#Karl G Jansky Very Large Array

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Credit: Wolfgang Steffen, UNAM

Helical magnetic fields: A universal mechanism for jet collimation?

New observations from the National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory's (NSF NRAO) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (NSF VLA) provide compelling evidence supporting a universal mechanism for the collimation of astrophysical jets, regardless of their origin.

The new study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reveals the presence of a helical magnetic field within the HH 80-81 protostellar jet, a finding that mirrors similar structures observed in jets emanating from supermassive black holes.

Jets, powerful, highly collimated outflows of matter and energy, are observed across a vast range of scales in the universe. From the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies to the young stars in our own Milky Way, these jets play a crucial role in the evolution of their host systems. However, the precise mechanism that guides these jets and prevents them from dispersing into space has remained a long-standing puzzle.

"This is the first solid evidence that helical magnetic fields can explain astrophysical jets at different scales, supporting the universality of the collimation mechanism," said Adriana Rodríguez-Kamenetzky, of Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Astronomy (IATE), Argentinian National Scientific and Technical Research Council and National University of Córdoba (CONICET-UNC) and leader of the work.

Previous research using the NSF VLA, highlighted by NSF NRAO press releases in 2010 and 2021, showed the existence of magnetic fields in some protostellar jets and established the importance of helical magnetic fields in collimating jets from supermassive black holes.

However, until now, definitive evidence confirming the presence of helical magnetic fields in protostellar jets had been elusive. The challenge lies in the fact that the emission from protostellar jets is predominantly thermal, making it difficult to trace the magnetic field structures.

"Back in 2010, we used VLA to detect non-thermal emission and the presence of a magnetic field, but we couldn't study its 3D structure," said Carlos Carrasco-González, of the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics (IRyA) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

This new study overcomes these limitations by utilizing the enhanced capabilities of the upgraded NSF VLA. The high sensitivity and broad bandwidth of the NSF VLA allowed astronomers to perform an unprecedentedly detailed Rotation Measure (RM) analysis of the HH 80-81 jet. The RM analysis allows researchers to correct for Faraday rotation—the rotation of the polarization of light as it passes through a magnetized plasma—revealing the true orientation of the magnetic field.

"For the first time, we were able to study the 3D configuration of the magnetic field in a protostellar jet," said Alice Pasetto, of IRyA-UNAM.

Key results

This study marks the first time RM analysis has been successfully applied to a protostellar jet, providing a unique insight into its three-dimensional magnetic structure.

The analysis definitively reveals a helical magnetic field configuration within the HH 80-81 jet. This result mirrors observations of helical magnetic fields in extragalactic jets, strongly suggesting a common mechanism for jet collimation across vastly different scales.

By analyzing both the approaching jet and the receding counterjet—a feature readily observable in protostellar jets, unlike those originating from supermassive black holes—researchers confirmed that the helical magnetic field is intrinsic to the disk-jet system and not a result of interactions with the surrounding medium.

These findings provide robust support for the hypothesis that helical magnetic fields are a universal mechanism for collimating astrophysical jets, regardless of the scale or origin of the jet. This unifying theory helps unravel the complex physics governing the launch and evolution of these important cosmic structures.

Results of the Rotation Measure analysis in the HH80-81 jet. The left image shows the streamline image of the component of the magnetic field parallel to the plane of the sky. In the middle panel, the color scale of the RM indicates the direction of the magnetic field along the line of sight, i.e., red, away from the observer, and blue, towards the observer. The right panel shows a scheme depicting the 3D configuration of the magnetic field, exhibiting a helical topology. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2025). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad9b26

[nmnomad]

Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array | Trying to figure out the travel plans for the next several months. I hope I have a chance to head that way again this year.

Very Large Array observatory reveals the universe - Science Nation

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/06/28/gravitational-wave-background-nanograv

The mind-bending finding suggests that everything around us is constantly being roiled by low-frequency gravitational waves

By Joel Achenbach and 

Victoria Jaggard

June 28, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. EDT

The very fabric of the cosmos is constantly being roiled and rumpled all around us, according to multiple international teams of scientists that have independently found compelling evidence for long-theorized space-time waves.

The claim that telescopes across the planet have seen signs of a “gravitational wave background” has sent a thrill through the astrophysics community, which has been buzzing for days in anticipation of the papers that were unveiled late Wednesday. The discovery seems to affirm an astounding implication of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity that until now has been far too subtle to detect.

In Einstein’s reimagined universe, space is not serenely empty, and time does not march smoothly forward. Instead, the powerful gravitational interactions of massive objects — including supermassive black holes — regularly ripple the fabric of space and time. The picture that emerges is a universe that looks like a choppy sea, churned by violent events that happened over the course of the past 13 billion-plus years.

The gravitational wave background, as described by the astrophysicists, does not put any torque on everyday human existence. There is not a weight-loss discovery in here somewhere. A burble of gravitational waves cannot explain why some days you feel out of sorts. But it does offer potential insight into the physical reality we all inhabit.

“What we measure is the Earth kind of moving in this sea. It’s bobbing around — and it’s not just bobbing up and down, its bobbing in all directions,” said Michael Lam, an astrophysicist at the SETI Institute and a member of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), a team largely based in North America. The NANOGrav team released the findings in five papers that were published Wednesday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Teams in Europe, India, Australia and China also observed the phenomenon and planned to post their studies at the same time. The simultaneous release of papers from far-flung and competitive teams using similar methodology came only after some scientific diplomacy that ensured no group tried to scoop the rest of the astrophysical community.

“We’ve been on a mission for the last 15 years to find a low-pitch hum of gravitational waves resounding throughout the universe and washing through our galaxy to warp space-time in a measurable way,” NANOGrav chair Stephen Taylor of Vanderbilt University said at a news briefing Tuesday.

“We’re very happy to announce that our hard work has paid off.”

Discovery from dead stars

The feat builds on previous discoveries of things in the universe that are invisible to the naked eye — pulsars. A pulsar is a type of neutron star, the ultradense remnant of a dead star. It is called a pulsar because it spins rapidly, hundredsof revolutions per second, and emits radio waves in a steady pulse. Pulsars were discovered only in the 1960s, not long after the invention of large radio telescopes.

NANOGrav gathered data from 68 pulsars using the Green Bank Telescope in rural West Virginia, the 27 telescopes of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico, and the now-defunctArecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

The pulses from these bizarre objects reach telescopes on Earth at such predictable frequencies that they serve as cosmic timepieces, nearly as accurate as today’s most advanced atomic clocks, said Chiara Mingarelli, an astrophysicist at Yale and a member of the NANOGrav team.

Theorists believed that low-frequency gravitational waves could throw off the arrival of pulsar signals. Such low-frequency ripples can have crests separated by years, so the search for subtle swells in the sea of space-timerequired patience. The deviation in the pulsar data is so slight that it took 15 years of observations to come up with solid evidence of these gravitational waves, Mingarelli said.

The NANOGrav team had previously published reports with preliminary suggestions that the background exists, but had said more time was necessary to boost confidence that the signal was real and not just noise.

“Even devising the experiment was a huge mental leap,” Mingarelli said.

The existence of gravitational waves is not in dispute. In 2016, scientists announced that their ambitious four-decade experiment called LIGO, for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, had detected waves from the merger of two black holes. But the newly announced waves are not one-shot wonders, and theorists are noodling the many potential explanations for why the cosmic sea ripples in such a fashion.

Supermassive black holes are the favored explanation.

Most galaxies are home to supermassive black holes in or near their central region. These black holes certainly deserve the “supermassive” label: They typically have the equivalent mass of millions or even billions of suns. By contrast, “stellar mass” black holes are pipsqueaks, with masses akin to 10 or 20 or 30 suns.

Galaxies rarely collide, but the universe is vast, there are many billions of galaxies, and they have had plenty of time to drift into one another. During a galactic meetup, theorists say, the supermassive black holesat the cores of the two galaxiesfirst will do a gravitational dance. They can orbit each other for millions of years, Lam said. This pairing is known as a supermassive black hole binary.

The swirling dance disturbs the fabric of space-time sufficiently to generate very low-frequency gravitational waves that travel across the universe at the speed of light, scientists believe. Over time, energy leaks from the dance party, as it were, and the supermassive black holes ease closer together, their orbital period shortening to just a few decades. At that point, the wavelengths begin to reach the frequencies detectable by NANOGrav, Lam said.

“So at this point in our measurements, we cannot definitively state what sources are producing the gravitational wave background signal,” NANOGrav team member Luke Kelley, an astrophysicist at the University of California at Berkeley, said at the Tuesday news briefing. However, he said, the data is a compelling match for theoretical predictions.

Theorists are “having fun” coming up with other possible sources for the low-frequency signal, he added. But “if it’s not coming from supermassive black hole binaries, we would need to come up with some explanation of where those supermassive black holes are hiding, and why we’re not seeing their gravitational waves.”

A new astronomical era

No matter the signal’s source, the announcement of a gravitational wave background represents a milestone in the embryonic field of gravitational wave astronomy.

Just as some astronomers use different wavelengths of light to probe the cosmos, they can now look for different types of gravitational waves. The low-frequency waves announced Wednesday wouldn’t be detectable by LIGO, and the opposite is also true: NANOGrav and similar efforts using pulsars could not detect the kind ofhigh-frequency waves from the unimaginably violent stellar-mass black hole mergers seen by LIGO.

Lam said the next goal is to pair specific gravitational waves with potential supermassive black hole binaries detected through more traditional forms of astronomy. In other words, rather than just saying we’re picking up signs of lots of waves, the astronomers could say this particular wave right here came from that place over there.

The announcement carries an echo of another milestone in the history of cosmology. In 1965, two physicists at Bell Labsreported that they had detected the signal of something previously theorized: the cosmic microwave background radiation. That residual glow offered landmark evidence that the universe was created by the big bang.

Maura McLaughlin, co-director of the NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center, said at the Tuesday briefing that the next step will be for the international teams to combine their independent data into one “uber data set” that should show an even clearer signal of the gravitational wave background — and maybe even the first detection of a supermassive black hole binary.

“We’re opening up a completely new window … on the gravitational wave universe,” she said.

The work, she said,should offer deeper insight into the ways galaxies form and evolve. It might even reveal exotic new physics that would alter our fundamental understanding of the cosmos: “It should be really, really exciting.”

[movedtoferinehuntress]

🎮 — favorite video game(s)? (please talk about hzd + why you love it)

Oh man, everyone beware I'm about to lose my mind because I will not stop talking about this.

So anyone who knows me, absolutely knows how much I love LOVE

L O V E

Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. Like this is THE game of the century that has to be played by everyone. One is just the absolutely ingenious concept of this futuristic world where humans are basically "restarting" and you have these tribes and clans and societies and the absolutely devotion and care that Guriella put into it to make it not just believable but absolutely realistic. I'm telling you, my Anthrpological heart SOARS because they did their research, the dung in deep and hard and did not skimp on ANYTHING. Not just that, but Aloy. FREAKING ALOY! THIS BEAUTIFUL AMAZING FEMALE PROTAGONIST THAT IS UNFORGIVING AND RUTHLESS BUT KIND AND COMPASSIONATE! Like fuck yeah, this woman is tender but she's not soft. She is bold but not arrogant. She knows her shit and she knows it good!

Just omfg, If anything, play the game for Aloy! And look at her!

she has features that I don't often see in Protagonist!! She has a round face, a soft chin, she has sunburnt cheeks and wild hair. She's not tall and she has no hour glass figure. She is literally, not something I've seen in term of female characters and yet SHE'S ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AND AMAZING AND I WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO HURT HER!!!

Okay, but then, THEN! IF THAT ISN'T ENOUGH!!! The features in the game itself. These producors, artist, everyone behind it who created HZD/HFW went into depth to create believable beautiful scenary in the game. I'm sorry, but I am one of those players that love graphics. I LOVE IMMERSING MYSELF IN BEAUTIFUL SCENARY! And let me tell you not only is the scenery beautiful BUT THEY USE REAL LIFE LOCATIONS!

From the Last Vegas Strip to The Golden Gate Bridge. There is Zion Human History Museum and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. You also revisit places like Sequoia National Park or Los Angeles Aqueduct. And these are locations in California, New Mexico, Nevada, places up in Colorado and Utah. I mean DAMN! I CAN SHOW YOU ALL THE PICTURES!!!

And The characterization! Each character is 3D, complex and in depth. You got villains yes, but these villains are just, so much more then black and white. Their history, reasoning, why tehy are. Like hell, DO NOT GIVE REGALLA A DAMN REDEMPTION ARC! There is no need for it, because Regalla in her right is a hero in her eyes! Like the woman feels absolutely betrayed by her clan and what she went through can you blame her? Like I'm sorry, but I love how unforgiving she is and that she won't say she's sorry because in her eyes, she is right. And I love this complexity in characters! And the Zenith, holy shit! HOLY SHIT! And then Aloy's characterization and her absolute growth form Horizon Zero Dawn to Horizon Forbidden WEst and omfg I can't what for Horizon 3 to see what happens just.

I will stop now, but I literally, this game. THIS GAME! This is the only game that matters to me. I have replayed HZD and HFW at least 10 times each. There is so much in them and it never ends. I love these games and I so suggest playing them <3

[wayti-blog]

"New observations from the National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NSF NRAO) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (NSF VLA) provide compelling evidence supporting a universal mechanism for the collimation of astrophysical jets, regardless of their origin.  A new study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, reveals the presence of a helical magnetic field within the HH 80-81 protostellar jet, a finding that mirrors similar structures observed in jets emanating from supermassive black holes."

"“This is the first solid evidence that helical magnetic fields can explain astrophysical jets at different scales, supporting universality of the collimation mechanism” (...)."

"These findings provide robust support for the hypothesis that helical magnetic fields are a universal mechanism for collimating astrophysical jets, regardless of the scale or origin of the jet. This unifying theory helps unravel the complex physics governing the launch and evolution of these important cosmic structures. "

continue reading

[gaetaniu]

Le bolle di plasma e il “motore” dei Fast Radio Bursts

Illustrazione artistica di un magnetar, circondato dalla bolla di plasma responsabile dell’emissione persistente osservata in alcuni fast radio burst Svelate le origini delle emissioni persistenti nei fast radio burst L’Osservatorio Nazionale di Radio Astronomia della National Science Foundation (NSF) degli Stati Uniti (NSF NRAO) e il Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (NSF VLA) hanno svolto un…

[truck451]

A Post On Another Blog About A Radio Engineering Enthusiast Spending Time At The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array Within The National Radio Astronomy Observatory In Socorro, New Mexico

7/25/24: Daily Post A post on another Blog about a Radio Engineering enthusiast spending time at the Karl G. Jansky (a pioneer in Radio Astronomy, who had discovered the ability of receiving Radio signals from Outer Space by the means of VHF/Shortwave while on the property of Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey) Very Large Array within the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico.

[skycrorg]

Descubren una rara galaxia de 'vainicas'

La galaxia de vainicas recién identificada recibió la designación RGB1. Las observaciones muestran que RGB1 alberga una región de línea de emisión extendida (EELR), que probablemente esté fotoionizada por un núcleo galáctico activo (AGN).

Astrónomos de la Universidad Estatal de Nuevo México (NMSU) y otros lugares informan sobre el descubrimiento de una nueva galaxia de una clase rara, denominada “vainica”. El hallazgo, realizado con Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), se presentó en un artículo de investigación publicado el 29 de mayo en el servidor de preimpresión arXiv. Las llamadas “vainicas” son galaxias activas muy raras…

[cavenewstimes]

Astronomers Find Underachieving Quasar in Distant Galaxy Cluster

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers have found that H1821+643 — the nearest quasar hosted by a galaxy cluster, at a distance of about 3.4 billion light-years — is less influential than many giant black holes in other galaxy clusters. This composite image shows the quasar H1821+643. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Nottingham…

[michaelgabrill]

NASAs Chandra Identifies an Underachieving Black Hole

This image shows a quasar, a rapidly growing supermassive black hole, which is not achieving what astronomers would expect from it, as reported in our latest press release. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) and radio data from the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky’s Very Large Array (red) reveal some of the evidence for this quasar’s disappointing impact on its […] from NASA https://ift.tt/mtZw08l

[spacenutspod]

Quasar H1821+643.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Nottingham/H. Russell et al.; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk This image shows a quasar, a rapidly growing supermassive black hole, which is not achieving what astronomers would expect from it, as reported in our latest press release. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) and radio data from the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky’s Very Large Array (red) reveal some of the evidence for this quasar’s disappointing impact on its host galaxy. Known as H1821+643, this quasar is about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth. Quasars are a rare and extreme class of supermassive black holes that are furiously pulling material inwards, producing intense radiation and sometimes powerful jets. H1821+643 is the closest quasar to Earth in a cluster of galaxies. Quasars are different than other supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxy clusters in that they are pulling in more material at a higher rate. Astronomers have found that non-quasar black holes growing at moderate rates influence their surroundings by preventing the intergalactic hot gas from cooling down too much. This regulates the growth of stars around the black hole. The influence of quasars, however, is not as well known. This new study of H1821+643 that quasars — despite being so active — may be less important in driving the fate of their host galaxy and cluster than some scientists might expect. To reach this conclusion the team used Chandra to study the hot gas that H1821+643 and its host galaxy are shrouded in. The bright X-rays from the quasar, however, made it difficult to study the weaker X-rays from the hot gas. The researchers carefully removed the X-ray glare to reveal what the black hole’s influence is, which is reflected in the new composite image showing X-rays from hot gas in the cluster surrounding the quasar. This allowed them to see that the quasar is actually having little effect on its surroundings. Using Chandra, the team found that the density of gas near the black hole in the center of the galaxy is much higher, and the gas temperatures much lower, than in regions farther away. Scientists expect the hot gas to behave like this when there is little or no energy input (which would typically come from outbursts from a black hole) to prevent the hot gas from cooling down and flowing towards the center of the cluster. A paper describing these results has been accepted into the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available online. The authors are Helen Russell (University of Nottingham, UK), Paul Nulsen (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian), Andy Fabian (University of Cambridge, UK), Thomas Braben (University of Nottingham), Niel Brandt (Penn State University), Lucy Clews (University of Nottingham), Michael McDonald (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Christopher Reynolds (University of Maryland), Jeremy Saunders (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Research), and Sylvain Veilleux (University of Maryland). NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/chandra-x-ray-observatory/ Visual Description: This composite image shows a quasar, a rare and extreme class of supermassive black hole, that’s located about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth. At the center of the image is a bright, white, circular light, similar to the beam of a flashlight if it was pointed directly toward you. A fuzzy, bar-shaped structure of red-colored radio light, slightly larger than the width of the white light, surrounds the circular structure. The red bar also extends above and below the white light, stretching in a somewhat straight line from about the one o’clock position to the seven o’clock position on a clock face. On either side of the red bar, X-ray light is present as blue, wispy clouds of hot gas that are brighter closer to the red and white features. The brighter clouds represent more dense gas. News Media Contact Megan WatzkeChandra X-ray CenterCambridge, Mass.617-496-7998 Jonathan DealMarshall Space Flight CenterHuntsville, Ala.256-544-0034

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA’s Hubble, Chandra find supermassive black hole duo

Like two Sumo wrestlers squaring off, the closest confirmed pair of supermassive black holes have been observed in tight proximity. These are located approximately 300 light-years apart and were detected using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These black holes, buried deep within a pair of colliding galaxies, are fueled by infalling gas and dust, causing them to shine brightly as active galactic nuclei (AGN).

This AGN pair is the closest one detected in the local universe using multiwavelength (visible and X-ray light) observations. While several dozen "dual" black holes have been found before, their separations are typically much greater than what was discovered in the gas-rich galaxy MCG-03-34-64. Astronomers using radio telescopes have observed one pair of binary black holes in even closer proximity than in MCG-03-34-64, but without confirmation in other wavelengths.

AGN binaries like this were likely more common in the early universe when galaxy mergers were more frequent. This discovery provides a unique close-up look at a nearby example, located about 800 million light-years away.

The discovery was serendipitous. Hubble's high-resolution imaging revealed three optical diffraction spikes nested inside the host galaxy, indicating a large concentration of glowing oxygen gas within a very small area. "We were not expecting to see something like this," said Anna Trindade Falcão of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, lead author of the paper published today in The Astrophysical Journal. "This view is not a common occurrence in the nearby universe, and told us there's something else going on inside the galaxy."

Diffraction spikes are imaging artifacts caused when light from a very small region in space bends around the mirror inside telescopes.

Falcão's team then examined the same galaxy in X-rays light using the Chandra observatory to drill into what's going on. "When we looked at MCG-03-34-64 in the X-ray band, we saw two separated, powerful sources of high-energy emission coincident with the bright optical points of light seen with Hubble. We put these pieces together and concluded that we were likely looking at two closely spaced supermassive black holes," said Falcão.

o support their interpretation, the researchers used archival radio data from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico. The energetic black hole duo also emits powerful radio waves. "When you see bright light in optical, X-rays, and radio wavelengths, a lot of things can be ruled out, leaving the conclusion these can only be explained as close black holes. When you put all the pieces together it gives you the picture of the AGN duo," said Falcão.

The third source of bright light seen by Hubble is of unknown origin, and more data is needed to understand it. That might be gas that is shocked by energy from a jet of ultra high-speed plasma fired from one of the black holes, like a stream of water from a garden hose blasting into a pile of sand.

"We wouldn't be able to see all of these intricacies without Hubble's amazing resolution," said Falcão.

The two supermassive black holes were once at the core of their respective host galaxies. A merger between the galaxies brought the black holes into close proximity. They will continue to spiral closer together until they eventually merge — in perhaps 100 million years — rattling the fabric of space and time as gravitational waves.

The National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected gravitational waves from dozens of mergers between stellar-mass black holes. But the longer wavelengths resulting from a supermassive black hole merger are beyond LIGO's capabilities. The next-generation gravitational wave detector, called the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, will consist of three detectors in space, separated by millions of miles, to capture these longer wavelength gravitational waves from deep space. ESA (European Space Agency) is leading this mission, partnering with NASA and other participating institutions, with a planned launch in the mid-2030s.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge, Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. Northrop Grumman Space Technologies in Redondo Beach, California was the prime contractor for the spacecraft.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

IMAGE: This is an artist's depiction of a pair of active black holes at the heart of two merging galaxies. They are both surrounded by an accretion disk of hot gas. Some of the material is ejected along the spin axis of each black hole. Confined by powerful magnetic fields, the jets blaze across space at nearly the speed of light as devastating beams of energy. Credit NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

[jcmarchi]

NASA-Supported Team Discovers Aurora-Like Radio Bursts Above Sunspot - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/nasa-supported-team-discovers-aurora-like-radio-bursts-above-sunspot-technology-org/

NASA-Supported Team Discovers Aurora-Like Radio Bursts Above Sunspot - Technology Org

A NASA-funded team of scientists has discovered long-lasting radio signals emanating from the Sun that are similar to those associated with auroras—the northern and southern lights—on Earth.

Scientists have discovered radio bursts above a sunspot resembling radio emissions from Earth’s auroras. The pink-purple streaks in this illustration represent the radio emissions, with higher-frequency radio signals in pink, closer to the sunspot, and lower frequencies in purple. The thin lines represent magnetic field lines above the sunspot. The sunspot is the dark region on the Sun at the bottom. Image credit: Sijie Yu, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Detected about 25,000 miles (40,000 km) above a sunspot – a relatively cool, dark, and magnetically active region on the Sun – such radio bursts had previously been observed only on planets and other stars.

“This sunspot radio emission represents the first detection of its kind,” said Sijie Yu of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, who is the lead author of a paper reporting the discovery in the January 2024 issue of Nature Astronomy. The research was first published online in November 2023.

The discovery could help us better understand our own star as well as the behavior of distant stars that produce similar radio emissions.

The Sun often emits short radio bursts that last for minutes or hours. But the radio bursts Yu’s team detected, using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico, persisted for over a week.

These sunspot radio bursts also have other characteristics – such as their spectra (or intensity at different wavelengths) and their polarization (the angle or direction of the radio waves) – that are much more like radio emissions produced in the polar regions of Earth and other planets with auroras.

On Earth (and other planets such as Jupiter and Saturn), auroras shimmer in the night sky when solar particles are caught up in the planet’s magnetic field and pulled toward the poles, where magnetic field lines converge. As they accelerate poleward, the particles generate intense radio emissions at frequencies around a few hundred kilohertz and then smash into atoms in the atmosphere, causing them to emit light as auroras.

The analysis by Yu’s team suggests the radio bursts above the sunspot are likely produced in a comparable way – when energetic electrons get trapped and accelerated by converging magnetic fields above a sunspot. Unlike Earth’s auroras, though, the radio bursts from sunspots occur at much higher frequencies – hundreds of thousands of kilohertz to roughly 1 million kilohertz. “That’s a direct result of the sunspot’s magnetic field being thousands of times stronger than Earth’s,” Yu said.

Scientists detected aurora-like radio bursts above the large, dark sunspot seen in the upper left in this image of the Sun taken on April 11, 2016, by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Image credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

Similar radio emissions have previously been observed from some types of low-mass stars as well. This discovery introduces the possibility that aurora-like radio emissions may originate from large spots on those stars (called “starspots”) in addition to the previously proposed auroras in their polar regions.

“The discovery excites us as it challenges existing notions of solar radio phenomena and opens new avenues for exploring magnetic activities both in our Sun and in distant stellar systems,” Yu said.

“NASA’s growing heliophysics fleet is well suited to continue to investigate the source regions of these radio bursts,” said Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy, a heliophysicist and solar radio researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “For example, the Solar Dynamics Observatory continually monitors the Sun’s active regions, which likely give rise to this phenomenon.”

In the meantime, Yu’s team plans to reexamine other solar radio bursts to see whether any appear similar to the aurora-like ones they found. “We aim to determine if some of the previously recorded solar bursts could be instances of this newly identified emission,” Yu said.

[ricmlm]

SETI "Live": The COSMIC Project at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array

[jhavelikes]

Using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers have discovered a millisecond pulsar in the globular cluster GLIMPSE-C01 as part of the VLA Low-band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment (VLITE). This is the first pulsar ever detected in this cluster.

First pulsar detected in globular cluster GLIMPSE-C01