Astron

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. [1] Two large observatories were built in the United States with the aim of detecting gravitational waves by laser interferometry . The initial LIGO observatories were funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and were conceived, built, and are operated by Caltech and MIT . [2] [3] They collected data from 2002 to 2010 but no gravitational waves were detected. The Advanced LIGO Project to enhance the original LIGO detectors began in 2008 and continues to be supported by the NSF, with important contributions from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council , the Max Planck Society of Germany, and the Australian Research Council . [4] [5] The improved detectors began operation in 2015. The detection of gravitational waves was reported in 2016...

The Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) is a solar observatory located on the north side of Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains of southwestern San Bernardino County , California (USA), approximately 120 kilometers (75 mi) east of downtown Los Angeles . The telescopes and instruments at the observatory are designed and employed specifically for studying the activities and phenomena of our solar system's star, the Sun . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bear_Solar_Observatory   Portal BBSO  

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a NASA mission which has been observing the Sun since 2010. [4] Launched on February 11, 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star (LWS) program. [5] The goal of the LWS program is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to effectively address those aspects of the connected Sun – Earth system directly affecting life and society. The goal of the SDO is to understand the influence of the Sun on the Earth and near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. SDO has been investigating how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured, how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind , energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance . [6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Dynamics_Observatory   Portal  

Published on Feb 20, 2013 Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist. http://www.lars-leonhard.de/ Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona. On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays -- a phenomenon known as coronal rain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFT7ATLQQx8    

 Beta Pictoris b (also abbreviated as β Pic b) is an exoplanet orbiting the young debris disk A-type main sequence star Beta Pictoris located approximately 63 light-years (19.4 parsecs , or nearly 5.986 214 × 10 14 km ) away from Earth in the constellation of Pictor . It has a mass around 7 Jupiter masses and a radius around 65% larger than Jupiter 's. It orbits at 9 AU from Beta Pictoris (close to the plane of the debris disk orbiting the star) with a low eccentricity and a period of 20–21 years, and is the only known planet in the Beta Pictoris system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Pictoris_b   Portal  

At the 2012 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU; the international body for professional astronomy ), the organising committee of IAU Commission 5 (Data and Information) requested the creation of a list of Astronomical Acronyms on Wikipedia. This list of acronyms and initials is not definitive but reflects current usage amongst professional astronomers . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_acronyms

In 2016, the IAU mobilised the Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) under its Division C (Education, Outreach, and Heritage), whose purpose was to formally catalogue the names of stars, beginning with the brightest and best-known. The Working Group is composed of an assortment of astronomers from all over the world who bring different perspectives and experience to its decisions. Further details on the establishment of the group can be found in this press release . Alphanumeric designations are useful for astronomers to officially identify the stars they study, but in many instances, for cases of bright stars, and stars of historical, cultural, or astrophysical interest, it can be more convenient to refer to them by a memorable name. Many such names are already in common parlance, and have been for a long time, but until the establishment of the WGSN there was no official, IAU-approved catalogue of names for the brightest stars in our sky. https://www.iau.org/public/th...

The atmospheres of WASP planets with JWST The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to revolutionise the study of exoplanet atmospheres following its launch in 2018, and WASP planets will be among the prime targets. Paul Mollière et al have been simulating the data expected, and have produced this illustration of the atmospheric emission spectrum of WASP-18b.  https://wasp-planets.net/

ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is a two-part Martian astrobiology project to search for evidence of life on Mars , a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos . The first part, launched in 2016, placed a trace gas research and communication satellite into Mars orbit and released a stationary experimental lander (which crashed). The second part is planned to launch in 2020, and to land a rover on the surface, supporting a science mission that is expected to last into 2022 or beyond. [1] [2] [3] ExoMars goals are to search for signs of past and present life on Mars , [4] investigate how the Martian water and geochemical environment varies, investigate atmospheric trace gases and their sources and by doing so demonstrate the technologies for a future Mars sample return mission. [5] The mission will search for biosignatures of Martian life, past or present, employing several spacecraft elements to be sent to Mars on two launches. ...

Fiona Joy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP81wRBotTg&feature=youtu.be

Such As: Special Astrophysics Seminar Using HST/STIS data to Model High-Velocity Bullets from a Dying Star Presented by Samantha Scibelli Stony Brook University Friday, December 18, 2015 11:00 A.M. in 169-336 Abstract The carbon star V Hydrae (V Hya) experiences heavy mass loss as it transitions from an AGB star to a bipolar pre-planetary nebula. Although extensive observational and theoretical studies have been done, the nature of the launching mechanism for these jet-like outflows remain...

Juno is a NASA space probe orbiting the planet Jupiter . It was built by Lockheed Martin and is operated by NASA 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory . The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011 ( UTC ), as part of the New Frontiers program , [6] and entered a polar orbit of Jupiter on July 5, 2016 (UTC), [4] [7] to begin a 20-month scientific investigation of the planet. [8] After completing its mission, Juno will be intentionally deorbited into Jupiter's atmosphere. [8] Juno 's mission is to measure Jupiter's composition, gravity field , magnetic field , and polar magnetosphere . It will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, mass distribution , and its deep winds, which can reach speeds of 618 kilometers per hour (384 mph). [9]      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)   http://spaceflight101....

Gaia is an ambitious mission to chart a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, in the process revealing the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy. Gaia will provide unprecedented positional and radial velocity measurements with the accuracies needed to produce a stereoscopic and kinematic census of about one billion stars in our Galaxy and throughout the Local Group. This amounts to about 1 per cent of the Galactic stellar population. http://sci.esa.int/gaia/   Portal  

Spectroscopy / s p ɛ k ˈ t r ɒ s k ə p i / is the study of the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation . [1] [2] Historically, spectroscopy originated through the study of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength , by a prism . Later the concept was expanded greatly to include any interaction with radiative energy as a function of its wavelength or frequency . Spectroscopic data is often represented by an emission spectrum , a plot of the response of interest as a function of wavelength or frequency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy   Portal   Astronomical Spectroscopy  

A star catalogue ( Commonwealth English ) or star catalog ( American English ), is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars . In astronomy , many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years, and this article covers only some of the more frequently quoted ones. Star catalogues were compiled by many different ancient peoples, including the Babylonians , Greeks , Chinese , Persians , and Arabs . Most modern catalogues are available in electronic format and can be freely downloaded from space agencies data center. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_catalogue   Portal  

SN 1987A was a supernova in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a nearby dwarf galaxy ). It occurred approximately 51.4 kiloparsecs from Earth , approximately 168,000 light-years , [3] close enough that it was visible to the naked eye . It could be seen from the Southern Hemisphere. It was the closest observed supernova since SN 1604 , which occurred in the Milky Way itself. The light from the new supernova reached Earth on February 23, 1987. [5] As it was the first supernova discovered in 1987, it was labeled “1987A”. Its brightness peaked in May with an apparent magnitude of about 3 and slowly declined in the following months. It was the first opportunity for modern astronomers to study the development of a supernova in detail, and observations have provided much insight into core-collapse supernovae . Of special importance, SN1987A provided the first chance to confirm by direct observation the radioactive source of the energy for visib...

One of the most important concepts in Astronomy/AstroPhysics: In physics , redshift happens when light or other electromagnetic radiation from an object is increased in wavelength , or shifted to the red end of the spectrum . In general, whether or not the radiation is within the visible spectrum , "redder" means an increase in wavelength – equivalent to a lower frequency and a lower photon energy, in accordance with, respectively, the wave and quantum theories of light. Some redshifts are an example of the Doppler effect , familiar in the change of apparent pitches of sirens and frequency of the sound waves emitted by speeding vehicles. A redshift occurs whenever a light source moves away from an observer. A special instance of this is the cosmological redshift, which is due to the expansion of the universe , and sufficiently distant light sources (generally more than a few million light years away) show redshift corresponding to the rate of increase in thei...

Io ( pronunciation: / ˈ aɪ . oʊ / [7] ) is the innermost of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter . It is the fourth-largest moon , has the highest density of all the moons, and has the least amount of relative water of any known object in the Solar System . It was discovered in 1610 and was named after the mythological character Io , a priestess of Hera who became one of Zeus 's lovers. With over 400 active volcanoes , Io is the most geologically active object in the Solar System. [8] [9] This extreme geologic activity is the result of tidal heating from friction generated within Io's interior as it is pulled between Jupiter and the other Galilean satellites— Europa , Ganymede and Callisto . Several volcanoes produce plumes of sulfur and sulfur dioxide that climb as high as 500 km (300 mi) above the surface. Io's surface is also dotted with more than 100 mountains that have been uplifted by extensive compression at the base of Io's silicate crust....

Linda A. Morabito (born November 21, 1953), also known as Linda Kelly, Linda Hyder, and Linda Morabito-Meyer, is the astronomer who made the discovery of volcanic activity on Io , a moon of Jupiter, on March 9, 1979, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory . At the time of her discovery, she was serving as Cognizant Engineer over the Optical Navigation Image Processing System (ONIPS) on the Voyager deep space mission Navigation Team. While performing image processing analysis of a Voyager 1 picture taken for spacecraft navigation, she detected a 270 kilometres (170 mi) tall cloud off the limb of Io. The cloud was of volcanic origin. [1] This was the first time in history that active volcanism was detected outside Earth. Her discovery is considered by some planetary scientists as the largest discovery of the planetary exploration program that has come out of Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Morabito is currently an associate professor of astronomy at Victor Valley College . L...

Lisa Randall (born June 18, 1962) is an American theoretical physicist and an expert on particle physics and cosmology . She is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science on the physics faculty of Harvard University . [1] Her research includes elementary particles and fundamental forces and she has developed and studied a wide variety of models, the most recent involving extra dimensions of space. She has advanced the understanding and testing of the Standard Model , supersymmetry , possible solutions to the hierarchy problem concerning the relative weakness of gravity, cosmology of extra dimensions, baryogenesis , cosmological inflation , and dark matter . [2] Her best-known contribution is the Randall–Sundrum model , first published in 1999 with Raman Sundrum . [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Randall   Portal  

Karin Ingegerd Öberg (born August 27, 1982) is a Swedish astrochemist . [1] She is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and leader of the Öberg Astrochemistry Group at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics . [2] She is best known for her work studying star formation , planet formation , and stellar evolution in relation to organic molecules , which are necessary to determine the origins of life on Earth and elsewhere. [3] [4] In April 2015, Öberg's group discovered the first complex organic molecule in a protoplanetary disk. [2] [5] [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_%C3%96berg   Portal   https://video.ias.edu/jointastro/2016/1101-KarinOberg  

OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE: ZOOMING INTO THE LOCAL GROUP Most of this course will focus on the Local Group. Let's place the Local Group within its context in the local Universe. We have seen that CDM models of the universe predict a "soap-sudsy" universe, with matter concentrated into strands. What do we actually observe http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/ASTR5610/lectures/LECTURE1B/lec1b.html    Stickman

The Great Attractor is a gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space within the vicinity of the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster at the centre of the Laniakea Supercluster that reveals the existence of a localised concentration of mass tens of thousands of times more massive than the Milky Way . This mass is observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated clusters over a region hundreds of millions of light-years across. The Great Attractor is moving towards the Shapley Supercluster . [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor   Portal  

The Sloan Great Wall (SGW) is a cosmic structure formed by a giant wall of galaxies (a galaxy filament ). Its discovery was announced from Princeton University on October 20, 2003, by J. Richard Gott III , Mario Jurić , and their colleagues, based on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey . [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Great_Wall   Portal  

Sigma Orionis or Sigma Ori (σ Orionis, σ Ori) is a multiple star system in the constellation Orion , consisting of the brightest members of a young open cluster . It is found at the eastern end of the belt , south west of Alnitak and west of the Horsehead Nebula which it partially illuminates. The total brightness of the component stars is magnitude 3.80. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_Orionis   Portal  

Cal Gold Vid - Huell Howser The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California , United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson , a 1,740-metre (5,710-foot) peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena , northeast of Los Angeles. The observatory contains two historically important telescopes: the 100-inch (2.5 m) Hooker telescope , which was the largest aperture telescope in the world from its completion in 1917 to 1949, and the 60-inch telescope which was the largest telescope in the world when it was completed in 1908. It also contains the Snow solar telescope completed in 1905, the 60 foot (18 m) solar tower completed in 1908, the 150 foot (46 m) solar tower completed in 1912, and the CHARA array , built by Georgia State University, which became fully operational in 2004 and was the largest optical interferometer in the world at its completion. Due to the inversion layer that traps smog over Los Angeles, Mo...

A constellation is a group of celestial bodies, usually stars, which appear to form a pattern in the sky. Astronomers today still utilize the term, though the current system focuses primarily on constellations as grid-like segments of the celestial sphere rather than as patterns. A star-pattern that is not officially classed as a constellation is referred to as an asterism. One famous example is the asterism known as the Big Dipper, a term unused by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as the stars are considered part of the larger constellation of Ursa Major.  The stars within a constellation rarely have any substantial astrophysical relationship to each other, and their apparent proximity when viewed from Earth disguises the fact that they typically lie light years apart. However, there are some exceptions: in the constellation of Ursa Major, the Big Dipper is almost entirely constituted by stars approximate to one another, belonging to a stellar group known ...

by Neil deGrasse Tyson From Natural History Magazine, April 2002 The second and third Lagrangian points (L2 and L3) also lie on the Earth-Moon line, but this time L2 lies far beyond the far side of the Moon , while L3 lies far beyond Earth in the opposite direction. Once again, the three forces—Earth's gravity, the Moon's gravity, and the centrifugal force of the rotating system—cancel in concert. And once again, an object placed in either spot can orbit the Earth-Moon center of gravity with the same monthly period as the Moon.   http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2002/04/01/the-five-points-of-lagrange/

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is a Flagship-class space observatory under construction and scheduled to launch in October 2018. The JWST will offer unprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength (orange-red) visible light, through near-infrared to the mid-infrared (0.6 to 27 micrometers), and is a successor instrument to the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope . While Hubble has a 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) mirror, the JWST features a larger and segmented 6.5-meter (21 ft) diameter primary mirror and will be located near the Earth–Sun L 2 point. A large sunshield will keep its mirror and four science instruments below 50 K (−220 °C; −370 °F). The James Webb Space Telescope will not be in orbit around the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope is - it will actually orbit the Sun , 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is ...

Elon explains in this Vid

NASA 's series of Great Observatories satellites are four large, powerful space-based astronomical telescopes . Each of the four missions was designed to examine a specific wavelength/energy region of the electromagnetic spectrum (gamma rays, X-rays, visible and ultraviolet light, infrared light) using very different technologies. Dr. Charles Pellerin, NASA's Director, Astrophysics invented and developed the program. The four Great Observatories were launched between 1990 and 2003, and three remain operational as of 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Observatories_program   Portal  

GRB 080319B was a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected by the Swift satellite at 06:12 UTC on March 19, 2008. The burst set a new record for the farthest object that was observable with the naked eye : [2] it had a peak visual apparent magnitude of 5.8 and remained visible to human eyes for approximately 30 seconds. [3] The magnitude was brighter than 9.0 for approximately 60 seconds. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_080319B   Portal  

Quasars ( / ˈ k w eɪ z ɑːr / ) or quasi-stellar radio sources are the most energetic and distant members of a class of objects called active galactic nuclei (AGN). Quasars are extremely luminous and were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy , including radio waves and visible light , that appeared to be similar to stars , rather than extended sources similar to galaxies . Their spectra contain very broad emission lines , unlike any known from stars, hence the name "quasi-stellar." Their luminosity can be 100 times greater than that of the Milky Way. [2] Most quasars were formed approximately 12 billion years ago , and they are normally caused by collisions of galaxies, with the galaxies' central black holes merging to form either a supermassive black hole [3] or a binary black hole system. Although the true nature of these objects was controversial until the early 1980s, there is now a scientific consensus that a quasar i...

Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System , Voyager 1 launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2 . Having operated for 39 years, 1 month and 11 days, the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data. At a distance of 135 AU (2.02 × 10 10  km) from the Sun as of June 2016, [3] it is the farthest spacecraft from Earth . The probe's primary mission objectives included flybys of Jupiter , Saturn , and Saturn's large moon, Titan . While the spacecraft's course could have been altered to include a Pluto encounter by forgoing the Titan flyby, exploration of the moon, which was known to have a substantial atmosphere, took priority. [4] [5] [6] It studied the weather, magnetic fields, and rings of the two planets and was the first probe to provide detailed images of their moons . After completing its primary mission w...