#Radio Astronomy;

[guelfoalexander]

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993ApJ…415..218H/abstract

Five Years of Project META: an All-Sky Narrow-Band Radio Search for Extraterrestrial Signals

Horowitz, Paul

Sagan, Carl

Abstract:

We have conducted a five-year search of the northern sky (delta between 30 and 60 deg) for narrow-band radio signals near the 1420 MHz line of neutral hydrogen, and its second harmonic, using an 8.4 x 10 exp 6 channel Fourier spectrometer of 0.05 Hz resolution and 400 kHz instantaneous bandwidth. The observing frequency was corrected both for motions with respect to three astronomical inertial frames, and for the effect of Earth's rotation, which provides a characteristic changing Doppler signature for narrow-band signals of extraterrestrial origin. Among the 6 x 10 exp 13 spectral channels searched, we have found 37 candidate events exceeding the average detection threshold of 1.7 x 10 exp -23 W/sq m, none of which was detected upon reobservation. The strongest of these appear to be dominated by rare processor errors. However, the strongest signals that survive culling for terrestrial interference lie in or near the Galactic plane. We describe the search and candidate events, and set limits on the prevalence of supercivilizations transmitting Doppler-precompensated beacons at H I or its second harmonic. We conclude with recommendations for future searches, based upon these findings, and a description of our next-generation search system.

Publication: 

Astrophysical Journal v.415, p.218 Pub Date: September 1993  DOI: 10.1086/173157   

[todays-xkcd]

Dr. Petroff has also shown that the Higgs boson signal was actually sparks from someone microwaving grapes, the EHT black hole photo was a frozen bagel someone left in too long, and the LIGO detection was just someone slamming the microwave door too hard.

Fast Radio Bursts [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball standing behind a lectern, with a poster hung from the ceiling behind him] Potential sources of fast radio bursts: (1) Energetic stellar-sized astrophysical objects floating in space Cueball: We're pretty sure this is what most of them are.

(2) Microwave ovens in the observatory break room Cueball: This was definitely some of them, oops. (Petroff et. al., 2015)

(3) Energetic steller-sized microwave ovens floating in space Cueball: We think this one is unlikely.

(4) Energetic stellar-sized astrophysical objects in the observatory break room Cueball: This is almost certainly not it, though we're sending a grad student to double-check.

[mindblowingscience]

On Feb. 22, a lunar lander named Odysseus touched down near the moon's South Pole and popped out four antennas to record radio waves around the surface—a moment University of Colorado Boulder astrophysicist Jack Burns hails as the "dawn of radio astronomy from the moon." It was a major achievement for the tenacious lander, which was built by the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines and had to overcome a series of technical difficulties to make it to the lunar surface. Burns is co-investigator on the radio experiment that flew aboard Odysseus called Radio wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photo Electron Sheath (ROLSES). He'll give an update on the ROLSES data, and will share what's in store for future radio astronomy from the moon, this week at the 244th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin.

Continue Reading.

[aviyinglet]

Yinglet Commission #9: Abyss

A recent and increasingly relevant fixture within astronomy circles, Abyss is a credit to zher field of research! Zhi can be found, uh -- (looks around) -- Oh! Up there This is a commission! Closed as of this writing, but I'm making my way thru the queue. Details can be found here! Timelapse - Patreon - Ko-fi Abyss belongs to zherself (and I'd like to give zher a special credit for helping me get a handle on the Beizel-style "pointy" yinglet shape) The yinglet species (and its natural compatibility with scaffolded surfaces) was created by Valsalia

[dragons-in-spaceee]

I felt I had to do my duty to promote my favourite film!!!!! It’s so so so fucking amazing. I’m ill rn so sorry this is kinda shite but GO WATCH CONTACT NOW!!!!

[michealhehejackson]

And here's how I imagine Luca and Alberto as older teens >>

I know for sure one of Luca's favorite things to do would be just chillin and reading. Luca would love and know a lot about astronomy. When Alberto learns sports exist, he'd definitely love it, specifically soccer!! (Since it's applied in the movie that they don't know about sports) Alberto would definitely be the dude that accidentally hits someone in the head with the ball 💀

[stormbear]

Owens Valley Radio Observatory, California

[livingforstars]

The Dawn of the Clusters - January 15th, 1996.

"What did the Universe look like near the beginning? This exciting photo by the Hubble Space Telescope was one of the deepest ever taken, and shows galaxies as far away as ever before photographed. The Universe back then - when only one third of its present age - was a strange and violent place. Back then, a large fraction of galaxies were colliding and interacting. In fact, the shapes of many galaxies in the above photo are more distorted than most nearby galaxies. At this early Universe epoch, many clusters of galaxies were just forming. The bright twisted group of galaxies below the photograph's center contains the energetic radio galaxy 3C324."

[astraiox]

The radial magnetic field around NGC 4631 (Golla and Hummel 1994)

[whirligig-girl]

Commission for @foxgirlchorix of a foxgirl robot with just, like, absolutely MASSIVE radio telescope ears.

[physics-for-fishes]

Space is a near-perfect vacuum, but it’s not entirely empty. A small list of matter include :

a few hydrogen atoms here and there (less than one hydrogen atom per cubic meter)

Dark Matter — an enigma that was recently discovered in the 20th century. It doesn’t interact with the normal matter that we’re used to (eg. solid, gas, liquid). We can’t see it since it doesn't interact with light or any electromagnetic radiation. However, it does exist and makes up about 27% of the universe.

Neutrinos — neutral subatomic particles with little mass and no electric charge. They’re from atoms that come together (nuclear fusion) or break apart (nuclear fission)

Electromagnetic radiation and magnetic fields

There are other things that exist in outer space but they’re usually not normal matter and don’t make space very dense at all. It’s okay because space is never truly empty but it can still be very close to empty, making it a far better vacuum than the best ones we can make on earth.

This is not an issue for electromagnetic waves (like light and radio waves) that can travel through space unhindered because they don’t need any medium to propagate.

Sound waves are different since they're mechanical waves, which is just vibrating matter. Hence, they need a medium to travel through to be heard. In space there is no air or medium for sound waves to travel through. This means that no one can hear you scream in space :)

[merelygifted]

Hubble Finds Weird Home of Farthest Fast Radio Burst - NASA Science

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a rare event in an oddball place.

It's called a fast radio burst (FRB), a fleeting blast of energy that can – for a few milliseconds – outshine an entire galaxy. Hundreds of FRBs have been detected over the past few years. They pop off all over the sky like camera flashes at a stadium event, but the sources behind these intense bursts of radiation remain uncertain.

This new FRB is particularly weird because it erupted halfway across the universe, making it the farthest and most powerful example detected to date.

And if that's not strange enough, it just got weirder based on the follow-up Hubble observations made after its discovery. The FRB flashed in what seems like an unlikely place: a collection of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. The large majority of previous FRBs have been found in isolated galaxies.  ...

[mindblowingscience]

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are sudden and intense blasts of radio wave energy from deep space that remain one of the most intriguing mysteries in astrophysics, and a new study adds valuable insight into what might be generating them. Led by a team from the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), researchers looked at FRB 20201124A, first discovered in 2020. Specifically, they analyzed a persistent radio source (PRS) near the FRB.

Continue Reading.

[quiltofstars]

Fornax A (NGC 1316, center) and NGC 1317 (below right of center) // Evan Tsai

[lmiranal]

×]Мгновенная карма

[objection-dot-lol]

This is a Green Bank Telescope appreciation post

the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is located in Green Bank, WV

The GBT is a radio telescope, which means it collects electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves instead of visible light, allowing scientists to observe things that can’t be seen through a normal telescope

The GBT is 485 ft tall, making it 180 ft taller than the Statue of Liberty and 31 feet taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza

The telescope weighs 17 million pounds. All of that weight is distributed across 16 wheels, meaning each wheel holds over 1 million pounds of weight

The dish itself is 328 feet in diameter, making the GBT the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope

The GBT is currently being used for a project called Breakthrough Listen, which is an effort by SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) to detect radio waves coming from potentially alien technology

The GBT is so sensitive that only diesel vehicles are allowed near the telescope, since spark plugs generate too much radio interference

Surrounding the GBT is a roughly 13,000 square mile zone known as the National Radio Quiet Zone. The NRQZ encompasses areas of West Virginia, Virginia, and a very small part of Maryland

The Green Bank Observatory, which houses the GBT, has numerous other telescopes which have made various important discoveries. One of these telescopes, the Tatel 85-foot telescope, discovered the black hole Sagittarius A*

You can visit the Green Bank Observatory and see the telescope yourself! They offer tours and it’s really cool :)