Square Kilometre Array

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has been an on going project ever since 1991. The whole idea for the SKA is to have 15 meter wide telescopes located in thousands of locations around the world forming a spiral design that will in return act like one giant telescope. SKA has a similar design as the Very Large Array (VLA) however it will cover one squared kilometer. SKA will have a radius of approximately 560 meters. If we look at 500 nm light we can get a resolution limit of 5*10^-10 rad which would be 0.0001". With such precision we can study all the way back to the early universe. Obviously this project will cost a fortune and will take until 2023 to operate but it is definitely something to look forward to.

https://www.skatelescope.org

Dusty Heart

The Circinus galaxy has billions of stars and a supermassive black hole. Researchers study the warm dust around the black hole that is more complex as we thought. There seems to be layers of dust around the central region What amazes me is that this supermassive black hole that is sucking in matter is more luminous then the billion star galaxy around it. Such immense energy is reflected in the evolution of galaxies.


http://phys.org/news/2014-03-dusty-heart-galaxy.html

Fastest Approaching Object

In general the universe is expanding. We can see it from the redshift of the light from distant galaxies. We sometimes can see periodic blueshifts as stars orbit each other. We can also see some blueshift by gravitational pulls from more massive stars or black holes. Researchers observed an object with blueshift of 1026 kilometers per second. The object observed is from galaxy M87 which has a significantly more massive black hole then the one in the Milky Way. Stars can be shot away from black holes when it's binary partner gets absorbed and to conserve momentum the remaining star gains significant velocity and shots off.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/found-the-fastest-approaching-object-in-the-universe/

Type 1a Supernovae Mass Range

Type 1a supernovae are results of exploding white dwarfs. These 1a supernovae have fairly uniformed luminosity making them the focus of many studies for determining  the expansion and size of the universe. Scientists observe that when the white dwarf reaches the Chandraskhar limit, 1.44 solar masses, it collapses into a 1a supernovae. Scientists thought that having this uniformed mass limit is what causes the uniformed luminosity however it is shown that 1a supernovae actually have a wider range of masses. Some 1a supernovae fall short of the Chandraskhar limit and others even exceed the limit; however all these still fit the normal Typne 1a supernovae. There must be something more going on that creates this uniformed luminosity of the Type 1a supernovae.

http://phys.org/news/2014-03-standard-ia-supernovae-surprisingly-large.html

Plasma Plume Protects Earth

The sun similar to the earth has a magnetic field around it. These magnetic fields actually meet at the 'magnetic reconnection' where the energy of the two magnetic fields are converted into plasma energy. This process is actually when solar flares and other activities from the sun enter earth and produce things like auroras. These particles from the sun however can also interfere with our technology equipment. New research has shown that there is more going on. There is actually a 'plume of plasma' that is actually protecting the earth. Compared to the magnetic reconnection the cool dense plasma is slowing down the process. The earth is really that perfect that perhaps without this plasma plume beings can't exist. I feel like this is why it is so hard to find another planet for us to live on, because there are so many little details we have not yet figured out.

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/plasma-plume-keeps-earth-safe-solar-storms

Black Widow Star

Super cool video that covers most topics we covered up to now. Stellar Evolution, binaries, determining periods, wavelength dependence opacity, telescopes and more...

http://www.space.com/24891-black-widow-pulsar-consumes-star-video.html
also on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udDzfr3ryU

Woman As Director

Just a side note. The new director for National Science Foundation is France Cordova a woman astrophysicist. Yay to women in physics.

http://www.livescience.com/44086-nsf-confirms-new-director.html

Billion-Star Mapping

Last December the European Space Agency launched the Gaia Spacecraft. Gaia is a space observatory that is suppose to map around billion stars, each star 70 times over the span of 5 years. Using 2 identical telescopes with 1.45m*0.5m primary mirrors looking at say 500nm light, it has a resolution limit of:
θ = 1.22 (500nm/1.45m) = 4.21E-7 rad = .0867''
Since each star will be imaged 70 times Gaia can use parallax to measure the distance to each star. Gaia also will be using Photometric instruments to measure characteristics like temperature and gravity; and Radial Velocity Spectrometers to measure the velocity of stars. After the 5 years of mapping astronomers will have billions of data that will help explain the formation of the universe and perhaps even predict the future.

http://www.space.com/24616-gaia-billion-star-mapping-spacecraft-photo.html

Saturn's Auroras

Have you seen one of those beautiful auroras in Alaska? Well imagine that on Saturn! The Hubble Space Telescope observed this occurrence in April of 2013. With data from Hubble and Cassini, probe orbiting Saturn, NASA has put together a new video that shows Saturn's auroras.

http://www.space.com/24650-saturn-auroras-hubble-cassini-video.html

Sail Technology

Space exploration is limited to the technology we can use. Few years ago NASA proposed a project The Terrestrial Planet Finder. The TPF was a collection of satellite telescopes 'linked' together, it would increase the apparent aperture size to improve the resolution of what we can observe. However, this project's budget was through the roof because of how heavy the launch will be. Over in Europe the European Space Agency has researched a way to remove old satellites that finished their missions already. The traditional method of retrieving satellites is to have sufficient fuel to fly it back, this method would increase the weight of the satellite. With the new sail technology, it lowers the cost and mass needed to return satellites. By opening the Deorbit Sail the drag will pull the spacecraft out of orbit and back to earth. This makes it possible to upgrade and reuse old satellites. This kind of research are small steps to sending bigger satellites and systems of satellites that will maximize resolution. 

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering/Clean_Space/Tacking_sails_to_a_satellite

Black Hole Gobble Gas Cloud

We all know that at the center of the Milky Way there is a black hole, Sagittarius A*. in 2007 astronomers discovered gas cloud G2 around Sag A*. G2 is observed from the VLT to be falling into Sag A*, this is expected to happen in March. The observations and measurements on G2 has been made in the hydrogen Brackett-gamma and Paschen-alpha recombination lines which have corresponding wavelengths 1875 nm and 103 nm. However, as the G2 starts to be 'gobbled' by Sag A* it will emit x-ray emissions which is best observed by NASA's Swift telescope. This will be the first time we can observe the interaction of the black hole and it's surrounding. It is also cool to see something get sucked into a black hole!

http://www.space.com/24362-milky-way-black-hole-gas-cloud.html

Aufwachen, Rosetta!

Rosetta is a satellite launched by the European Space Agency back in March of 2004. The Rosetta mission is mainly to reach comet 67P, Tschurjmow-Gerasimenko. All this time Rosetta has been orbiting Earth, Mars, and Sun to gain speed and rotate into comet 67P's orbit. Rosetta has been using solar power to get into the corresponding orbits, however, it went into a hibernation as it travels toward the comet since it is to far from the sun. Rosetta has woken back up from this 957 day hibernation and is getting ready to approach the comet. 

http://www.dw.de/aufwachen-rosetta/a-17363168

Here is a cool website that shows where Rosetta has traveled and where it is now.
 https://util1.estec.esa.int/rosetta/where_is_rosetta/

An Unblinking Eye

From small on when I looked up in the sky I would only see stars. I assumed that there were only clusters of stars with all sorts of sizes but never thought about other objects that can form not seen by the eye. For example this beautiful Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) seen from the Hubble Space Telescope. Who would have thought that clouds of gas and material ejected in pulses by a star can produce such magnificent image.

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2004/09/An_unblinking_eye