The massive black hole in M33 X-7 is hidden in the X-ray bright center of the pancake-like accretion disk of matter. The black-hole’s hot (blue) and massive star companion is losing mass in a wind that gets pulled and captured by the black hole. Learn more.
NU Viz and CIERA: Matthew McCrory, Francesca Valsecchi, and Vicky Kalogera
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
Gabriel Casabona, a theoretical astrophysicist who specializes in binary neutron star mergers, gives an interview with Suzette Lyn.
Suzette Lyn
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 detailed simulation of a black hole’s accretion disc created by a global team of computational astrophysicists – including CIERA’s Prof. Sasha Tchekhovskoy – solved a decades-old mystery. The accretion disc is matter that orbits and then falls into a black hole. Researchers discovered how the disc aligns with the hole’s equator, details vital to
This image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows spiral galaxy NGC 7331, center, in a three-color X-ray image….
Andrew Connolly Public Lecture at the 2019 HotWired Conference in Evanston, IL.
233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Seattle, WA Thursday, 10 January 2019
An image of AT2018cow and its host galaxy obtained on August 17, 2018 using W. M. Keck Observatory’s instrument, the DEep Imaging and Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS). Learn more: Birth of a Black Hole or Neutron Star Captured for First Time
R. MARGUTTI/W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY
CIERA’s 10th annual public lecture was presented October 11, 2018 by director Vicky Kalogera. Kalogera’s talk–a glimpse into the years of fascinating work conducted by CIERA–highlighted key discoveries and what they mean for the future of astronomy. Kalogera discussed the lives of stars, how their influence on the Cosmos has changed in the recent decade,
CIERA / Northwestern
How many merger binary black holes are there? There are lots of uncertainties in our understanding of stellar evolution. This plot shows one prediction from the COMPAS population synthesis code for the number of gravitational-wave detections: there would be about 500 detections per year of observing time once our detectors reach design sensitivity! In Barrett, Gaebel,
Barrett, Gaebel, Neijssel, Vigna-Gómez, Stevenson, Berry, Farr, & Mandel (2018)
Northwestern Physics and Astronomy student Mike Zevin presents a talk as part of the Northwestern Ready Set Go (RSG) program. The goals of the program are to increase awareness for the urgent need for excellent research communicators and to coach graduate and post doctoral researchers to improve their own presentation skills. The program focuses on three important
Northwestern's RSG Program
Northwestern Physics and Astronomy student Michael Katz presents a talk as part of the Northwestern Ready Set Go (RSG) program. The goals of the program are to increase awareness for the urgent need for excellent research communicators and to coach graduate and post doctoral researchers to improve their own presentation skills. The program focuses on three important
Northwestern's RSG Program
Northwestern Physics and Astronomy student Shi Ye presents a talk as part of the Northwestern Ready Set Go (RSG) program. The goals of the program are to increase awareness for the urgent need for excellent research communicators and to coach graduate and post doctoral researchers to improve their own presentation skills. The program focuses on three important
Northwestern's RSG Program
This movie, Life of the Pleiades, was generated from an interactive visualization that Aaron Geller developed with Mark SubbaRao using Uniview. The interactive version can be shown on a planetarium dome, or rendered into a movie (as shown here). A 3D version of this movie exists in the Space Visualization Lab at the Adler Planetarium.
Created by A. M. Geller and M. SubbaRao, using Uniview; music, narration and audio by A. M. Geller; dynamical calculation with stellar evolution performed using the NBODY6 code.
These are massive black hole mergers from the Illustris1 large-scale cosmological simulation (Kelley et al 2017). Gravitational wave bursts from the final merger of each black hole pair are shown with the color representing their initial strength.
Michael Katz / Northwestern
In late 2015, LIGO discovered gravitational waves emitted by two black holes (each with a mass of about 30 times that of our Sun) that spiraled together and merged about 1.5 billion years ago. Astrophysicists are now debating which is the most likely mechanism that can bring two black holes like those observed so close
