AUI and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) have announced the recipients of the 2023 AUI Board of Trustees NAC Bridge Scholarship Award. Now in its third year, the scholarship recognizes the academic accomplishments of National Astronomy Consortium (NAC) alums and assists them in the transition from undergraduate to graduate programs.

Amidst the excitement of beginning graduate school and the financial considerations of tuition, there can be additional financial burdens related to moving to a new location and establishing a new residence. The AUI Board of Trustees established the new NAC scholarship award in 2021 to help NAC alums manage these expenses during the transition to the next phase of their academic careers.

This year, three NAC alums have accepted offers from outstanding graduate programs around the country. Each will receive a $5,000 AUI Board of Trustees NAC Bridge Scholarship Award, with AUI and NRAO’s congratulations and best wishes for a smooth start to an exciting new chapter of their lives.

2023 Recipients of the NAC Bridge Scholarship Award

• Mohan Richter-Addo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Astronomy
• Malik Bossett, University of California, Santa Cruz, Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Miguel Montalvo, Princeton University, Astrophysical Sciences

NAC is a competitive program offering summer astronomy research internships to undergraduates and professional development programming and research opportunities throughout the academic careers of NAC alumni.

“This scholarship will help me acclimate to living on my own in a new city, and it will pay for various initial costs of moving, such as new cooking and cleaning supplies,” said Mohan Richter-Addo.

NAC’s goal is to increase the number of students, often underserved by the traditional academic pipeline, in STEM and STEM careers, by creating a diverse network of support for their academic and professional careers from an early stage. Miguel Montalvo said that the Bridge scholarship will make a significant difference to the next stage of his education. “This invaluable support will not only alleviate the financial burden of relocation expenses and unforeseen costs but will also enable me to embark on a transformative journey as I pursue my Ph.D, ” Miguel Montalvo said.

A key component of the NAC program has been the long-term sustained engagement of alums and, perhaps most importantly, the peer and near-peer support that NAC alums offer to each other. As Malik Bossett said, “NAC has helped me connect with other undergraduate and graduate researchers of color, along with allowing me to participate in and present at NACtober in 2020.”

NRAO and AUI appreciate the commitment that NAC alums have to each other and to their own professional journeys, and are proud of their individual and collective accomplishments.

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 under-served 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.

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Fast radio bursts are powerful flashes of light that shine for only milliseconds. Join our host Summer Ash of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory as she talks about how astronomers study these mysterious bursts, and what might be causing them.

The post Baseline 16 — Fast Radio Bursts: Bursting with Mysteries appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

For the last 15 years, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Physics Frontiers Center has been using radio telescopes supported by the National Science Foundation— including those operated by NSF’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory— to turn a suite of millisecond pulsars into a galaxy-scale gravitational-wave detector. Millisecond pulsars are remnants of extinguished massive stars; as they spin hundreds of times each second, their “lighthouse-like” radio beams are seen as highly regular pulses. Gravitational waves stretch and squeeze space and time in a characteristic pattern, causing changes in the intervals between these pulses that are correlated across all the pulsars being observed. These correlated changes are the specific signal that NANOGrav has been working to detect.

NANOGrav’s most recent dataset offers compelling evidence for gravitational waves with oscillations of years to decades. These waves are thought to arise from orbiting pairs of the most massive black holes throughout the Universe: billions of times more massive than the Sun, with sizes larger than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Future studies of this signal will enable us to view the gravitational-wave universe through a new window, providing insight into titanic black holes merging in the hearts of distant galaxies and potentially other exotic sources of low-frequency gravitational waves.

Read the full press release from NANOGrav.

A public event discussing the results will take place on Thursday, June 29, 2023 at 1pm Eastern Time on YouTube Live.

The post Scientists use Exotic Stars to Tune into Hum from Cosmic Symphony appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the protoplanetary disk around a young star have discovered the most compelling chemical evidence to date of the formation of protoplanets. The discovery will provide astronomers with an alternate method for detecting and characterizing protoplanets when direct observations or imaging are not possible. The results will be published in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

HD 169142 is a young star located in the constellation Sagittarius that is of significant interest to astronomers due to the presence of its large, dust- and gas-rich circumstellar disk that is viewed nearly face-on. Several protoplanet candidates have been identified over the last decade, and earlier this year, scientists at the University of Liège and Monash University confirmed that one such candidate— HD 169142 b— is, in fact, a giant Jupiter-like protoplanet. The discoveries revealed in a new analysis of archival data from ALMA— an international collaboration in which the National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a member— may now make it easier for scientists to detect, confirm, and ultimately characterize, protoplanets forming around young stars. 

“When we looked at HD 169142 and its disk at submillimeter wavelengths, we identified several compelling chemical signatures of this recently-confirmed gas giant protoplanet,” said Charles Law, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the lead author of the new study. “We now have confirmation that we can use chemical signatures to figure out what kinds of planets there might be forming in the disks around young stars.”

The team focused on the HD 169142 system because they believed that the presence of the HD 169142 b giant protoplanet  was likely to be accompanied by detectable chemical signatures, and they were right. Law’s team detected carbon monoxide (both 12CO and its isotopologue 13CO) and sulfur monoxide (SO), which had previously been detected and were thought to be associated with protoplanets in other disks. But for the first time, the team also detected silicon monosulfide (SiS). This came as a surprise because in order for SiS emission to be detectable by ALMA, silicates must be released from nearby dust grains in massive shock waves caused by gas traveling at high velocities, a behavior typically resulting from outflows that are driven by giant protoplanets. “SiS was a molecule that we had never seen before in a protoplanetary disk, let alone in the vicinity of a giant protoplanet,” Law said. “The detection of SiS emission popped out at us because it means that this protoplanet must be producing powerful shock waves in the surrounding gas.” 

With this new chemical approach for detecting young protoplanets, scientists may be opening a new window on the Universe and deepening their understanding of exoplanets. Protoplanets, especially those that are still embedded in their parental circumstellar disks such as in the HD 169142 system, provide a direct connection with the known exoplanet population. “There’s a huge diversity in exoplanets and by using chemical signatures observed with ALMA, this gives us a new way to understand how different protoplanets develop over time and ultimately connect their properties to that of exoplanetary systems,” said Law. “In addition to providing a new tool for planet-hunting with ALMA, this discovery opens up a lot of exciting chemistry that we’ve never seen before.  As we continue to survey more disks around young stars, we will inevitably find other interesting but unanticipated molecules, just like SiS. Discoveries such as this imply that we are only just scratching the surface of the true chemical diversity associated with protoplanetary settings.” 

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

About ALMA

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 National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan 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.

Media Contact:
Amy C. Oliver, FRAS
Public Information & News Manager, NRAO
+1-434-242-9584
[email protected]

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New scientific results from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), the Very Large Array (VLA), and the Green Bank Observatory (GBO) will be revealed at multiple press conferences during the 242nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) from June 5-7, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The AAS meeting includes a series of press conferences based on a range of themes. Presentations will highlight new research, including uncovering properties of early universe dwarf galaxies, a peek at radio images of the fastest nova, and how star formation is triggered by an interaction in the Nessie Nebula.

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

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 Mountain Time.

—

Tuesday, 6 June 2023, 10:15 am MDT – Resolving Stars and Hunting Nearby Galaxies

Star Formation Triggered by the Interaction between the Expanding Bubble and the IRDC Filament in the Nessie Nebula
Jim Jackson (Green Bank Observatory) (2)

Embargo access for members of the press, please contact Greenbank Observatory PIO Jill Malusky at [email protected].

Tuesday, 6 June 2023, 2:15 pm MDT – Hot Jupiters to Hungry Blacks Holes

VLBA Images of the Fastest Nova, V1674 Her
Montana Williams (New Mexico Tech) (2)

Embargo access for members of the press, please contact NRAO Public Information & News Manager Amy C. Oliver at [email protected].

NRAO Media Contacts

Amy C. Oliver, FRAS
Public Information and News Manager, NRAO
Tel: +1 434-296-0314
[email protected]

Jill Malusky
Public Information Officer, Green Bank Observatory
Tel: +1 304-456-2236
[email protected]

Additional questions or assistance:

Corrina C. Jaramillo Feldman
Public Information Specialist, ngVLA
Tel: +1 575-842-9366
[email protected]

In addition to the press conferences, dozens of papers with new and ongoing science results from NRAO facilities will be presented during AAS 242 conference sessions. Highlights will be posted to the NRAO web site.

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 first national radio astronomy observatory in the U.S., it is home to the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope, the largest fully-steerable radio telescope in the world.

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While studying classical novae using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a graduate researcher uncovered evidence the objects may have been erroneously typecast as simple. The new observations, which detected non-thermal emission from a classical nova with a dwarf companion, were presented today at a press conference during the 242nd proceedings of the American Astronomical Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

V1674 Herculis is a classical nova hosted by a white dwarf and dwarf companion and is currently the fastest classical nova on record. While studying V1674Her with the VLBA, Montana Williams, a graduate student at New Mexico Tech who is leading the investigation into the VLBA properties of this nova, confirmed the unexpected: non-thermal emission coming from it. This data is important because it tells Williams and her collaborators a lot about what’s happening in the system. What the team has found is anything but the simple heat-induced explosions scientists previously expected from classical novae. 

“Classical novae have historically been considered simple explosions, emitting mostly thermal energy,” said Williams. “However, based on recent observations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope, this simple model is not entirely correct. Instead, it seems they’re a bit more complicated. Using the VLBA, we were able to get a very detailed picture of one of the main complications, the non-thermal emission.”

Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) detections of classical novae with dwarf companions like V1674Her are rare. They’re so rare, in fact, that this same type of detection, with resolved radio synchrotron components, has been reported just one other time to date. That’s partly because of the assumed nature of classical novae. 

“VLBI detections of novae are only recently becoming possible because of improvements to VLBI techniques, most notably the sensitivity of the instruments and the increasing bandwidth or the amount of frequencies we can record at a given time,” said Williams. “Additionally, because of the previous theory of classical novae they weren’t thought to be ideal targets for VLBI studies. We now know this isn’t true because of multi-wavelength observations which indicate a more complex scenario.”

That rarity makes the team’s new observations an important step in understanding the hidden lives of classical novae and what ultimately leads to their explosive behavior. 

“By studying images from the VLBA and comparing them to other observations from the Very Large Array (VLA), Fermi-LAT, NuSTAR, and NASA-Swift, we can determine what might be the cause of the emission and also make adjustments to the previous simple model,” said Williams. “Right now, we’re trying to determine if the non-thermal energy is coming from clumps of gas running into other clumped gas which produces shocks, or something else.” 

Because Fermi-LAT and NuSTAR observations had already indicated that there might be non-thermal emission coming from V1674Her, that made the classical nova an ideal candidate for study because Williams and her collaborators are on a mission to either confirm or deny those types of findings. It was also more interesting, or cute, as Williams puts it, because of its hyper-fast evolution, and because, unlike supernovae, the host system isn’t destroyed during that evolution, but rather, remains almost completely intact and unchanged after the explosion. “Many astronomical sources don’t change much over the course of a year or even 100 years. But this nova got 10,000 times brighter in a single day, then faded back to its normal state in just about 100 days,” she said. “Because the host systems of classical novae remain intact they can be recurrent, which means we might see this one erupt, or cutely explode, again and again, giving us more opportunities to understand why and how it does.” 

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

Media Contact:
Amy C. Oliver, FRAS
Public Information & News Manager, NRAO
+1-434-242-9584
[email protected]

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Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), has selected the recipients of its 2023 AUI Scholarship, each of whom will be awarded a $3,500 renewable scholarship ($14,000 over four years to each scholar) to support their academic careers. This year, 19 outstanding high school seniors were selected based on their academic achievement, community involvement, and leadership skills. 

Funded by AUI, the scholarship program recognizes the achievements of the children of full and part-time employees of AUI and its affiliated centers, and assists them with the ongoing costs of collegiate education.

Among this year’s recipients, 16 are the children of staff members at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and are located throughout NRAO’s facilities in New Mexico, Virginia, Texas, and Chile, and two are the children of staff members at the Green Bank Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. 

The AUI Scholarship program is conducted by International Scholarship and Tuition Services, Inc.

AUI 2023 Scholarship Recipients

• Esperanza “Paige” Avery, NRAO – NM 
• Isabella Bauserman, GBO – WV
• Gian Paolo Cecchini Bocaz, NRAO – CH
• Lillian “Lily” Castro, NRAO – VA
• John De Guia, NRAO – TX (FD VLBA)
• Logan Connor Dougherty, NRAO – CH
• Ina Lee Evans, NRAO – VA
• Louise Howard, AUI – TN
• Natacha Jacques, NRAO – VA
• Kevin McCleary, NRAO – NM
• Maxwell O’Ganian, GBO – WV
• Damian Otero, NRAO – NM
• Santiago Puentes, NRAO – CH
• Kayla Remijan, NRAO – VA
• Madelyn Romero, NRAO – NM
• Madison Romero, NRAO – NM
• Connor Sakshaug, NRAO – VA
• Jenna Thunborg, NRAO – NM 
• Kacey Thunborg, NRAO – NM

Read more about the 2023 AUI Scholarship recipients here.

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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 241st proceedings of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). 

Doni Anderson and Miguel Montalvo Hernandez, undergraduate researchers who completed their NAC summer research projects in 2022, each received a Chambliss medal for exemplary research in astrophysics. 

Doni Anderson, University of Wisconsin at Madison

Anderson— who was hosted at NAC’s partner site at the University of Wisconsin at Madison— received the Chambliss medal for her research entitled, “Three-dimensional mapping of the Gum Nebula.” During her research, Anderson used 3D mapping of dust distribution near the Sun to develop strategies to find the boundary of the Gum Nebula, an emission nebula located roughly 1,470 light-years away from Earth that stretches across the constellations Puppis and Vela in the southern sky. Ultimately, Anderson found that no single automated process could do the job, and mapped the nebula by eye. The team is now ready to model the creation and expansion of the structure. 

While Anderson’s Chambliss research has reached its conclusion, the experience, as well as her work with NAC, will continue with her on her academic journey. “I plan to apply many of the skills I learned from my [NAC] mentor, with my summer research and presenting, to my next research plans.”

Anderson is currently a junior at the University of Michigan, and joined NAC in 2022 because she wanted to be a part of a program that offered support to members throughout their academic milestones. “NAC has provided support and resources that helped me push myself in my academics and research,” she said.  

Miguel Montalvo Hernandez, Michigan State University

Hernandez— who was hosted at NAC’s partner site at the University of Michigan— received the Chambliss medal for his research entitled, “Testing Silicon Photomultipliers for Beta-Decay Experiments.” During his research, Hernandez explored Silicon Photomultipliers, or SiPMs as an alternative to Photomultiplier Tubes, also called PMTs in the detection of beta-decay. The research indicates that while noise continues to be an issue with SiPMs, geometry limitations can be improved.

Hernandez is currently a senior at the University of California Berkeley who joined NAC in 2021 for the long-term mentorship that extends past the summer research project and throughout members’ careers. “I have received academic and career guidance from my NAC mentors and their sincere recommendations helped me when I was applying to grad school. The support community that I have built among other NAC fellows and alumni is really valuable to me, and the program continues to support me with travel funding to professional conferences where I have presented my research and networked with future colleagues.”

He will continue his NAC-supported research this summer, taking a turn from beta-decay experiments into active galactic nuclei (AGN) and their host galaxies. “I will come back as a NAC fellow this summer, working with professor Jenny Greene at Princeton University. I will be studying a very large AGN sample that was compiled by combining mid-Infrared and optical spectral energy distributions using the Hyper-Supreme Camera Survey (HSC) and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE),” he said. “My goal is to understand the host galaxies of these AGN by modeling the broadband spectral energy distribution with a combination of AGN and galaxy contributions, to try and understand the star formation histories and stellar masses of AGN hosts, as a function of AGN luminosity, redshift, and environment.” 

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 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 241 appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

The National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has launched two new funding opportunities for student researchers at U.S. institutions through the Student Observing Support (SOS) program and the NRAO/GBO Post-Bacc Program— a collaborative effort with the Green Bank Observatory (GBO). 

Student Observing Support (SOS) Program

NRAO’s SOS has received funding through the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC) to support graduate and undergraduate research projects using ALMA archival data. Applications for the ALMA archival science program are due June 5, 2023 at 5:00pm Eastern Time. More details and application access are available at https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/opportunities/student-programs/sos

SOS is a fellowship intended to strengthen the role of the Observatory in training the next generation of telescope users, and provides support to new observing programs for NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA, via NAASC), and for programs using ALMA archival data.

Applications for support for VLA and VLBA programs will open on June 7, 2023. 

NRAO/GBO Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship

Recent and soon-to-be graduates planning to attend grad school and conduct research in radio astronomy and related sciences are eligible to apply for funding through the NRAO/GBO Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship program. The 9-12 month program funds astronomy research under the mentorship of NRAO/GBO scientific staff at the Domenici Science Operations Center in Socorro, New Mexico; NRAO HQ in Charlottesville, Virginia; or, GBO in Green Bank, West Virginia. The fellowship includes a stipend and travel support to locate to the selected NRAO or GBO site, and attend a scientific conference.\

Applications for the NRAO/GBO Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship are due June 16, 2023 for appointments beginning in Fall 2023.

More information and application instructions are available at https://science.nrao.edu/opportunities/student-programs/nrao-post-baccalaureate-fellowship

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Green Bank Observatory are major facilities of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

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Note: This article is a collaborative work of Ken Kellermann, Ellen Bouton, Heather Cole, and Jeff Hellerman.

Before 1933, all we knew about the Universe came from observations made through the limited visual region of the electromagnetic spectrum. That all changed in large part thanks to Karl Jansky.

Jansky did not set out to develop a new field of astronomy.  While working for AT&T Bell Laboratories, Jansky was assigned the task of understanding the source of interference to transatlantic telephone communications. Using a 21 MHz rotating array, over a period of three years, Jansky meticulously traced the origin of the noise to the center of the Milky Way.

Most of Karl Jansky’s records and notes at Bell Labs were either lost or destroyed. One of the few remaining records of his observations is this series of scans made on September 16, 1932, which he published in the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, Vol. 21, 1387 (1933).  The peaks in his recorder tracings show the increased noise when his antenna beam crossed the Milky Way three times an hour.

Although Jansky’s lab notebooks were lost, his regular correspondence with his parents has provided us with a detailed account of how he finally tracked down the source of the faint hiss.

On 18 January 1932, Karl Jansky wrote:

“The peculiar thing about this static is that the direction from which it comes changes gradualy [sic] and what is most interesting always comes from a direction that is the same or very nearly the same as the direction the sun is from the antenna.”

But by March, Jansky became puzzled because, during January and February, the direction of his hiss noise had gradually shifted so that now it no longer coincided with the Sun.

Distracted by his other Laboratory responsibilities, nearly a year went by before Jansky was able to return to his “star noise.”  On 15 February 1933, he wrote to his father…

“My records show that the hiss type static mentioned in my previous paper comes, not from the sun as I suggested in that paper, but from a direction fixed in space. The evidence I now have is very conclusive and, I think, very startling.”

On 27 April 1933, Jansky made a short 12-minute presentation at the meeting of the US National Committee for the International Union for Radio Science (URSI).  Jansky’s Bell Labs boss, Harald Friis, pressured Jansky not to make an extraordinary claim, so the paper had the innocuous title, A Note on Hiss Type Atmospheric Noise, which he wrote to his father, “meant nothing to anybody.” The following week, the 5 May 1933 edition of The New York Times carried the headline, Radio Waves from the Centre of the Galaxy.

Outside of his work, Jansky was an enthusiastic athlete and excelled in many sports and pastimes. He starred at right-wing on the University of Wisconsin Badgers Ice Hockey team. He had the highest batting average as the catcher on the Bell Labs softball team and was the table tennis champion of New Jersey using a homemade racket. He enjoyed golf, tennis, bowling, sailing, and skiing, and he was a competitive bridge player and passionate birder.

Karl Jansky’s 1933 discovery of cosmic radio emission laid the foundation for the many subsequent discoveries by radio astronomers which have changed our understanding of the Universe and its constituents. These include radio galaxies, quasars, pulsars, the cosmic microwave background, gravitational lensing, interstellar molecules, cosmic masers, dark matter, extra-solar planets, and the first observational evidence for gravitational radiation and for cosmic evolution.

Following the publication of his discovery of cosmic radio emission, Jansky had only limited opportunity to continue this research, as his time was increasingly taken by other Bell Labs priorities.  In 1949 Jansky was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics but this was before the significance of his work was widely appreciated.  Nevertheless, his legacy has been recognized in many ways.

In 1973 IAU General Assembly resolved that the name ‘Jansky,’ abbreviated ‘Jy’ be adopted as the unit of flux density in radio astronomy and that this unit, equal to 10^-26 Wm^-2Hz^-1, be incorporated into the international system of physical units. Although originally intended to define only the unit of radio flux density, the Jansky has become the de facto unit for measurements throughout the electromagnetic spectrum

The annual Karl Jansky Lectures were established by the trustees of AUI and NRAO to recognize outstanding contributions to the advancement of radio astronomy.

For more information about Karl Jansky and the history of radio astronomy, check out the NRAO/AUI Archives: https://www.nrao.edu/archives/

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