New studies with the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have revealed a previously unknown population of discrete hydrogen clouds in the gaseous halo that surrounds the Milky Way Galaxy.
Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have discovered starburst galaxies earlier in the Universe’s history than they were previously thought to have existed. These newly discovered galaxies represent what today's most massive galaxies looked like in their energetic, star-forming youth.
ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, was officially inaugurated today in a ceremony that brought together representatives from the international astronomical community. Today’s event marked the formal beginning of ALMA’s decades-long journey of discovery.
A strange stellar pair nearly 7,000 light-years from Earth has provided physicists with a unique cosmic laboratory for studying the nature of gravity. The extremely strong gravity of a massive neutron star in orbit with a companion white dwarf star puts competing theories of gravity to a test more stringent than any available before.
Staring at a small patch of sky for more than 50 hours with the ultra-sensitive Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers have for the first time identified discrete sources that account for nearly all the radio waves coming from distant galaxies.
In a dark, starless patch of intergalactic space, astronomers have discovered a never-before-seen cluster of hydrogen clouds strewn between two nearby galaxies, Andromeda (M31) and Triangulum (M33). The researchers speculate that these rarefied blobs of gas -- each about as massive as a dwarf galaxy -- condensed out of a vast and as-yet undetected reservoir of hot, ionized gas, which could have accompanied an otherwise invisible band of dark matter.
Astronomers have resolved a major problem in their understanding of a class of stars that undergo regular outbursts by accurately measuring the distance to a famous example of the type.
Our Solar System's Milky Way neighborhood just went upscale. We reside between two major spiral arms of our home galaxy, in a structure called the Local Arm. New research using the ultra-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) indicates that the Local Arm, previously thought to be only a small spur, instead is much more like the adjacent major arms, and is likely a significant branch of one of them.
An international team of researchers using the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope has discovered an intriguing clue that could help explain how rocky planets are able to evolve out of a swirling disk of dust and gas.
1) ALMA Takes Close-up of Matter Spiraling Toward a Black Hole: The new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope gets a close view of gas spiraling toward a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy 45 million light-years away. 2)VLBA Makes Most Accurate Pulsar Distance Measurement: The accuracy of the new pulsar measurement promises to help in the quest to detect the elusive gravitational waves predicted by General Relativity. 3) NRAO Engineer Earns Patent for New 'Reflectionless' Filter: A clever new design for a signal filter could help reduce unwanted noise in the electronics that enable radio astronomy observations.
The sight of a snowfall can thrill children, but the first-ever snow line seen around a distant star gives astronomers an even greater thrill because of what it reveals about the formation of planets and our Solar System's history.
The cosmic fireworks that characterize a starburst galaxy can abruptly fizzle out after only a relatively brief period of star formation, and astronomers want to know why.
1) GBT in the Dark Matter Detection Race: The hunt is on for the purported dark matter particle and radio astronomy may help corner this elusive quarry. 2) Supernova Remnant Forging Copious Cold Molecules: The prodigious formation of cold molecules in a recent supernova reveals the "fingerprint" of a star's final moments. 3) Sounds of a Solar Flare: Solar flares look impressive, but now with some clever wavelength conversions, they sound fascinating as well.
Astronomers have made an important measurement of the magnetic field emanating from a swirling disk of material surrounding the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The measurement, made by observing a recently-discovered pulsar, is providing them with a powerful new tool for studying the mysterious region at the core of our home galaxy.
While observing a newborn star, astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope discovered twin jets of matter blasting out into space at record-breaking speed. These surprisingly forceful molecular "winds" could help refine our understanding of how stars impact their cloudy nurseries and shape their emerging solar systems.
Astronomers using a worldwide network of radio telescopes have found strong evidence that a powerful jet of material propelled to nearly light speed by a galaxy's central black hole is blowing massive amounts of gas out of the galaxy. This process, they said, is limiting the growth of the black hole and the rate of star formation in the galaxy, and thus is a key to understanding how galaxies develop.
Earlier this year, the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array telescope turned its gaze to NASA's famed Voyager 1 and captured an image of this iconic spacecraft's faint radio signal. The Green Bank Telescope also detected Voyager's signal, picking it out from the background radio noise in less than one second.
Astronomers have uncovered the strange case of a neutron star with the peculiar ability to transform from a radio pulsar into an X-ray pulsar and back again. This star's capricious behavior appears to be fueled by a nearby companion star and may give new insights into the birth of millisecond pulsars.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has released a new 24-minute film about the recently renovated Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope. The film is narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Jodie Foster, star of the 1997 Warner Brothers film, "Contact," which was filmed in part at the VLA.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have taken a new look at the Boomerang Nebula, the so-called "coldest place in the Universe" to learn more about its frigid properties and determine its true shape, which has an eerily ghost-like appearance.
Doom may be averted for the Smith Cloud, a gigantic streamer of hydrogen gas that is on a collision course with the Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a magnetic field deep in the cloud’s interior, which may protect it during its meteoric plunge into the disk of our Galaxy.
Astronomers studying gas halos around nearby galaxies were surprised when detailed studies with the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) showed that one of their subjects is not a single galaxy, but rather two, nearly perfectly superimposed on the sky to masquerade as one.
Astronomers using the combined power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a far-flung trio of primitive galaxies nestled inside an enormous blob of primordial gas nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth.
1. Long-distance ‘Fringes’ Achieved between West Virginia and Shanghai: Two radio antennas 6,400 miles apart were joined together to become one instrument, offering new opportunities in astrophysical research. 2. Modern and Historic Technology Merge at Newly Unveiled VLA Sundial: A new take on an old technology marks the passing of time and adds to the educational experience at the NRAO’s Very Large Array. 3. NRAO Astronomer Elected Fellow of AAAS: NRAO astronomer Felix “Jay” Lockman is honored by his colleagues by being elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Using the new, high-frequency capabilities of the National Science Foundation’s Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), astronomers have captured never-before-seen details of the nearby starburst galaxy M82. These new data highlight streamers of material fleeing the disk of the galaxy as well as concentrations of dense molecular gas surrounding pockets of intense star formation.
Striking new observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope capture, for the first time, the remains of a recent supernova brimming with freshly formed dust. If enough of this dust makes the perilous transition into interstellar space, it could explain how many galaxies acquired their dusty, dusky appearance.
Using the National Science Foundation’s Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), astronomer D.J. Pisano from West Virginia University has discovered what could be a never-before-seen river of hydrogen flowing through space. This very faint, very tenuous filament of gas is streaming into the nearby galaxy NGC 6946 and may help explain how certain spiral galaxies keep up their steady pace of star formation.
Topics in this issue: 1. Discovery of Extended Radio Emission from Merging Galaxy Clusters: 2. Radio Astronomy Innovation Promises Big Boost to Data Transmission: 3. From Dust and Gas to Disks and Planets (2014 AAAS Meeting Symposium): 4. Galaxy Evolution in the Early Universe (2014 AAAS Meeting Symposium).
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have discovered the splattered remains of comets colliding together around a nearby star; the researchers believe they are witnessing the total destruction of one of these icy bodies once every five minutes.
A team of astronomers from Canada and the United States used ALMA to study the often deadly relationship between highly luminous O-type stars and nearby protostars in the Orion Nebula. Their data reveal that protostars within 0.1 light-years (about 600 billion miles) of an O-type star are doomed to have their cocoons of dust and gas stripped away in just a few millions years, much faster than planets are able to form.
Astronomers Make Best Measurement Yet of Distance to Galactic Center; VEGAS Is a Good Bet to Study the Cosmos; Protoplanetary Disks ‘Bulge’ in Complex and Asymmetrical Ways.
Two of West Virginia’s premier research institutions, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank and West Virginia University (WVU) in Morgantown, have inaugurated a new super high-speed broadband data network to bolster collaboration and scientific research between these two education-focused organizations.
GBT Makes Arecibo Connection to Image Asteroid: The GBT and Arecibo combine to make radar images of a rapidly fleeing asteroid; Global Telescope Array Links Successfully with GBT: The GBT successfully linked with a network of millimeter-wavelength telescopes, giving a powerful boost to an observatory known as the Global Millimeter VLBI Array.
New images of Earth’s Moon reveal more than can be seen with the naked eye, thanks to the combined efforts of the two largest radio telescopes of their kind -- the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
A high-velocity hydrogen cloud hurtling toward the Milky Way appears to be encased in a shell of dark matter, according to a new analysis of data from the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT).
Scientists recently upgraded the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) by installing an ultraprecise atomic clock at ALMA’s Array Operations Site, home to the observatory’s supercomputing correlator. This upgrade will eventually allow ALMA to synchronize with a worldwide network of radio astronomy facilities collectively known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).
Researchers using ALMA report the first-ever detection of molecular gas -- the fuel for star formation -- in two galaxies that were previously rocked by gamma ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the Universe.
While surveying a series of binary stars with the ALMA telescope, astronomers uncovered a striking pair of wildly misaligned planet-forming disks in the young binary star system HK Tau.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) are making high-precision measurements of Pluto's location and orbit around the Sun to help NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft accurately home in on its target when it nears Pluto and its five known moons in July 2015.
An international team of scientists using ALMA has made incredible 3D images of the ghostly atmospheres surrounding comets ISON and Lemmon. These new observations provided important insights into how and where comets forge new chemicals, including intriguing organic compounds.
An international team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) -- among other telescopes -- has obtained the best view yet of a collision between two galaxies when the Universe was only half its current age.
Astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope have discovered that filaments of star-forming gas near the Orion Nebula may be brimming with pebble-size particles -- planetary building blocks 100 to 1,000 times larger than the dust grains typically found around protostars.
Astronomers using the GBT -- among other telescopes -- have determined that our own Milky Way galaxy is part of a newly identified ginormous supercluster of galaxies, which they have dubbed “Laniakea,” which means “immense heaven” in Hawaiian.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has reached a major milestone by extending its vision fully into the realm of the submillimeter, the wavelengths of cosmic light that hold intriguing information about the cold, dark, and distant Universe.
Topics include: 1. ALMA Finds that Organic Molecules are Branching Out; 2. VLA Reveals Details of Still-Forming Planetary System; 3. New NRAO Patent for Radio Synthesizer
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) released a new Solar System installment of its popular Milky Way Explorer,
While studying the atmosphere on Saturn’s moon Titan, scientists discovered intriguing zones of organic molecules unexpectedly shifted away from its north and south poles. These misaligned features seem to defy conventional thinking about Titan’s windy atmosphere, which should quickly smear out such off-axis concentrations.
Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected a streamer of dust and gas flowing from a massive outer disk toward the inner reaches of a binary star system. This never-before-seen feature may be responsible for sustaining a second, smaller disk of planet-forming material that otherwise would have disappeared long ago.
Astronomers have captured the best image ever of planet formation around an infant star as part of the testing and verification process for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array’s (ALMA) new high-resolution capabilities.
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