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Twelve-Year Exoplanet Timelapse

Video

Twelve-Year Exoplanet Timelapse

Using observations collected from 2009 to 2021 CIERA Professor Jason Wang has assembled a time lapse video of HR8799, the first directly imaged extrasolar planetary system. The video shows a family of four exoplanets, each more massive than Jupiter, orbiting their star and gives viewers an unprecedented glimpse into planetary motion. To construct the video,

Jason Wang/Northwestern/CIERA

  • Science,
  • Outreach

Firefly visualization of the ESA Gaia DR3 dataset

Video

Firefly visualization of the ESA Gaia DR3 dataset

Firefly video visualization of data from the the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia satellite. The full demo enables users to explore all 1.46 billion stars in the Gaia DR3 dataset in real time. Firefly is a browser-based interactive particle visualization app created by CIERA researchers Alex Gurvich and Aaron Geller, in a joint venture with

  • Education,
  • Outreach,
  • Interdisciplinary,
  • Data Science & Computing

Firefly visualization of the ESA Gaia DR3 dataset

Image

Firefly visualization of the ESA Gaia DR3 dataset

Still image from a Firefly video visualization of data from the the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia satellite. The full demo enables users to explore all 1.46 billion stars in the Gaia DR3 dataset in real time. Firefly is a browser-based interactive particle visualization app created by CIERA researchers Alex Gurvich and Aaron Geller, in

  • Education,
  • Outreach,
  • Interdisciplinary,
  • Data Science & Computing

CIERA Interdisciplinary Colloquium: “Extremely Cool Detectors On a Fireball: Launching the Micro-X Sounding Rocket”

Event

CIERA Interdisciplinary Colloquium: “Extremely Cool Detectors On a Fireball: Launching the Micro-X Sounding Rocket”

Professor Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano presents an Interdisciplinary Colloquium on December 1, 2022, organized by Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics.   Read the full CIERA News story here.

Star Collapses into NEW Black Hole

Interview

Star Collapses into NEW Black Hole

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

Gemini North image (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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Gemini North image (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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

artist’s impression of a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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artist’s impression of a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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 (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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A broader view of GRB 211211A’s location (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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 (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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Gamma-ray burst 211211A (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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)

Illustration: two neutron stars begin to merge (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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Illustration: two neutron stars begin to merge (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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

Artist’s impression of GRB 211211A (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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Artist’s impression of GRB 211211A (Surprise kilonova upends established understanding of long gamma-ray bursts)

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

Short gamma-ray bursts traced farther into distant universe

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Short gamma-ray bursts traced farther into distant universe

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

CIERA’s 13th Annual Public Lecture, “Cassini to Saturn: The Journey and the Legacy”

Event

CIERA’s 13th Annual Public Lecture, “Cassini to Saturn: The Journey and the Legacy”

CIERA 13th Annual Public Lecture by Dr. Carolyn Porco. October 6th, 2022 at Northwestern’s Cahn Auditorium. Thirty-two years ago, the United States and Europe joined hands and set off together on an historic adventure. It was a mission named Cassini that called for a 7-year journey across the Solar System and entry into orbit around