parks scenic Rialto Beach will reopen this weekend after six weeks of repair work to Mora Road.

Its also the season for ranger programs, plus special star-gazing astronomy sessions up high on Hurricane Ridge and full-moon hikes on Hurricane Hill.

Heres an area-by-area update provided by the park:

Pacific Coast

Kalaloch, Mora and Ozette are Olympic National Parks road-accessible coastal destinations.Kalaloch and Ozetteare open, including all roads, campgrounds and trailheads.Mora Campground is open.Mora Road has been closed for six weeks for flood damage repair work just beyond the campground with no access to Rialto Beach. The road is scheduled to reopen for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. This project restored the road to two lanes and addressed additional slope instabilities.Visitors should call the Road & Weather Hotline at 360-565-3131 for current road conditions.

The Kalaloch and Mora campgrounds both provide drinking water and flush toilets. The Ozette Campground is primitive, with pit toilets, and drinking water is available now through mid-October. South Beach Campground, a primitive campground located just south of Kalaloch is open through September 25.

The Kalaloch Information Station is open daily through Sept. 30.

Kalaloch Lodge is open year-round with cabins, lodge rooms, dining, gift shop, and a small store. For more information, checkwww.thekalalochlodge.com.

Staircase

The Staircase Campground is open with drinking water and flush toilets available through Sept. 30.

Dosewallips

The Dosewallips Road remains closed due to a washout outside the park boundaries in Olympic National Forest, so access to the primitive campground is walk-in only (6.5 miles).

Deer Park

Deer Park Road and campground are open. The campground provides primitive camping, with pit toilets and no drinking water.

Hurricane Ridge Road and Heart O the Hills

The Hurricane Ridge Road is now open 24 hours a day, weather permitting. Visitors should call the Road & Weather Hotline at 360-565-3131 for current road and weather conditions.

The Hurricane Hill Road is open.

Obstruction Point Road is now open for the first 3 miles to Waterhole. Park officials anticipate opening the remaining section of Obstruction Point Road by early July.

The Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center is staffed daily through Sept. 30. The Hurricane Ridge Gift Shop & Snack Bar on the lower level of the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center is open daily through October 15. Checkwww.olympicnationalparks.comfor more information.

The Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles is open daily except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Summer hours of operation are from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Heart O the Hills Campground is open year round with drinking water and flush toilets available.

Elwha Valley

The Olympic Hot Springs Road is open to the Glines Canyon Spillway Overlook. The remainder of the Olympic Hot Springs Road is closed to all access during work on the Boulder Creek Trail. This project involves the use of heavy equipment for the demolition and removal of the Crystal Creek bridge and installation of an alternate route and creek crossing at that location. For visitor and employee safety, there will be no access above the Glines Canyon Overlook on Olympic Hot Springs Road until later this summer.

The Whiskey Bend Road is open to the trailhead.

There are currently no campgrounds in the Elwha Valley. Campgrounds in the area were destroyed by flooding in recent years.

Lake Crescent

Lake Crescent Lodge is open for the season and will remain open through Jan. 2, 2018, offering a range of lodging options, a dining room, boat rentals and a gift shop.

Fairholme Campground is open through Oct. 2, with drinking water and flush toilets available.Fairholme Storewill open daily May 26-Sept. 4.

Log Cabin Resort is open through Sept. 30 for lodging, RV and tent camping, a boat launch, dining room and store.

La Poel picnic area is open for day use.

Sol Duc Valley

The Sol Duc Road is generally open 24 hours a day, unless road work or weather conditions cause it to close temporarily.

The Sol Duc Campground is operated by Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort and is open for the season with flush toilets and drinking water available through Oct. 29. Reservations are accepted for up to 75 percent of the campsites, with the remainder available on a first-come, first-served basis. Reservations for the Sol Duc Campground can be made online atwww.recreation.gov. After Oct. 29, Loop A of the campground will be open for primitive use when the road is open.

The Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort is open for the season with lodging, dining, hot spring pools and a small store. The resort will be open through Oct. 29.

Hoh Rain Forest

The Hoh Rain Forest Road is generally open 24 hours a day, unless road work or weather conditions cause it to close temporarily. The Hoh Rain Forest Campground is open year round with drinking water and flush toilets available.

The Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center is open daily through Sept. 30.

Queets Valley

The Lower and Upper Queets roads are both open 24 hours a day, unless road work or weather conditions cause temporary closures. The Queets Campground is open for primitive camping with pit toilets and no drinking water.

Quinault Rain Forest

The Quinault Loop Road, which includes the Quinault North Shore and South Shore roads, is open.The North Fork Road is also open.

The six-mile Graves Creek Road is open. RVs and trailers are not permitted because of road conditions.

Quinault area roads are typically open 24 hours a day, unless temporarily closed by road work or weather conditions. The Graves Creek Campground and North Fork Campground are both open for primitive camping with pit toilets and no drinking water.

Park trails and Wilderness Information Center

The Olympic National Park Wilderness Information Center, located at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles, is currently open8 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday-Thursdayand8 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Saturday.Visitors are encouraged to stop by or call the Wilderness Information Center at 360-565-3100 for current trail reports, summer hiking safety tips and trip-planning suggestions. Such information is alsoavailable at the parks website.

Even at low elevations, hikers are reminded to use caution and be aware of downed trees, trail damage, high and swift creek crossings, and changing weather conditions.

Ranger programs and astronomy events

Summer ranger programs have started as well as the Astronomy/Night Sky Programs at Hurricane Ridge. The program schedule for all of the park is in the park newspaper on page 4:Summer Bugler 2017.

For astronomy programs, meet Master Observer John Goar at Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center for a one-hour program with telescopes. Look for the rings of Saturn or a distant galaxy. Schedule: July 13-20 at 11 p.m.; July 21-July 26 at 10:30 p.m.; August 12-19 at 10 p.m.; August 22-26 at 9:30 p.m.

Full moon on Hurricane Hill

Learn constellations from astronomer John Goar on Hurricane Hill. Meet at the Hurricane Hill trailhead. As the sun sets and the full moon rises, hike at your own pace up the 1.6-mile, partially-paved trail, climbing 700 feet to the summit. At the top, Goar will point out constellations. Bring flashlights and wear sturdy shoes. Schedule: July 8 and 9 at 9:15 p.m. to about 11:30 p.m.; August 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m. to about 10 p.m.; September 4 at 6:45 p.m. to about 9:15 p.m.

If skies are cloudy, programs will be canceled. For program status, call the park recording at 360-565-3131 after 2 p.m. the day of the program.

See more here:

Rialto Beach road to reopen, astronomy sessions set as Olympic National Park marks birthday - The Seattle Times

Back on June 30, 1908, the biggest recorded potentially asteroid-related impact event occurred near the Stony Tunguska River in Russia. Now, we honor June 30 as International Asteroid Day, a day to raise awareness about asteroids, how they impact Earth, and what we can do to protect the planet.

To honor the day, NASA is featuring a special TV program with the Planetary Defense Coordination Office and other projects that study near-Earth objects (NEOs).

The program will feature several segments that will go over information about NEOs such as how they are found and characterized as well as what to do in the event of a potential impact threat. Viewers can also send in questions for the broadcast via social media by using the hashtag #AskNASA in their post.

The Asteroid Day broadcast will air on NASA TV as well as NASAs website starting at noon EDT.

Read more here:

Celebrate Asteroid Day with NASA's special broadcast - Astronomy Magazine

And so, within one year of the ESOs evident nudge, Ireland has joined a Europe-wide telescope network, upping its astronomy expertise with the swipe of a pen.

Last September, the European Southern Observatorys (ESO) director general, Prof Tim de Zeeuw, swooped into Ireland on a mission.

Speaking at the Irish National Astronomy Meetingat UCD, one of his primary concerns appeared to be recruiting the country into a huge project.

The international LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) telescope is a 150m network of radio telescopes distributed across Europe.

The huge volume of data from all the telescopes is combined using advanced data analytics on a supercomputer in the Netherlands. The network, therefore, performs like a single, super-telescope of a size equivalent to the geographical separation of the constituent telescopes.

At the time, Ireland wasnt involved. That has since officially changed, even thoughthe move was always on the cards.

Yesterday (28 June), Minister of State for Training, Skills, Innovation, Research and Development John Halligan, TD, announced that Ireland was now part of the network.

A combined move by the State and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), the Irish telescope is soon to be located in Birr, Co Offaly.

Costing 1.9m in total, the construction of the equipment was confirmed last year for Birr Castle. It will sit adjacent to the historic Leviathan telescope, which was built by the third Earl of Rosse in 1845 and was the largest optical telescope in the world until 1917.

Joining the international LOFAR telescope collaboration will open many new research and funding opportunities for Irish researchers and students in Europe and further afield, said Dr Patrick Prendergast, provost of TCD.

Indeed, one of the I-LOFAR (Irish arm) team, Tom Ray, a professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and an adjunct professor of astronomy at Trinity, has recently won a prestigious 2m advanced grant from the European Research Council.

Joining LOFAR will support exciting, world-class scientific research and, in addition, the data-intensive nature of radio astronomy will enhance Irelands world-leading capability in big data and data analytics.

The skills in software and big data that young researchers will acquire from participation in LOFAR are in high demand in business, and will open diverse and high-quality career opportunities for them.

Prof Peter Gallagher, head of the I-LOFAR collaboration, said: This is the first time that a research-grade radio telescope has been built in Ireland.

I-LOFAR will enable Irish researchers to study solar activity and exploding stars, search for new planets and explore the distant universe in a completely new way.

And this will be achieved by developing cutting-edge data analytics techniques on supercomputers here in Ireland and the Netherlands. I-LOFAR really will be a testbed for big data and data analytics.

Visit link:

Ireland takes the plunge and joins European astronomy network - Siliconrepublic.com

In the constellation of Pisces Austrinus (the southern fish) is one of the brightest stars in the sky, called Fomalhaut. Its beefier than the Sun, with about twice the Suns mass and 16 times its luminosity. Its one of the closest stars to us, at a distance of only 25 light years, too.

And it has a secret. Well, had a secret. Years ago, observations indicated it was giving off more infrared light than a star of its type should. Thats a strong indication that it had a lot of dust around it small grains of rocky material which absorb light from the star, warm up, and re-emit that heat as infrared light. Observations in the 1990s confirmed that there was a ring or a disk of material surrounding the star.

Then Hubble was pointed at the star, and it clearly saw a ring around it (see images below), and it bore an eerie resemblance to Saurons Eye from the Lord of the Rings movies. Not only that, Hubble saw what may very well be a planet orbiting the star not too far from the ring! The existence of this planet is actually uncertain, though; it may be a cloud of dust reflecting the starlight. The motion of the object, whatever it is, indicates its on a highly elliptical orbit around the star and may even cross the rings orbit.

All of these things make Fomalhaut a juicy target for astronomers when new and better telescopes come online. That is certainly the case for ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in the high desert of Chile. This powerful collection of telescopes looks at light well outside the color range our eyes can see, where warm dust glows brightly. When astronomers pointed ALMA at Folmalhaut, they saw the ring with incredible clarity, allowing a lot of scientific analysis to be performed.

Also? Its just beautiful.

[Ring around the star: A dusty disk surrounds the nearby star Fomalhaut. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); M. MacGregor]

The orange color isnt real; its just used in the display to let us see the ring clearly. You can see Fomalhaut, itself, inside the ring, stretched out a little bit due to the way the observatory sees the sky.

The ALMA observations reveal a lot about the ring. For one thing, they measure its physical properties with tight constraints. It really is an ellipse, with the material at pericenter (the closest point in its orbit to Fomalhaut) about 18 billion kilometers out, and an apocenter (farthest point) of 23 billion kilometers. For comparison, Neptune orbits the Sun at a distance of roughly 4.5 billion kilometers, so the ring is big. Its width is about 2 billion kilometers, too.

The fact that its a real ellipse is very interesting. We see lots of rings like this around stars, but theyre usually fairly circular, and only appear elliptical because theyre tipped with respect to us (like the circular rim of a glass looks like an ellipse when you see it at an angle). In this case though, the ring truly is an ellipse. You can even see this by eye; if it were a tipped circle Fomalhaut would always appear be in the center. The fact that the star is noticeably off-center shows the rings true elliptical nature.

[Hubble image of the ring from 2012, which includes the positions of the possible planet. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Kalas (University of California, Berkeley and SETI Institute)]

Why is the ring this shape? Stars form from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. As the cloud collapses it flattens, and the material forms a disk. Its densest in the center where the star forms. The colder material farther out starts to condense, first into tiny grains, then they collide and aggregate into bigger lumps sometimes getting large enough to form true planets.

If a planet forms far out from the star, it can affect the dusty disk. It pulls in material around it, and can shape the remaining material into a narrow ring. Not only that, but if the planets orbit is elliptical, it can perturb the material outside it to form an ellipse as well.

So, hmmmm. Its still not certain that the object in the Hubble images near the ring is an actual planet (tentatively called Fomalhaut b), but the narrowness and ellipticity of the ring are strong circumstantial indicators its real. How about that?

Theres more. When I read about the material making up the ring, I got a chill. The ALMA observations also show the presence of carbon monoxide (CO) ice, located at the same position as the dusty ring. Careful analysis of the amount of CO there shows that it most likely came from exocomets, literally comets orbiting another star! They may undergo collisions, creating ice and dust debris that spread out along their orbits, forming the ring. But more than that, importantly, the relative amount of CO is roughly the same as you get in comets orbiting the Sun.

Thats why I got a chill. I know, intellectually, that the Sun formed like other stars, and that our planetary system is probably in many ways roughly similar to those common throughout the galaxy. But to see it in the data, to find something as seemingly unimportant as carbon monoxide abundance similar to its amount here that gives me a kindred feeling, a connection to this object hundreds of trillions of kilometers distant. Its like going to a boring party and finding someone else who loves the same obscure movie you do.

[Before ALMA was completed, it was able to get an image of half the ring (right, orange) which has been superposed over the Hubble image (blue, left). Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO). Visible light image: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Acknowledgement: A.C. Boley (University of Florida, Sagan Fellow), M.J. Payne, E.B. Ford, M. Shabran (University of Florida), S. Corder (North American ALMA Science Center, National Radio Astronomy Observatory), and W. Dent (ALMA, Chile), P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)]

Theres one more thing I want to mention. The ring is very smooth in the ALMA image, and that turns out to be real; the dust and ice appear to be evenly distributed around it but you can see two spots on the ring that are brighter than anywhere else. At the lower left its brighter, and that turns out to be the pericenter, the part of the ring closest to Fomalhaut. The ALMA observations are very sensitive to temperature, and the dust is warmer there, so it appears brighter.

But theres also another spot on the opposite side, at apocenter. The dust there is cooler, so why does it appear bright? I love this part: Its because dust at that point in its orbit is moving the slowest around the star, and piles up there. If you take a bunch of objects and spread them out evenly on an elliptical orbit, theyll swing by the star most quickly when theyre closest, and move more slowly as they pull away. So youll naturally see more of them at the farthest point in the orbit: They linger there longer! Since theres more material there, that spot on the ring appears brightest. This is called the apocenter effect, and its never been seen clearly before. It was actually predicted based on some older ALMA images, but the new ones really make it obvious.

These observations are truly remarkable, telling us a lot about the ring. Thats important! We have seen lots of debris disks around stars, but those tend to be much farther away than this one. Fomalhauts proximity makes it a fantastic target. It also allows us to better understand how new planets interact with the material around them.

Eventually, the ring will likely disappear. The whole system is only about 440 million years old, which is relatively young (our solar system is more than 10 times older, 4.56 billion years in age). Over time, gravitational interactions with planet(s) and the stellar wind of subatomic particles blown out by Fomalhaut may erase the ring from existence.

Im glad its around now for us to gawk at. And to teach us so much about how our own star, planets, and comets formed.

Visit link:

Sauron's Eye never looked so good: New observations of Fomalhaut's dusty, icy ring - SYFY WIRE (blog)