On Aug. 21, the NASA-funded team launched its “Micro-X” rocket from White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. The rocket spent 15 minutes in space — just enough time to snap a quick image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, a star in the Cassiopeia constellation that exploded approximately 11,000 light-years away from Earth. Then,
Northwestern University
Brainstorm is a podcast by the Daily Northwestern which looks into scientific facts and fiction and the reasons why we believe in them. When you look up at the night sky, do you ever wonder where all those stars came from? Host Neya Thanikachalam spoke to CIERA’s Jeff Andrews to find out. The Daily Northwestern
The surrounding environment of SGRB 161104A, which includes a galaxy cluster. Image taken by the Magellan Telescopes. Learn more.
Nugent et al. 2020
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
Dr. Josiah Schwab presents “1 + 1 = 1: Single White Dwarfs from Double White Dwarf Mergers.” Dr. Schwab is a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Cruz. This seminar is part of the Astrophysics Seminar series at CIERA.
CIERA
Artist’s interpretation of the calcium-rich supernova 2019ehk. Shown in orange is the calcium-rich material created in the explosion. Purple coloring represents gas shedded by the star right before the explosion, which then produced bright X-ray emission when the material collided with the supernova shockwave. Learn more: Calcium-rich supernova examined with X-rays for first time
Aaron M. Geller, Northwestern University
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).
Zwicky Transient Facility composite image of SN2019yvq (blue dot in the center of the image) in the host galaxy NGC 4441 (large yellow galaxy in the center of the image), which is nearly 140 million light-years away from Earth. SN 2019yvq exhibited a rarely observed ultraviolet flash in the days after the star exploded. Learn
ZTF/A. A. Miller (Northwestern University) and D. Goldstein (Caltech)
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
A direct image of CSS161010’s host galaxy taken with W. M. Keck Observatory’s DEIMOS instrument, shown in the bottom square and magnified in the larger top square. Observations show it is a dwarf galaxy located 500,000,000 light years away in the direction of the constellation Eridanus. Learn more: Astrophysicists Capture New Class of Transient Objects
Giacomo Terreran, CIERA/Northwestern University
An Astrophysical Journal paper presenting data obtained with SOFIA’s HAWC+ camera was highlighted by being chosen for NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” on February 27th. Professor Giles Novak and CIERA visiting scholar Marc Berthoud led the development of the data pipeline for HAWC+. The lead author of the paper is Professor David Chuss of Villanova
NASA, SOFIA, D. Chuss et al. & ESO, M. McCaughrean et al.
233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Seattle, WA Thursday, 10 January 2019
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
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
A neutron star compared with the skyline of Chicago. Neutron stars are about 12 miles in diameter and are extremely dense.
Nick Gertonson / Daniel Schwen / Northwestern / LIGO-Virgo
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)
Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope – The Next Generation (BLAST-TNG) BLAST is a 5,000 pound balloon-borne telescope bound for the stratosphere over Antarctica, to search for the origins of stars and planets. This photo was taken by graduate student Paul Williams in the summer of 2018 in Palestine, Texas at the Columbia Scientific Ballooning Facility.
Gabriele Coppi / University of Pennsylvania
