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