Assistant Professor
Wen-fai Fong utilizes observations across the electromagnetic spectrum to study explosive transients and their host galaxy environments. These transients include gamma-ray bursts, electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources, compact object binaries, supernovae, and anything that collides or explodes.
The main questions she seeks to answer in her research are: What are the energy sources powering these transients? What is the nature and composition of material ejected from these sources? What types of environments do they explode into? What do their host galaxies look like, and what can they tell us about their progenitors?
To aid these efforts, Wen-fai uses a large variety of telescopes spanning radio, optical, near-infrared, and X-ray wavelengths on the ground and in space. On the ground, these facilities include the Very Large Array, Magellan, Gemini, MMT and Keck located in New Mexico, Chile, Hawaii and Arizona. In space, she uses NASA’s Swift satellite, the Hubble Space Telescope, and eventually the James Webb Space Telescope when it launches in late 2018. She also uses information from the Advanced Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) to rapidly follow gravitational wave sources and their host galaxies with many of these facilities.
Wen-fai Fong started her career at Northwestern as a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow (2017 – 2018), joining the CIERA faculty in 2018.
Affectionately referred to as the B.O.A.T. (“brightest of all time”), the powerful explosion occurred approximately 2.4 billion light-years away from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Sagitta. Astrophysicists, including Jillian Rastinejad, first detected the GRB, which was a few hundred seconds in duration, in gamma-ray light on Oct. 9. Read the full Northwestern News
National Science Foundation
This Gemini North image, superimposed on an image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the telltale near-infrared afterglow of a kilonova produced by a long GRB (GRB 211211A). This discovery challenges the prevailing theory that long GRBs exclusively come from supernovae, the end-of-life explosions of massive stars. Read the full Northwestern News story: December
International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani; NASA/ESA
This artist’s impression shows a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars. While studying the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), two independent teams of astronomers using a host of telescopes in space and on Earth, including the Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i and the Gemini South telescope in Chile, have uncovered the unexpected
NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine
A broader view of GRB 211211A’s location, circled in red, captured using three filters on Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Read the full Northwestern News story: December 7, 2022
NASA, ESA, Rastinejad et al. (2022), Troja et al. (2022), and Gladys Kober (Catholic Univ. of America)
Gamma-ray burst 211211A, the location of which is circled in red, erupted on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy around 1 billion light-years away in the constellation Boötes. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured the image with its Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. Read the full Northwestern News story: December 7,
NASA, ESA, Rastinejad et al. (2022), and Gladys Kober (Catholic Univ. of America)
Two neutron stars begin to merge in this illustration, blasting a jet of high-speed particles and producing a cloud of debris. Scientists think these kinds of events are factories for a significant portion of the universe’s heavy elements, including gold. Read the full Northwestern News story: December 7, 2022
A. Simonnet (Sonoma State University) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The field of GRB211211A. Read the full Northwestern News story: December 7, 2022
Nature/Rastinejad et al. (2002)
The kilonova and gamma-ray burst is on the right. The blue color represents material squeezed along the poles, while the red colors indicate material ejected by the two inspiralling neutron stars that is now swirling around the merged object. A disk of ejecta emitted after the merger, hidden behind the red and blue ejecta, is shown in
Aaron M. Geller/Northwestern/CIERA and IT Research Computing Services
Artist’s impression of STAR-X after its proposed launch in 2028. The aperature of the X-ray telescope is the large circular shape toward the left. The ultraviolet telescope is the outrigger tube attached to the facility’s underside.
The STAR-X team and NASA/GSFC
A Northwestern University-led team of astronomers has developed the most extensive inventory to date of the galaxies where short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) originate. Using several highly sensitive instruments and sophisticated galaxy modeling, the researchers, including Anya Nugent, pinpointed the galactic homes of 84 SGRBs and probed the characteristics of 69 of the identified host galaxies.
W.M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko
“This GRB is an extraordinarily rare event,” said Rastinejad, a Northwestern Ph.D. student. “It was so bright that it triggered the Swift gamma-ray telescopes twice and fully saturated the detectors — something I haven’t seen in my time observing GRBs.” “As long as we have been able to detect GRBs, there is no question that
International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. O'Connor (UMD/GWU) & J. Rastinejad & W. Fong (Northwestern University)
Fast radio bursts host galaxies. The bursts are catalogued as FRB 190714, at top left; FRB 191001, at top right; FRB 180924, at bottom left; and FRB 190608, at bottom right. Learn more.
Science: NASA, ESA, Alexandra Mannings (UC Santa Cruz), Wen-fai Fong (Northwestern). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
Professor Wen-fai Fong is interviewed for The Cosmic Companion and talks about her work studying kilonova explosions and collisions of neutron stars.
This image shows the glow from a kilonova caused by the merger of two neutron stars. The kilonova, whose peak brightness reaches up to 10,000 times that of a classical nova, appears as a bright spot (indicated by the arrow) to the upper left of the host galaxy. The merger of the neutron stars is
The afterglow of GRB181123B, captured by the Gemini North telescope. Learn more: Short gamma ray burst leaves most-distant optical afterglow ever detected
International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Paterson & W. Fong (Northwestern University).
A supernova at least twice as bright and energetic, and likely much more massive than any yet recorded has been identified by an international team of astronomers. Continue to the full article at University of Birmingham News. View the Nature Astronomy article, “An extremely energetic supernova from a very massive star in a dense medium”
Aaron M. Geller – Northwestern IT
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
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
An international research collaboration, including four Northwestern University astronomers, is the first to detect the spectacular collision of two neutron stars in a nearby galaxy using both gravitational waves and light.
LIGO-Virgo / Northwestern
Following the October 16, 2017 announcement of the first-ever observation of a binary neutron star inspiral and merger, Northwestern’s astronomy research center, CIERA, held a discussion with the Northwestern scientists behind the discovery. View the recording of this event in full, and join Professors Vicky Kalogera, Shane Larson, Raffaella Margutti and Wen-fai Fong as they
CIERA / Northwestern
Following the October 16, 2017 announcement of the first-ever observation of a binary neutron star inspiral and merger, Northwestern’s astronomy research center, CIERA, held a discussion with the Northwestern scientists behind the discovery. View the panel discussion with Professors Vicky Kalogera, Raffaella Margutti, and Wen-fai Fong. Panel moderated by Adler Planetarium President & CEO, Michelle
CIERA / Northwestern
After the spectacular collision of two neutron stars, which produced gravitational waves that were detected here on Earth, astronomers at Northwestern University describe how telescopes around the world looked for light.
LIGO-Virgo / Northwestern
Following the October 16, 2017 announcement of the first-ever observation of a binary neutron star inspiral and merger, Northwestern’s astronomy research center, CIERA, held a discussion with the Northwestern scientists behind the discovery. View the audience question & answer period from this event.
CIERA / Northwestern
