This is a picture of the 2015 US team that competed in the International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics (an international high school competition for astronomy) in Indonesia. One team member won honorable mention, two won bronze, and one won a silver medal.
A while ago, I had posted about the USAAAO. Well, the US Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad has come a long way since it was first founded almost 3 years ago - it has garnered interest among hundreds of high school students across the country, and last year’s team even snagged a silver medal, two bronze medals, and honorable mention last summer. But we need your help to strengthen the team even further against other top teams across the world.
We need a training camp to help prepare the top five students who will go on to the IOAA. The team needs a chance to work with each other before competing, and some portions of the competition, such as the telescope-involved parts, are nearly impossible to prepare for individually. MIT has agreed to host the summer camp if we can raise the funds to do so, so please consider donating! Every little bit helps! And if you can’t donate, please share this link so that words spreads and others can.
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day 2016 July 12
Chasing Juno
Wait for me! In 2011, NASA’s robotic mission Juno launched for Jupiter from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. Last week, Juno reached Jupiter and fired internal rockets to become only the second spacecraft to orbit our Solar System’s largest planet. Juno, tasked with studying the jovian giant over the next two years, is in a highly elliptical orbit that will next bringing it near Jupiter’s cloud tops in late August. Of course, the three-year-old pictured was not able to catch up to the launching rocket. Today, however, five years later, he is eight-years-old and still chasing rockets – in that now he wants to be an astronaut.
Book of the day: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Get the FREE Kindle Reading App
Four Lasers Over Paranal
First light for the Four Laser Guide Star Facility on ESO’s Very Large Telescope
On 26 April 2016 ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile hosted an event to mark the first light for the four powerful lasers that form a crucial part of the adaptive optics systems on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Attendees were treated to a spectacular display of cutting-edge laser technology against the majestic skies of Paranal. These are the most powerful laser guide stars ever used for astronomy and the event marks the first use of multiple laser guide stars at ESO.ESO staff were present for the event, along with senior representatives of the companies that have manufactured the different components of the new system.
The Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) shines four 22-watt laser beams into the sky to create artificial guide stars by making sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere glow so that they look just like real stars [1]. The artificial stars allow the adaptive optics systems to compensate for the blurring caused by the Earth’s atmosphere and so that the telescope can create sharp images. Using more than one laser allows the turbulence in the atmosphere to be mapped in far greater detail to significantly improve the image quality over a larger field of view.
The Four Laser Guide Star Facility is an example of how ESO enables European industry to lead complex research and development projects. The fibre laser used by the 4LGSF is also one of the most successful transfers of ESO technology to industry.
TOPTICA, the German main contractor, was responsible for the laser system and provided the oscillator, the frequency doubler, and the system control software. Wilhelm Kaenders, president of TOPTICA, said: “TOPTICA has enjoyed the collaboration with ESO tremendously. It is not only the personal thrill of being engaged with astronomy, an old passion, again, and working with very clever ESO technologists; it is also the inspiration that we have received for our own commercial product development.” [2]
MPBC of Canada provided the fibre laser pumps and Raman amplifiers, which are based on an ESO licensed patent. Jane Bachynski, President of MPB Communications Inc. said: “MPBC is proud to have worked with ESO in the development of Raman fibre amplifiers to much higher powers, allowing MPBC to bring this technology to the stars. This event marks the culmination of many years of hard work on behalf of all involved.” [3]
TNO in the Netherlands manufactured the optical tube assemblies, which expand the laser beams and direct them into the sky. Paul de Krom, CEO of TNO, said: “TNO valued the cooperative working environment during the development of the optical tube assemblies and looks forward to the opportunity to work with ESO and the other partners in the 4LGSF project in the future.” [4]
The 4LGSF is part of the Adaptive Optics Facility on Unit Telescope 4 of the VLT, designed specifically to provide the adaptive optics systems GALACSI/MUSE and GRAAL/HAWK-I with four sodium laser guide stars. With this new facility, Paranal Observatory continues to have the most advanced and the largest number of adaptive optics systems in operation today.
The 4LGSF lasers were developed by ESO with industry and have already been procured, among others, by the Keck Observatory (which contributed to the industrial laser development cost along with the European Commission) and the Subaru Telescope. In the future these industrial lasers will also feature on the telescopes at the Gemini Observatory and will be the preferred choice for several other observatories and extremely large telescope projects.
The new techniques developed for the Four Laser Guide Star Facility pave the way for the adaptive optics system of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), the world’s biggest eye on the sky.
Notes
[1] The 4LGSF is the second generation laser guide star facility, built by ESO for the Adaptive Optics Facility on the UT4 VLT telescope. The two critical long-lead items for the 4LGSF, the laser system and the optical tube assemblies for the laser launch telescope systems have been procured from industry. The fibre Raman laser technology, on which the 4LGSF laser system is based, has been developed at ESO, patented and licensed to industry.
[2] This project has allowed TOPTICA to extend its products into a new wavelength and output power regime. It now produces the SodiumStar 20/2, which is recognised as a quasi-standard for existing and planned telescopes around the world. All next generation extremely large telescope projects, for example, use the SodiumStar laser as their baseline. During the seven years of collaboration with ESO the company has grown from 80 people to more than 200 today.
[3] MPBC’s collaboration with ESO has also generated an additional benefit, in the form of an offshoot product line of single frequency amplification products at virtually any wavelength, supporting novel applications for the scientific and commercial research community.
[4] The developments by TNO also involved contributions from many suppliers from the Netherlands (Vernooy, Vacutech, Rovasta, Schott Benelux, Maxon Motor Benelux, IPS technology, Sensordata and WestEnd) and other international companies (RMI, Qioptiq, Laser Components, Carl Zeiss, GLP, Faes, Farnell, Eriks and Pfeiffer). The knowledge and technologies advanced by working with ESO feed into TNO’s Dutch and European partners, in fields including astronomy, communications, semiconductor manufacturing, medical devices, space science and Earth observation.More information
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre European Extremely Large Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.
(via celestial-sentience)
Comets and Bright Star
(via APOD; Image Credit & Copyright:Fritz Helmut Hemmerich)
This timely, telescopic, two panel mosaic spans about 10 full moons across planet Earth’s predawn skies. Recorded as the year began from Tenerife, Canary Islands, near the top of the frame are the faint coma and tail of Comet Borrelly (P/19). A comet with a seven year orbital period, Borrelly’s nucleus was visited by the ion propelled spacecraft Deep Space 1 near the beginning of the 21st century. Anchoring the scene at the bottom is brilliant star Arcturus (Alpha Bootes) and Comet Catalina (C/2013 US10) a first time visitor from the Oort Cloud. Catalina’s yellowish dust tail extends below and right. Buffeted by winds and storms from the Sun, the comet’s complex ion tail sweeps up and toward the right, across most of the field of view. Remarkably, one of the composition’s 30 second exposure subframes also caught the trail of a bright meteor, slashing toward the left between comets and bright star.
(via astrophysics-daily)
AstroSoc St Andrews
First Stargazing Night of the year
(credit: Alex Dutoy)
His galaxies speak my name like the force keeping planets in orbit,
Sunbursts explode in my veins,
Black holes collapsing my lungs,
His stars shine for the purpose of our being;
Under these heavens the restrictions of the Milky Way are infinite.”
IceCube Detects Extragalactic Neutrinos
This is the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and it is a particle detector at the South Pole that records the interactions of a nearly massless subatomic particle called a neutrino. It is the world’s largest neutrino detector, constructed at depths between 1.5 km and 2.5 km in glacial ice at the South Pole. It is built with a cubic kilometer volume of optical sensors. It primarily detects neutrinos from violent astrophysical sources during events such as exploding stars, bursts of gamma-rays, and cataclysimic phenomena involving black holes and neutron stars.
Where Could Life Exist?
When NASA scientists announced earlier this year that they had found evidence of liquid water on Mars, imaginations ran wild with the possibility that life could exist somewhere other than here on Earth.
Scientists continue to explore the possibility that Mars once looked a lot like Earth — salty oceans, fresh water lakes, and a water cycle to go with it. That’s exciting stuff.
So where else are they looking? What exactly are they looking for?
There are nine places in our universe where scientists say life is a possibility. The locations range from a smoking hot planet like Venus to a moon that orbits Saturn called Enceladus, which looks a lot like a massive, tightly-packed ball of ice.
All of these places show signs that water is, or at least was, a possibility. They also appear to feature some kind of energy that could produce heat.
(via lookatthesefuckinstars)
Here’s more on SETI and Voyager. Also more on discovering exoplanets and studying their atmospheres.
We’re so close to The Force Awakens! We can’t wait!
(via poems-and-words)