New ALMA observations reveal a never-before-seen disk of cool, interstellar gas wrapped around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
A spinning black hole pulls in material from a companion star, and its gravitational effect causes ejected jets of material to wobble like a child's spinning top.
The first direct visual evidence of a black hole will help scientists understand how the universe behaves under conditions of extreme gravity, forces so strong that they warp the fabric of space and time.
Associated Universities Inc. (AUI) is pleased to announce the selection of Mr. Kevin L. Doran, J.D., as the Director of Education, Policy, and Social Science Programs, effective 21 March 2019.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will hold a press conference on April 10 to announce a groundbreaking result.
A dusty, doughnut-shaped feature, long thought an essential part of the "engines" of active galaxies, is found in one of the most powerful galaxies in the Universe.
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have found a pulsar speeding away from its presumed birthplace at nearly 700 miles per second, with its trail pointing directly back at the center of a shell of debris from the supernova explosion that created it. The discovery is providing important insights into how pulsars — superdense neutron stars left over after a massive star explodes — can get a “kick” of speed from the explosion.
New ALMA observations show there is ordinary table salt in a not-so-ordinary location: 1,500 light-years from Earth in the disk surrounding a massive young star.
The ALMA telescope is conducting an unprecedented survey of nearby disk galaxies to study their stellar nurseries. With it, astronomers are beginning to unravel the complex and as-yet poorly understood relationship between star-forming clouds and their host galaxies.
As comet 46P/Wirtanen neared Earth on December 2, astronomers using the ALMA took a remarkably close look the innermost regions of the comet’s coma, the gaseous envelope around its nucleus.
ALMA discovered two young stars forming from the same swirling protoplanetary disk; one has more in common with planets than the other.
ALMA has yielded stunning, high-resolution images of 20 nearby protoplanetary disks and given astronomers new insights into the variety of features they contain and the speed with which planets can emerge.
The Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has named Dr. Brett McGuire of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) the recipient of its 2019 Early Career Award.
The most luminous galaxy in the universe has been caught in the act of stripping away nearly half the mass from at least three of its smaller neighbors.
ALMA observations of Abell 2597 show the first clear and compelling evidence for the simultaneous infalling and outflow of gas driven by a supermassive black hole.
A new series of four images of Europa taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has helped astronomers create the first global thermal map of this cold satellite of Jupiter.
Using ALMA, an international team of astronomers found evidence that a white dwarf and a brown dwarf collided in a short-lived blaze of glory that was witnessed on Earth in 1670 as Nova sub Capite Cygni (a New Star below the Head of the Swan), which is now known as CK Vulpeculae.
In an unusual observation, astronomers used the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to study the effects on radio waves coming from a distant radio galaxy when an asteroid in our Solar System passed in front of the galaxy. The observation allowed them to measure the size of the asteroid, gain new information about its shape, and greatly improve the accuracy with which its orbital path can be calculated.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded more than $1.3 million to upgrade its Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia with an innovative precision laser ranging measurement system.
Astronomers using ALMA, with the aid of a gravitational lens, have detected the most-distant galactic “wind” of molecules ever observed, seen when the universe was only one billion years old. By tracing the outflow of hydroxyl (OH) molecules – which herald the presence of star-forming gas in galaxies – the researchers show how some galaxies in the early universe quenched an ongoing wildfire of starbirth.
West Virginia’s First2 STEM Student Success Alliance has received a total of $2,406,954 in new funding as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) INCLUDES grant program, which helps to develop and maintain a diverse, innovative workforce in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.
A team of scientists using the highest-frequency capabilities of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has uncovered jets of warm water vapor streaming away from a newly forming star. The researchers also detected the “fingerprints” of an astonishing assortment of molecules near this stellar nursery.
Astronomers have made the first definitive detection of a radioactive molecule in interstellar space: a form, or isotopologue of aluminum monofluoride (26AlF). The new data – made with ALMA and the NOEMA radio telescopes – reveal that this radioactive isotopologue was ejected into space by the collision of two stars, a tremendously rare cosmic event that was witnessed on Earth as a “new star,” or nova, in the year 1670.
Astronomers using ALMA studied a cataclysmic stellar explosion known as a gamma-ray burst, or GRB, and found its enduring “afterglow.” The rebound, or reverse shock, triggered by the GRB’s powerful jets slamming into surrounding debris, lasted thousands of times longer than expected. These observations provide fresh insights into the physics of GRBs, one of the universe’s most energetic explosions.
Near-Earth asteroid 2017 YE5 was discovered with observations provided by the Morocco Oukaimeden Sky Survey on Dec. 21, 2017, but no details about the asteroid’s physical properties were known until the end of June. This is only the fourth “equal mass” binary near-Earth asteroid ever detected, consisting of two objects nearly identical in size, orbiting each other.
A single, ghostly subatomic particle that traveled some 4 billion light-years before reaching Earth has helped astronomers pinpoint a likely source of high-energy cosmic rays for the first time. Subsequent observations with the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have given the scientists some tantalizing clues about how such energetic cosmic rays may be formed at the cores of distant galaxies.
Melissa Hoffman tells us about the new techniques astronomers have developed to locate some of the youngest planets in our galaxy.
Astronomers have given one of Einstein’s predictions on gravity its most stringent test yet. By precisely tracking the meanderings of three stars in a single system – two white dwarf stars and one ultra-dense neutron star – the researchers determined that even phenomenally compact neutron stars “fall” in the same manner as their less-dense counterparts
Two independent teams of astronomers have uncovered convincing evidence that three young planets are in orbit around an infant star known as HD 163296. Using a new planet-finding strategy, the astronomers identified three discrete disturbances in a young star’s gas-filled disk: the strongest evidence yet that newly formed planets are in orbit there.
Some of the tiniest diamonds in the universe – bits of crystalline carbon hundreds of thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand – have been detected swirling around three infant star systems in the Milky Way. These microscopic gemstones are neither rare nor precious; they are, however, exciting for astronomers who identified them as the source of a mysterious cosmic microwave “glow” emanating from several protoplanetary disks in our galaxy.
Nine more participants have been selected for the prestigious Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program (ACEAP), a behind-the-scenes immersive experience at five astronomical observatories in Chile from June 10 to 18.
GALAXY 13.28 BILLION LIGHT-YEARS AWAY SHOWS SURPRISING SIGNS OF CHEMICAL MATURITY
Researchers have developed a new and improved version of an unconventional radio-astronomy imaging system known as a Phased Array Feed, which can survey vast swaths of the sky and generate multiple views of astronomical objects with unparalleled efficiency.
Astronomers have witnessed the beginnings of a gargantuan cosmic pileup, the impending collision of 14 young, starbursting galaxies. This ancient megamerger is destined to evolve into one of the most massive structures in the known universe: a cluster of galaxies, gravitationally bound by dark matter and swimming in a sea of hot, ionized gas.
By comparing new Hubble observations with data from the Green Bank Telescope, astronomers have discovered the origin of a huge cloud of gas bridging the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, two dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way.
Fifty years after pulsar discovery published, massive new data set moves closer to finding very-low-frequency gravitational waves, researchers say.
Using data from ALMA, a team of astronomers discovered that a powerful stellar flare erupted from Proxima Centauri last March.
New observations with ALMA have uncovered the surprisingly clear chemical “fingerprints” of the complex organic molecules methanol, dimethyl ether, and methyl formate.
Astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope have made the first definitive interstellar detection of benzonitrile, an intriguing organic molecule that helps to chemically link simple carbon-based molecules and truly massive ones known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This discovery is a vital clue in a 30-year-old mystery: identifying the source of a faint infrared glow that permeates the Milky Way and other galaxies.
Astronomers using the GBT have discovered what appears to be a grand exodus of more than 100 hydrogen clouds streaming away from the center of the Milky Way and heading into intergalactic space.
Using two of the world’s largest radio telescopes, an international team of astronomers has gained new insights into the extreme home of a mysterious source of cosmic radio bursts. The discovery suggests that the source of the radio emission lies near a massive black hole or within an extremely powerful nebula, and may help shed light on what is causing these strange bursts.
Applications are now being accepted for the 2018 Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program (ACEAP).
Green Bank Telescope turns its sights on cigar-shaped object moving rapidly through solar system
ALMA observations push back the epoch of massive-galaxy formation even further by identifying two giant galaxies seen when the universe was only 780 million years old, or about 5 percent its current age.
ALMA has revealed the telltale signs of eleven low-mass stars forming perilously close — within three light-years — to the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole.
Dr. Ethan J. Schreier, who recently retired as president of Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
New observations with ALMA have uncovered the never-before-seen close encounter between two astoundingly bright and spectacularly massive galaxies in the early universe.
A giant collision of several galaxy clusters, each containing hundreds of galaxies, has produced this spectacular panorama of shocks and energy.
When a pair of superdense neutron stars collided and potentially formed a black hole in a galaxy 130 million light-years from Earth, they unleashed not only a train of gravitational waves but also an ongoing torrent of radio waves that are answering some of the biggest questions about the nature of such a cataclysmic event.
Astronomers using ALMA have detected the faint molecular fingerprint of methyl chloride around an infant star system. Traces of this organic compound were also discovered in the thin atmosphere of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) by the Rosetta space probe.
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