Monthly Archives: June 2017

The night sky over the Cerro Mayu Observatory, Chile. // All images: Astronomy: Alison Klesman

Its been a busy week so far in Chile!

But first, a little more background: Why am I here in the Southern Hemisphere? Im participating in ACEAP: the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program, supported by the National Science Foundation and run via a collaboration of Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), and Gemini Observatory.

This unique program has several interlocking goals. Not only does it highlight the value of investing U.S. dollars in world-class facilities in the country of Chile, it also allows the ambassadors who embark upon this trip and the Chilean communities they visit to build and foster lasting relationships. Through these relationships, people in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres can work together to promote astronomy as a hobby, as a career, and as a fundamental way to answer questions both big and small. The night sky is shared by people across the world, and instilling a sense of wonder and of custodianship over this resource is the goal and the passion of each ambassador who arrived in Santiago earlier this week.

This year, the programs third year, Im very lucky to serve as a media liaison for the program on behalf of Astronomy magazine. Its my very first trip to Chile, though I grew familiar with many of the astronomical facilities during my years in graduate school. Now, Im getting the chance to see firsthand the outstanding astronomy efforts being made in Chile today, from the 8-meter Gemini South Telescope to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Weve been on the go since day one with a packed schedule, but each experience has been more memorable than the last. Honestly, the only thing theres little time for is sleep which is why I havent had the chance to sit down and blog before this, as Ive jumped on every chance to catch a few spare zs that popped up!

This morning, weve finally got a bit of spare time before we leave the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) after two nights on Cerro Tololo.

Ive already mentioned the busy schedule, but Id like to highlight just a few of my favorite parts of the trip so far:

Astronomers can control the Gemini South telescope from the convenience and comfort of this control room in La Serena if they like.

- Visiting the Observatorio Astronomico Andinoand the Cerro Mayu Observatory, where we spent time discussing astrotourism and astronomy education, as well as imaging the night sky. I saw my very first Southern Hemisphere sky from OAA, and took some amazing shots of it from Cerro Mayu, with some help from the experienced astrophotographers in our group!

- Spending the afternoon at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) headquarters in Chile, where we had the chance to speak with the staff about their education and outreach projects, as well as tour the electronics shop. We were able to see and, in some cases, hold detectors used to image the sky.

- Seeing the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) and the 8-meter Gemini South telescopes on Cerro Pachn; we even got to climb up the scope to see Geminis single-piece mirror and check out the amazing view from near the top of the dome.

- Touring CTIO, including getting an up-close look at the 4-meter Blanco telescope, the 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) telescope, and the SMARTS Consortium telescopes.

The view from inside the Gemini South dome.

Aside from the opportunity to crawl around the domes of these famous telescopes, Ive also had a spectacular time getting to know my fellow ACEAP ambassadors. The group this year includes educators, photographers, planetarium directors, and outreach volunteers and coordinators, all extremely excited and passionate about bringing astronomy into the lives of people in the U.S., Chile, and throughout the world. As we travel, often in close quarters, weve engaged in talk, laughter, and song on our way from one location to the next. While I cant pretend Im not extremely excited about the remaining days of our trip were going to San Pedro next to visit a few schools, then on to tour ALMA on Friday and Saturday! I also have to admit that Im really looking forward to getting home and taking advantage of all the connections Ive made here to promote the projects and work of each and every ambassador Ive met. I will also be turning my experience here into a full feature story for the magazine, which Im ready to get home and write (well, following a couple full nights of sleep, probably).

The view this morning from Cerro Tololo - the clouds look like an ocean!

Since I cant write everything down here, nor should I, Id like to point you to some great resources as we continue our journey. You can find out more about our experiences so far and follow the remainder of our trip on Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress.

Read more here:

Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program: Santiago ...

This is a wide view of galaxy cluster MACS J2129-0741, located in the constellation Aquarius. The massive galaxy cluster magnifies, brightens, and distorts the images of remote background galaxies, including the far-distant, dead disc galaxy MACS2129-1. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI), and the CLASH team

By combining the power of a natural lens in space with the capability of NASAs Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers made a surprising discoverythe first example of a compact yet massive, fast-spinning, disc-shaped galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the big bang.

Finding such a galaxy early in the history of the universe challenges the current understanding of how massive galaxies form and evolve, say researchers.

When Hubble photographed the galaxy, astronomers expected to see a chaotic ball of stars formed through galaxies merging together. Instead, they saw evidence that the stars were born in a pancake-shaped disc.

This is the first direct observational evidence that at least some of the earliest so-called dead galaxies where star formation stopped somehow evolve from a Milky Way-shaped disc into the giant elliptical galaxies we see today.

This is a surprise because elliptical galaxies contain older stars, while spiral galaxies typically contain younger blue stars. At least some of these early dead disc galaxies must have gone through major makeovers. They not only changed their structure, but also the motions of their stars to make a shape of an elliptical galaxy.

This new insight may force us to rethink the whole cosmological context of how galaxies burn out early on and evolve into local elliptical-shaped galaxies, said study leader Sune Toft of the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Perhaps we have been blind to the fact that early dead galaxies could in fact be discs, simply because we havent been able to resolve them.

Previous studies of distant dead galaxies have assumed that their structure is similar to the local elliptical galaxies they will evolve into. Confirming this assumption in principle requires more powerful space telescopes than are currently available. However, through the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, a massive, foreground cluster of galaxies acts as a natural zoom lens in space by magnifying and stretching images of far more distant background galaxies. By joining this natural lens with the resolving power of Hubble, scientists were able to see into the center of the dead galaxy.

The remote galaxy is three times as massive as the Milky Way but only half the size. Rotational velocity measurements made with the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope (VLT) showed that the disc galaxy is spinning more than twice as fast as the Milky Way.

Using archival data from the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH), Toft and his team were able to determine the stellar mass, star-formation rate, and the ages of the stars.

Why this galaxy stopped forming stars is still unknown. It may be the result of an active galactic nucleus, where energy is gushing from a supermassive black hole. This energy inhibits star formation by heating the gas or expelling it from the galaxy. Or it may be the result of the cold gas streaming onto the galaxy being rapidly compressed and heated up, preventing it from cooling down into star-forming clouds in the galaxys center.

But how do these young, massive, compact discs evolve into the elliptical galaxies we see in the present-day universe? Probably through mergers, Toft said. If these galaxies grow through merging with minor companions, and these minor companions come in large numbers and from all sorts of different angles onto the galaxy, this would eventually randomize the orbits of stars in the galaxies. You could also imagine major mergers. This would definitely also destroy the ordered motion of the stars.

Thefindingsare published in the June 22 issue of the journalNature. Toft and his team hope to use NASAs upcoming James Webb Space Telescope to look for a larger sample of such galaxies.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

The Very Large Telescope is a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile.

Read the original post:

Hubble captures massive dead disc galaxy Astronomy Now - Astronomy Now Online

GLENS FALLS Take A Bite, the annual summer weekly food and entertainment festival, starts this week, with more than 35 participants set up along downtown sidewalks from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday.

I cant believe it whoo! said Candice Frye, chairwoman of the Take A Bite organizing committee of the Glens Falls Collaborative.

Musicians perform, restaurants sell small portions of entrees, appetizers and desserts, and community organizations set up information booths.

The festival has become an informal competition among restaurants to see who can come up with the most uncommon recipe each week, said Frye, executive director of Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council.

Frye said she is excited that two new dessert vendors Sweets by Marissa and Yum, Yum Ice will participate this year.

Take A Bite continues weekly from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Aug. 16.

Restaurants will be set up along Glen Street and Maple Street, and later in the summer along Ridge Street.

There will be a lot happening on Maple Street this year, Frye said.

Most Ridge Street restaurants, with the exception of Morgan & Company, will be set up on Glen Street this Wednesday, and possibly on subsequent Wednesdays, until work on the Ridge Street infrastructure project moves past the block of Ridge Street between the Centennial Circle roundabout and The Queensbury Hotel, Frye said.

Morgan and Company will still have its tent set up in front of the restaurant at the corner of Ridge and Maple streets.

Take A Bite is a great example of the way businesses and arts organizations work together to improve the citys quality of life, said Glens Falls Mayor Jack Diamond.

Its kind of the face of the city in the summertime, he said. Were looking forward to it.

Musical entertainment this Wednesday will be Milayne Jacksons Blue Train Trio at the Centennial Circle roundabout and saxophone soloist Gavin Munoff on Glen Street, in the vicinity of Crandall Public Library.

Coinciding with Take A Bite, Crandall Public Library will kick off its Eyes to the Skies summer free astronomy program series at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the community room in the library basement.

Kevin Manning, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a consultant to NASA, will speak.

The series leads up to the coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in the United States on Aug. 21.

Follow staff writer Maury Thompson at All Politics is Local blog, at PS_Politics on Twitter and at Maury Thompson Post-Star on Facebook.

More:

Take A Bite starts Wednesday with food, music, astronomy - Glens Falls Post-Star

After establishing an independent review committee earlier this year, NASA announced on June 22 that the committee is looking into costs and scheduling issues with the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission.

WFIRST was designed with two main instruments, the Wide Field instrument and the Coronagraph Instrument, to study dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. The Wide Field Instrument is to study light from galaxies and perform a microlensing survey of the Milky Way while the Coronagraph Instrument will take high contrast images.

The telescope is still being developed and was supposed to go into Phase B in October, but was delayed until an independent review could be done and see any recommendations from the report. Moving forward with the mission will depend on the amount of funding it will receive.

Due to budget cuts, the astrophysics program received a lot less than they had originally asked for about $31 million less, to be exact. The team said NASA sent Congress an operating plan to address the cuts.

Source: SpaceNews

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NASA is reviewing the WFIRST mission | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine