The Universe is almost inconceivably vast. So is the amount of data astronomers collect when they study it. This is a challenging process for the scientists and engineers at the U.S. National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). But what if they could do it over 300 times faster?

The NRAO manages some of the largest and most used radio telescopes in the world, including the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). When these telescopes are observing the Universe, they collect vast amounts of data, for hours, months, even years at a time, depending on what they are studying. “We made a single deep image of a small portion of the sky with nearly 2 Terabytes of data – equivalent to 1350 photos taken with a phone every day for 2 years.  There are other projects that use the VLA to collect many 100s of Terabytes of data!”, explains Sanjay Bhatnagar, a scientist at the NRAO leading the Algorithms R&D Group. “Traditional ways of processing this data can take months or even years to finish – much longer than most existing supercomputing centers are optimized for.”

Looking for a more efficient way to process a particularly large VLA data set, to produce one of the deepest radio images of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), made famous by the Hubble Telescope, NRAO staff decided to try a different approach. “Earlier attempts using CPU cores in a supercomputer center took over 10 days to convert a Terabyte of data to an image.  In contrast, our approach takes only about one hour”, shares NRAO software engineer Felipe Madsen.

Processing at the rate of more than 1 Terabyte of data per hour, we made one of the deepest radio images ever made with a noise of 1 micro Jy/beam.

How is this possible? Rather than sending one Mt. Petabytes to one supercomputing facility, the data was divided into pieces and distributed to smaller banks of computers with GPUs, distributed to university computing centers across the country both large and small.

The NRAO team led by Sanjay from Domenici Science Operations Center (DSOC) in Socorro, New Mexico, working with the team at the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at Wisconsin, Madison, led by Brian Bockelman is the first to demonstrate an end-to-end radio astronomy imaging workflow harnessing computing capacity distributed across the US. “This spanned the nation from California to Clemson. We had the most universities contributing to a single, GPU-based workload, from large institutions like the University of California San Diego to small ones like the Emporia University.”, explains Brian Bockelman of the CHTC. “We believe that researchers should have quick and easy access to the nation’s investments in computing capacity and the best way to do this is through sharing”.

These distributed capacity contribution were united using open source technologies like HTCondor for computing and Pelican for data delivery, developed by the NSF-funded Partnership to Advance Throughput Computing (PATh; NSF grant #2030508) and the Pelican Project (NSF grant #2331480), respectively.  These technologies power the Open Science Pool (OSPool) which stitches together the different computers amongst universities, including those in the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) led National Research Platform (NRP).

“The data was accessed via the National Research Platform (NRP) data caches deployed in the network backbone of Internet2 and federated into the Open Science Data Federation,” said SDSC Director Frank Würthwein. “NRAO thus validated a Modus operandi we expect to become more and more common as we democratize access and ownership of cyberinfrastructure for open science, especially in light of the growth of AI research and education at all scales.”

This test wasn’t just done to benefit astronomers who want to make deep images to study the universe at radio frequencies with current telescopes. It lays the groundwork for much larger projects in the future. “The next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) will be producing 100x more data than what we used for this test.  This work gives us the confidence that we can tackle large volumes of data that we’ll have from the ngVLA one day”, says Bhatnagar with cautious optimism. “We hope the success of this test inspires other radio astronomers to dream big. If the open computing capacity offered by the OSPool works for our NRAO lab, it will work for others. Researchers from small universities with little or no computing power can do this, too”.

This won’t be the last time NRAO experiments with dispersed data processing. Says Preshanth Jagannathan, a scientist in the NRAO team, “The experiment showed us where we, and the CHTC, can jointly make improvements in the way the OSPool delivers open capacity to the radio astronomers.  Both teams are eagerly looking forward to the next step and continued collaboration.”

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The post Astronomers & Engineers Use a Grid of Computers at a National Scale to Study the Universe 300 Times Faster appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

From the New Mexico desert to the plains of Western Saxony, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) has brought together American and German radio astronomers to discuss exciting new science opportunities that could be possible with this transformative new facility. 

Over the course of two scientific meetings, held in 2022 and 2023, German astronomers have collected 41 highly compelling science cases involving 57 unique authors from 19 German institutions, all aspiring to use the ngVLA.

Why Germany? mtex antenna technology, based in Schkeuditz, Saxony, has been designing and constructing a prototype of the ngVLA antenna. A total of 244 of these radio dishes are planned for the massive instrument. They will work together as a single telescope array throughout New Mexico and the American southwest, along with longer baseline antenna stations located across the North American Continent.

Members of the German radio astronomy community have shown that their science interests are complementary to those of American astronomers. In many science cases, strong synergies and the potential for close international collaborations can be seen, in such examples as Imaging Young Solar System Analogues in Formation, Resolving the Doppler Crisis, Zooming into Feedback Engines, and more. A number of the science cases of interest are already covered in the existing ngVLA science book, with the involvement of German researchers. Additionally, it has been noted that the German community has a particular interest in very-long-baseline science cases that go beyond what has already been captured in the ngVLA Science Book. 

Since 2006, German universities and research institutes with an interest in astrophysical science based on observations at meter wavelengths have been organized in the German Long Wavelength Consortium (GLOW). Activities of GLOW have put a strong emphasis on long-wavelength radio interferometers such as the Long-Wavelength Array (LOFAR) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Now,  a new working group has been established with a special focus on observations at shorter cm- to sub-mm radio wavelengths, and German astronomers expect the ngVLA to play an important role in this group.

“Some of us were already excited about the ngVLA project, but we did not know what the real interest in our community in Germany is”, explained Prof. Dominik Riechers from the University of Cologne. “We received a very positive response to an initial exploratory workshop we held in late 2022 in Bonn, which made it clear to us that a significant fraction of the German radio-astronomy community has a strong and growing interest in the ngVLA. We thus decided to hold a second workshop in September 2023 in Leipzig, this time with a focus on discussing potential science use cases.” He added, “In addition to members of the German community, we welcomed Tony Beasley, NRAO Director, and Eric Murphy, ngVLA Project Scientist, as well as other international colleagues.” “We are quite honored and excited that the German astronomy community is showing such a strong interest in the ngVLA,” commented Eric Murphy, “and we look forward to them both as prominent users in the future, and as strong collaborators as we continue to work with their community to finalize the ngVLA design.”

“These discussions resulted in the collection and publication of our science interests,” adds Prof. Matthias Kadler from the University of Wuerzburg. “Although extensive, this is not even a complete representation yet,” he was quick to add. “We are in contact with several colleagues who could not finish their science cases in time for this initial volume, but have promised to contribute in the future.” 

“We hope that our excitement about these developments will continue to transfer to the many young astronomers that have been participating in our workshops, who will be in the prime of their careers when the ngVLA comes online,” Riechers added.

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

NRAO Media Contact

Corrina C. Jaramillo Feldman
Public Information Officer – New Mexico
VLA, VLBA, ngVLA
Tel: +1 505-366-7267
[email protected]

The post German Astronomers Share Proposed Science for the ngVLA appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Two student researchers from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s National Astronomy Consortium (NAC) program were each awarded the prestigious Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards medal during the 243rd proceedings of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Miguel Montalvo and Nicolas (Nico) McMahon completed their NAC summer research projects in 2023, and each received a Chambliss medal for exemplary research in astrophysics. 

Miguel Montalvo, Princeton University

Montalvo is a first-generation college student currently pursuing a Ph.D.  in Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. He was awarded a Chambliss Medal at this year’s winter AAS meeting for his iPoster presentation on Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). 

Montalvo’s research used photometric data obtained from the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey (HSC) and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to study Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). “We found that both obscured and unobscured Type-1 AGN have similar low inclination angles and the obscuration seen in red quasars can’t be explained by the Unified Model alone.” 

This is the second Chambliss medal Miguel has been awarded, having also won for work presented at AAS 241. While he is grateful for the research opportunities NAC has provided, Miguel most appreciates the sense of community the program fosters. “As part of the program, I’ve been able to present my research at the AAS meetings every year since I joined, and as a result, I’ve been awarded a Chambliss medal for my presentations,” he says. “Yet, the most important thing that has come from the NAC is a community of support where I feel valued and celebrated as a non-traditional researcher.”

Nicolas McMahon,  Boston University

McMahon was awarded a Chambliss Medal for his work on Type Ia supernovae (SNIa). These cataclysmic stellar explosions are used as “standard candles” to probe the rate of accelerating expansion of the universe. His study focused on the “Mass Step” relationship, which is an underlying correlation observed between the peak brightness of SNIa and the stellar mass of their host galaxies. “Using the Pantheon+ sample, the largest sample of SNIa to date, as well as cutting-edge computational tools like the spectral energy distribution fitting code Prospector, my team and I are working to understand how our methodology impacts the observed strength of the Mass Step relationship.”

Nico has been a lifelong stargazer but feels his NAC experience has been truly life-changing. “The NAC program has helped tear down barriers to access in my field. I have been able to travel across the country to conferences in Washington D.C., Portland, and New Orleans, and the NAC program has made it possible for me to gain experience sharing my work with experts and novices alike in forums I previously would not have had access to.” As a Queer, Latine astronomer, Nico is driven to make astronomy more accessible to marginalized communities and elevate the voices of other marginalized astronomers for the betterment of our shared community.

The Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards are juried by a volunteer cohort of professional scientists and other members of the astronomical community during the American Astronomical Society conference each January and June. A full list of Chambliss award recipients is available at https://aas.org/posts/news/2023/03/congratulations-aas-241-chambliss-student-award-winners.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. 

About NAC

National Astronomy Consortium (NAC) is a program of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. NAC is a summer research experience program for undergraduate students in the United States who have been underserved by the traditional academic pipeline. The program aims to increase the number of students in STEM fields by helping them to build networks of support for success early in their academic careers and beyond.

The post NAC Student Researchers Receive Prestigious Chambliss Medals at AAS 243 appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

How can humans protect the Earth from “devastating asteroid and comet impacts?” According to the National Academies and their 2023-2032 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey, ground based astronomical radar systems will have a “unique role” to play in planetary defense.

There is currently only one system in the world concentrating on these efforts, NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar, part of the Deep Space Network (DSN). However, a new instrument concept from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) called the next generation RADAR (ngRADAR) system will use the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and other current and future facilities to expand on these capabilities.

“There are many applications for the future of radar, from substantially advancing our knowledge of the Solar System, to informing future robotic and crewed spaceflight, and characterizing hazardous objects that stray too close to Earth,” shares Tony Beasley, NRAO’s director.

On Saturday, February 17th, scientists will showcase recent results obtained with ground-based radar systems at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference in Denver, Colorado.

“NRAO, with the support of the National Science Foundation and oversight by Associated Universities, Inc., has a long history of using radar to further our understanding of the Universe. Most recently the GBT helped confirm the success of NASA’s DART mission, the first test to see if humans could successfully alter the trajectory of an asteroid, “ shares NRAO scientist and ngRADAR project director Patrick Taylor.

The GBT is the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope. The maneuverability of its 100-meter dish enables it to observe 85 percent of the celestial sphere, allowing it to quickly track objects across its field of view. Adds Taylor, “With the support of Raytheon Technologies, ngRADAR pilot tests on the GBT—using a low-power transmitter with less output than a standard microwave oven—have produced the highest-resolution images of the Moon ever taken from Earth. Imagine what we could do with a more powerful transmitter.”

Scientists sharing their results at AAAS include Edgard G. Rivera-Valentín of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and Marina Brozović of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages Goldstone and the DSN.  Adds Brozović, “The public might be surprised to learn that the technology we use in our current radar at Goldstone hasn’t changed much since World War II. For 99% of our observations, we transmit and receive from this one antenna. New radar transmitter designs, like ngRADAR on the GBT, have the potential to significantly increase the output power and waveform bandwidth, allowing for even higher resolution imaging. It will also produce a scalable and more robust system by using telescope arrays to increase the collecting area.”

“NRAO is an ideal organization to lead these efforts because of the instruments we have available to receive radar signals, like the Very Long Baseline Array has done in our pilot ngRADAR project,” explains Brian Kent, NRAO scientist and director of science communications, who coordinated the presentation at AAAS, “Future facilities like the next generation Very Large Array, as a receiver, will create a powerful combination for planetary science.”

How does ground-based astronomical radar expand our understanding of the Universe? By allowing us to study our nearby Solar System, and everything in it, in unprecedented detail. Radar can reveal the surface and ancient geology of planets and their moons, letting us trace their evolution. It can also determine the location, size, and speed of potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects, like comets or asteroids. Advances in astronomical radar are opening new avenues, renewed investment, and interest in joint industry and scientific community collaborations as a multidisciplinary venture.

About NRAO & GBO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The Green Bank Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation and is operated by Associated Universities, Inc.

The post Can Astronomers Use Radar to Spot a Cataclysmic Asteroid? appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

In our most basic understanding of our Solar System, planets are drawn into the orbit of our massive star, the Sun. But what happens to planet-sized objects that don’t have a star? A team of astronomers studying Jupiter-mass binary objects (JuMBOs) in the Orion Nebula are gaining a new understanding of these unusual systems. These massive, free-floating objects are being drawn into orbit with each other. These latest findings come from observations made by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

This groundbreaking discovery has been made in the field of astronomy, thanks to advancements in sensitivity that have allowed scientists to detect fainter and smaller objects in space. Using the VLA, astronomers searched for counterparts to a group of 40 Jupiter-mass binary objects known as JuMBOs, previously identified by Pearson and McCaughrean in 2023. Surprisingly, only one of these objects, JuMBO 24, exhibited a radio counterpart.

This remarkable finding challenges existing theories on the formation of stars and planets. The radio luminosity of the two planets in this binary system is significantly higher than that detected in brown dwarfs, which are objects that share similarities with these planets. This abnormality raises new questions and provides exciting research opportunities to further understand the nature of these free-floating planets. While it is possible that the association between infrared and radio signals is coincidental, the team considers this to be highly unlikely, with odds of only 1 in 10,000. This discovery builds upon the previous work of Kao et al., who, in 2018, detected a single planetary-mass system resembling the components of JuMBO 24 using the VLA.

Dr. Luis F. Rodriguez, Professor Emeritus at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who participated in this research, emphasizes the significance of the discovery. “What’s truly remarkable is that these objects could have moons similar to Europa or Enceladus, both of which  have underground oceans of liquid water that could support life”, he stated.

The detection of radio waves originating from both components of a double system of free-floating planets represents a significant milestone in our exploration of the universe. It also presents an exciting opportunity for further research into the potential habitability of planets beyond our solar system. You can read the entire published findings HERE.

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a National Science Foundation facility, operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

NRAO Media Contacts

Corrina C. Jaramillo Feldman
Public Information Officer – New Mexico
VLA, VLBA, ngVLA
Tel: +1 505-366-7267
[email protected]

Jill Malusky
NRAO & GBO News & Public Information Manager
Tel: +1 304-460-5608
[email protected]

The post Astronomers Discover Jupiter-sized Objects Drawn into Each Other’s Orbit appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is spinning so quickly it is warping the spacetime surrounding it into a shape that can look like a football, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). 

Astronomers call this giant black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short), which is located about 26,000 light-years away from Earth in the center of our galaxy.

Black holes have two fundamental properties: their mass (how much they weigh) and their spin (how quickly they rotate). Determining either of these two values tells scientists a great deal about any black hole and how it behaves.

A team of astronomers have unveiled a new method for determining the rotational speed of the enigmatic black hole, Sgr A*. By combining X-ray and radio data, the team observed the movement of surrounding material and deduced the angular velocity of Sgr A*. Astonishingly, their findings revealed that Sgr A* spins at a rate reaching approximately 60% of the maximum possible value. This boundary is determined by the fundamental constraint that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. The team’s discovery challenges previous estimates made by astronomers, which spanned from Sgr A* being stationary to rotating at nearly the fastest rate conceivable. This groundbreaking research sheds new light on the dynamic nature of black holes and opens up exciting avenues for further exploration into their mysteries.

The paper describing these results led by Ruth Daly is published in the January 2024 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and appears online at https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024MNRAS.527..428D/abstract. 

“Our work may help settle the question of how fast our galaxy’s supermassive black hole is spinning,” said Ruth Daly of Penn State University, who is the lead author on the new study. “Our results indicate that Sgr A* is spinning very rapidly, which is interesting and has far reaching implications..” This release was originally shared by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Read the full release HERE.

About Chandra

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

NRAO Media Contact

Corrina C. Jaramillo Feldman
Public Information Officer – New Mexico
VLA, VLBA, ngVLA
Tel: +1 505-366-7267
[email protected]

The post Telescopes Show the Milky Way’s Black Hole is Ready for a Kick appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has just received a “heart transplant,” high in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. ALMA, the most complex astronomical observatory ever built on Earth, installed a new hydrogen maser. Funded by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), this upgrade marks an essential investment, setting a new standard in reliability for observations.

A maser is an advanced atomic clock that uses the properties of the hydrogen atom to provide an extremely precise and stable frequency reference. This precision is crucial for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations, enabling the synchronization of cosmic signals received by networks of telescopes spread across the globe. A brief, but fascinating, video brings together many voices across the international ALMA team to share the process of the replacement and its importance,

The new maser, now the heartbeat of ALMA’s operations, ensures a high level of accuracy essential for detailed explorations of the Universe. ALMA is a cornerstone of international astronomy as part of the Event Horizon Telescope, and other Very Long Baseline Interferometry studies, most famously revealing the first image of black hole M87* and Sagittarius A*, at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy.

The integration of the new maser into the ALMA Array was aided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory. The original maser remains operating as a backup, strengthening ALMA’s resilience against potential system failures and ensuring reliable, continuous astronomical research. This upgrade solidifies ALMA’s position at the forefront of astronomical research, enabling astronomers to uncover more mysteries of the Universe with greater accuracy and reliability.

About ALMA & NRAO

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

NRAO is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The post ALMA Gets a New Heartbeat appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Following a generous grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Central Development Laboratory (CDL) at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has selected their first recipient of the postdoctoral Women in Engineering fellowship, Priyanka Mondal. The Women in Engineering program increases opportunities for women to enter the field of radio astronomy through engineering pathways.

Priyanka Mondal received her Ph. D degree from the department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 2009. She has contributed to projects on filters, slotted waveguide antenna arrays, ultra-wideband pulse generation, dielectric waveguides, corrugated horn antennas, GaAs and GaN Schottky diode based frequency multipliers, and subharmonic mixers for organizations in Asia, Europe and North America. She has authored/co-authored sixty-three technical papers at national and international journals and conferences. She was awarded by the Kalpana Chawla Memorial Doctoral Fellowship, Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies Postdoctoral Fellowship in the year of 2007 and 2011, respectively. She does review for the project proposals, technical papers for the conferences and journals.

As part of NRAO’s ongoing commitment to Women in Engineering, the new fellowship program supports outstanding postdoctoral women engineers whose research is related to the NRAO’s mission. These fellows, who are granted two-year appointments, will spend up to 75 percent of their time on self-directed research while also contributing to the Observatory’s development and delivery of radio astronomy techniques, capabilities, or education and public outreach activities. The Women in Engineering program also includes a co-op program that  provides laboratory work experiences for graduate and undergraduate women engineering students, giving them the opportunity to fulfill the practical training component of their co-op programs CDL.

When asked how the Heising-Simons Women in Engineering Fellowship would impact her life and career, Priyanka said the following, “The Engineering Fellowship at NRAO’s Central Development will open up a door for me to work on the most advanced/breakthrough technologies and uncover scientific possibilities. Together with my research ideas, experiences and passion, I believe the fellowship tenure will empower me to contribute significantly toward the performance enhancements of the astronomical instruments at NRAO and to the global scientific community. This engineering fellowship at CDL certainly will enrich me professionally and support me to become an eminent radio scientist/engineer in future.”

The CDL Women in Engineering program builds upon the insights from the landmark 2012 study, “Stemming the Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering,” by creating stimulating, rewarding, and positive work experiences that both value and encourage contributions from women in engineering fields. This type of early positive engagement has been shown to increase the likelihood that women will both enter and remain in the field, bringing diverse viewpoints to the ever-changing needs of engineering projects. The $725,000 Heising-Simons Foundation grant allows NRAO for the initial development and maintenance of the Women in Engineering Program during its first two years.

NRAO Director Tony Beasley said, “Diverse viewpoints and expertise are what keeps NRAO at the forefront of engineering in radio astronomy. NRAO is excited to work with the Heising-Simons Foundation to expand our commitment to making radio astronomy and engineering a positive and growth-oriented career path for women.”

About the Heising-Simons Foundation

The Heising-Simons Foundation is a family foundation based in Los Altos and San Francisco, California. The Foundation works with its many partners to advance sustainable solutions in climate and clean energy, enable groundbreaking research in science, enhance the education of our youngest learners, and support human rights for all people.

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The post First Recipient of Women in Engineering Fellowship Joins Staff of Central Development Laboratory appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has released new images of supermassive black hole M87*. A recent paper published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics presents new images from data collected by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and several other instruments within the EHT. These new images show a bright ring surrounding a deep central depression, “the shadow of the black hole,” as predicted by general relativity.  Excitingly, the brightness peak of the ring has shifted by about 30º compared to the first images, which is consistent with scientists’ theoretical understanding of variability from turbulent material around black holes.

“A fundamental requirement of science is to be able to reproduce results,” says Dr. Keiichi Asada, an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan.  “Confirmation of the ring in a completely new data set is a huge milestone for our collaboration and a strong indication that we are looking at a black hole shadow and the material orbiting around it.”

The image of M87* taken in 2018 is remarkably similar to what was seen in 2017—a bright ring of the same size, with a dark central region and one side of the ring brighter than the other. The mass and distance of M87* will not appreciably increase throughout a human lifetime, so general relativity predicts that the ring diameter should stay the same from year to year.

To help accomplish new and exciting science, the EHT is under continuous development. The Greenland Telescope joined the EHT for the first time in 2018, just five months after its construction was completed far above the Arctic Circle. This new telescope significantly improved the image fidelity of the EHT array, improving the coverage, particularly in the North-South direction. The Large Millimeter Telescope also participated for the first time with its full 50 m surface, greatly improving its sensitivity. With the use of the phased-up ALMA array of twenty 12-m diameter antennas, also observed in the 2017 experiments, the 2018 EHT array had significantly improved sensitivity and u-v coverage to produce a high quality image. The EHT array was also upgraded to observe in four frequency bands around 230 GHz, compared to only two bands in 2017.

Repeated observations with an improved array are essential to demonstrate the robustness of findings and strengthen confidence in results. In addition to the groundbreaking science, the EHT also serves as a technology testbed for cutting-edge developments in high-frequency radio interferometry.

The image of M87* taken in 2018 is remarkably similar to what was observed in 2017. Astronomers saw a bright ring of the same size, with a dark central region and one side of the ring brighter than the other. The mass and distance of M87* will not appreciably increase throughout a human lifetime, so general relativity predicts that the ring diameter should stay the same from year to year. The stability of the measured diameter in the images from 2017 to 2018 robustly supports the conclusion that M87* is well described by general relativity.

“One of the remarkable properties of a black hole is that its radius is strongly dependent on only one quantity: its mass,” said Dr. Nitika Yadlapalli Yurk, a former graduate student at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), now a postdoctoral fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. “Since M87* is not accreting material (which would increase its mass) at a rapid rate, general relativity tells us that its radius will remain fairly unchanged over human history. It’s pretty exciting to see that our data confirm this prediction.”

This work used data from ALMA and seven other instruments across the EHT array, including the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX), the IRAM 30-meter telescope (PV), the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), the Submillimeter Array (SMA), the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT), and the Greenland Telescope (GLT).

Portions of this release were taken from news shared by the Event Horizon Telescope and the Joint ALMA Observatory. 

Read EHT’s complete press release here. 

Read JAO’s complete press release here. 

About the EHT

The EHT collaboration involves more than 300 researchers from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. The international collaboration is working to capture the most detailed black hole images ever obtained by creating a virtual Earth-sized telescope. Supported by considerable international investment, the EHT links existing telescopes using novel systems, creating a fundamentally new instrument with the highest angular resolving power that has yet been achieved.

The individual telescopes involved are ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter Telescope, the IRAM NOEMA Observatory, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), the Submillimeter Array (SMA), the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT), the South Pole Telescope (SPT), the Kitt Peak Telescope, and the Greenland Telescope (GLT).  Data were correlated at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) and MIT Haystack Observatory.  The postprocessing was done within the collaboration by an international team at different institutions.

The EHT consortium consists of 13 stakeholder institutes: the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the University of Arizona, the University of Chicago, the East Asian Observatory, Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt, Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, Large Millimeter Telescope, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, MIT Haystack Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Radboud University, and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

About ALMA & NRAO

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

NRAO is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The post New Details of Supermassive Black Hole’s Shadow Revealed appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

New scientific results from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the Very Large Array (VLA), and Green Bank Observatory (GBO) will be revealed at multiple press conferences during the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) from January 8-11, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The AAS meeting includes a series of press conferences based on a range of themes. Presentations will highlight new research, including new types of planet and star formation, and the accidental discovery of a primordial galaxy.

Press conferences will be held in person during the conference, and streamed live on the AAS Press Office Page.

Note: Each press conference consists of a panel of scientists presenting 4-5 unique scientific results. The number listed in parentheses indicates the order of presentation for the listed result.

All press conferences are listed and will occur in Central Time.

—

Monday, 8 January 2024, 10:15 am CT – Dust, Clouds & Darkness

A Polarized Dust Ring in the Milky Way’s Center
Natalie Butterfield (NRAO) (1)

Mystery of Star Formation Revealed by Hearts of Molecular Clouds
Jin Koda (Stony Brook University) & Amanda Lee (U.Mass. Amherst) (3)

The Dark Galaxy J0613+52
Karen O’Neil (Green Bank Observatory) (4)

Monday, 9 January 2024, 2:15 pm CT – High-Energy Phenomena and Their Origins

Evolution of Planetary Disk Structures Seen for the First Time
Cheng-Han Hsieh (Yale University) (3)

Tuesday, 9 January 2024, 2:15 pm CT – High-Energy Phenomena and Their Origins

Spatially-resolved spectroscopy of dual quasars at cosmic noon with JWST and ALMA
Yuzo Ishikawa (Johns Hopkins University) (1)

(To be confirmed) Wednesday, 10 January 2024, 10:15 am CT

A New Census of Neutral Clouds in the Milky Way’s Nuclear Wind
Jay Lockman (Green Bank Observatory)

Wednesday, 10 January 2024, 2:15 pm CT – Stars, Disks & Exoplanets

JWST’s New View of Beta Pictoris Suggests Recent Episodic Dust Production from an Eccentric, Inclined Secondary Debris Disk

Christopher Stark (NASA Goddard) (3)

Thursday, 11 January 2024, 2:15 pm CT – Oddities in the Sky

The Smith Cloud: A Dust Bowl Barreling Through Our Galactic Halo
Johanna Vazquez (Texas Christian University) (3)

For embargo access for members of the press, please contact Jill Malusky at [email protected] or Corrina Jaramillo Feldman at [email protected].

NRAO Media Contacts

Corrina C. Jaramillo Feldman
Public Information Officer – New Mexico
VLA, VLBA, ngVLA
Tel: +1 505-366-7267
[email protected]

Jill Malusky
NRAO & GBO News & Public Information Manager
Tel: +1 304-460-5608
[email protected]

In addition to the press conferences, dozens of papers with new and ongoing science results from NRAO and GBO facilities will be presented during AAS 243 conference sessions. Highlights will be posted to the NRAO website, the GBO website, and social media. 

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

About Green Bank Observatory

The Green Bank Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation and is operated by Associated Universities, Inc. 

The post AAS 243 NRAO Press Announcement appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.