Tag Archives: astronomer

Astronomers Test Einstein in a New Regime Using Pair of Burnt-Out Stars

By Guest PostAugust 31, 2012Sciencealbert einstein, apache point telescope, astronomer, austin, burnt out stars, canary islands, carlos allende prieto, don winget, dwarf stars, einstein, emission, energy, european space agency, fabric, Galaxy, gemini north telescope, general relativity, gran telescopio canarias, gravitational wave, hawaii, j j hermes, j0651, mcdonald observatory, milliseconds, moving object, mukremin kilic, NASA, new mexico, new regime, orbital decay, orbital period, otto struve telescope, ripple, space time, spain, sun, test, texas, theory, university, university of oklahoma, warren brown, west texas

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of astronomers led by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin has confirmed the emission of gravitational waves from the second-strongest known source in our galaxy by studying the shrinking orbital period of a unique pair of burnt-out stars. Their observations tested Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity in a new regime. The results will be published soon in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Last year, the same team discovered that the two white dwarf stars are so close together that they make a complete orbit in less than 13 minutes, and they should be gradually slipping closer. The system, called SDSS J065133.338+284423.37 (J0651 for short), contains two white dwarf stars, which are the remnant cores of stars like our sun. (more…)

Astronomers Using the Hubble Space Telescope Report the Earliest Spiral Galaxy Ever Seen

By Guest PostJuly 19, 2012Sciencealice shapley, astronomer, big bang, bx442, charles steidel, david law, dawn erb, early universe, elliptical galaxy, hawaii, Hubble Space Telescope, james larkin, journal nature, keck observatory, mauna kea volcano, Milky Way, naveen reddy, osiris spectrograph, spiral galaxy, universe

Astronomers have witnessed for the first time a spiral galaxy in the early universe, billions of years before many other spiral galaxies formed. In findings reported July 19 in the journal Nature, the astronomers said they discovered it while using the Hubble Space Telescope to take pictures of about 300 very distant galaxies in the early universe and to study their properties. This distant spiral galaxy is being observed as it existed roughly three billion years after the Big Bang, and light from this part of the universe has been traveling to Earth for about 10.7 billion years.

“As you go back in time to the early universe, galaxies look really strange, clumpy and irregular, not symmetric,” said Alice Shapley, a UCLA associate professor of physics and astronomy, and co-author of the study. “The vast majority of old galaxies look like train wrecks. Our first thought was, why is this one so different, and so beautiful?” (more…)

Astronomers Discover Houdini-Like Vanishing Act in Space

By Guest PostJuly 9, 2012Scienceastronomer, astronomical scale, baffling discovery, benjamin zuckerman, carl melis, Chile, constellation centaurus, dust, dust particles, dusty disc, game changer, gemini observatory, gemini telescope, infrared astronomical satellite, iras, joseph rhee, joy pollard, jupiter, lynette cook, mars, mega flare, mercury, NASA, neptune, norm murray, rocky debris, rocky planet, saturn rings, solar system, tyc 8241 2652, ucla, wise satellite

Astronomers report a baffling discovery never seen before: An extraordinary amount of dust around a nearby star has mysteriously disappeared.

“It’s like the classic magician’s trick — now you see it, now you don’t,” said Carl Melis, a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Diego and lead author of the research. “Only in this case, we’re talking about enough dust to fill an inner solar system, and it really is gone!”

“It’s as if the rings around Saturn had disappeared,” said co-author Benjamin Zuckerman, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. “This is even more shocking because the dusty disc of rocky debris was bigger and much more massive than Saturn’s rings. The disc around this star, if it were in our solar system, would have extended from the sun halfway out to Earth, near the orbit of Mercury.” (more…)

Black Hole Caught Red-Handed in a Stellar Homicide

By Guest PostMay 2, 2012Sciencearmin rest, astronomer, Baltimore, billion light years, black hole, chandra, demise, Galaxy, galaxy evolution explorer, haleakala, hawaii, helium gas, johns hopkins university, milky way galaxy, NASA, pan starrs1 telescope, supermassive, suvi gezari

PASADENA, Calif. – Astronomers have gathered the most direct evidence yet of a supermassive black hole shredding a star that wandered too close. NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer, a space-based observatory, and the Pan-STARRS1 telescope on the summit of Haleakala in Hawaii were among the first to help identify the stellar remains.

Supermassive black holes, weighing millions to billions times more than the sun, lurk in the centers of most galaxies. These hefty monsters lie quietly until an unsuspecting victim, such as a star, wanders close enough to get ripped apart by their powerful gravitational clutches. (more…)

For UA Astronomy Students, the Sky is Not the Limit

By Guest PostApril 17, 2012Education, Science61 inch telescope, allison mcgraw, allison towner, astrobiologist, astronomer, astronomy camp, astronomy class, atlantic ocean, brianna smart, carter thaxton smith, don mccarthy, earth bound telescope, element, exoplanet, jake turner, john bieging, jupiters, kevin hardegree ullman, kuiper telescope, kuiper telescope dome, life, lindsay small, liquid water, magnetic field, mandy walker lafollette, marco rocchetto, mount lemmon, optical telescope, planet, university of arizona

UA astronomy students Kevin Hardegree-Ullman and Jake Turner designed, proposed, conducted and presented research on two recently discovered planets outside of our solar system while they were still undergraduates.

Deep in the cosmos, alien planets are circling distant stars, waiting to be pierced by the far-reaching gaze of Earth-bound telescopes. Some are Earth-like and have the potential to harbor liquid water and maybe even life. Others are enormous, gassy giants. All of them are different than any planet we know.

They are the exoplanets, planets outside of our solar system, which astronomers are only just beginning to discover and analyze.

Kevin Hardegree-Ullman and Jake Turner, then University of Arizona undergraduate astronomy students, decided to get to know two of them a little better. (more…)

‘Time Machine’ Will Study the Early Universe

By Guest PostApril 14, 2012Scienceastronomer, big bang, black hole, brown dwarfs, caltech, charles steidel, cosmic dust, dark matter, david clarke, electromagnetic spectrum, era, families of galaxies, formation, Galaxy, gamma ray, gregory mace, harland epps, hawaii, ian s mclean, infrared camera, infrared wavelength, jupiter, keck i telescope, keith matthews, kristin kulas, lee a dubridge, mauna kea, milky way galaxy, missing link, mosfire, nirspec, radio wave, redshifted, sean adkins, spectrometer, time machine, ucla, universe, w m keck observatory

UCLA’s Ian McLean, colleagues build most advanced instrument of its kind

A new scientific instrument, a “time machine” of sorts, built by UCLA astronomers and colleagues, will allow scientists to study the earliest galaxies in the universe, which could never be studied before.

The five-ton instrument, the most advanced and sophisticated of its kind in the world, goes by the name MOSFIRE (Multi-Object Spectrometer for Infra-Red Exploration) and has been installed in the Keck I Telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. (more…)

Fastest Wind From Stellar Mass Black Hole Discovered

By Guest PostFebruary 25, 2012Scienceashley king, astronomer, binary system, black hole, chandra, chandra spectrum, chandra xray observatory, cosmic equivalent, earth, gas, hurricane, igr j17091, igr j17091 3624, iron molecules, jon miller, light years, magnetic fields, material flow, milky way galaxy, molecule, NASA, orbiting telescope, spectrum, speed of light, stars collapse, stellar mass black hole, super wind, supermassive black holes, university of michigan, wind, xrays

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The fastest wind ever discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole has been observed by a team of astronomers that includes a University of Michigan doctoral student.

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, an orbiting telescope, they clocked the record-breaking super wind at about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light. This is nearly 10 times faster than astronomers had previously observed from a stellar-mass black hole. (more…)

Astronomy Team That Includes UCLA Finance Professor Discovers Nearby Dwarf Galaxy

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2012Scienceaaron romanowsky, astronomer, big bang, c28 telescope, centurion 28, christine black, david martinez delgado, david reitzel, dwarf galaxy, francis longstaff, frazier park, Galaxy, gravitational attraction, gravitational tug, gravity, griffith observatory, halo population, Hubble Space Telescope, hydrogen gas, james riffle, kern county, light, light years, living fossil, michael rich, Milky Way, milky way galaxy, ngc 4449, night sky, polaris observatory association, r jay gabany, sagittarius dwarf galaxy, sky, star formation, telescope, transient stage

A team led by UCLA research astronomer Michael Rich has used a unique telescope to discover a previously unknown companion to the nearby galaxy NGC 4449, which is some 12.5 million light years from Earth. The newly discovered dwarf galaxy had escaped even the prying eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The research is published Feb. 9 in the journal Nature. (more…)