This movie shows the evolution of a star 10 times more massive than our sun. The blue color of the star’s surface visible in the first frame is the result of this higher mass. Each star spends most of its life in a phase known as the main sequence, during which it burns hydrogen into
Credit: Stellar simulation by Vicky Kalogera, Bart Willems and Francesca Valsecchi. Visualization by Matthew McCrory. Funding: NSF and LIGO
This movie shows one of the possible evolutionary scenarios of a binary system. Binary systems are star systems comprising two stars orbiting around their common center of mass in a Keplerian orbit, which means that the two components are bound together by their mutual gravitational attraction. In this movie, the binary system consists of a
Stellar simulation by Vicky Kalogera, Bart Willems and Francesca Valsecchi. Visualization by Matthew McCrory. / Funding: NSF and LIGO
This is a movie of the evolving color-magnitude diagram from the N-body model of the old open cluster NGC 188. Binaries are plotted with blue points, and show the combined light of the unresolved system. Single stars are plotted in black points. The dynamical and stellar evolution calculations were performed using NBODY6, with some modifications
Movie by Aaron Geller using IDL and MPEG Streamclip; dynamical and stellar evolution calculations performed with NBODY6 / Funding: NSF
Density (top) and temperature (bottom) snapshots from an idealized hydro-simulation of the circum-galactic medium of a Milky-Way-like galaxy. Note the outskirts (>70 kpc) are cool and free-falling, while the inner region is hot and pressure-supported.
Jonathan Stern in collaboration with D. Fielding.
The figure shows a radiative-hydrodynamic simulation of a dusty cloud irradiated by a quasar (located at r = 0). Radiation pressure is set to be the dominant pressure source. Left panel shows the initial conditions, while the right panel shows the cloud 10^4 years after exposure to the quasar radiation. A quasi-static density gradient develops at
Jonathan Stern in collaboration with J. Onorbe.
Cataclysmic Variable stars (CVs) are binary star systems where an ultra-dense star (a white dwarf) pulls material off of its companion star, steadily consuming it over time. Depending on how strong the magnetic field strength of the white dwarf is, this material might be channelled down onto the surface of the white dwarf via magnetic
Deanne Coppejans / Northwestern
Massive stars end their lives in powerful explosions (supernovae) that span a wide range of energies and properties. The most powerful of these are the appropriately named Superluminous Supernovae (SLSNe). As SLSNe are so bright and energetic, we can see them out to great distances in the universe, and they could prove to be very
Deanne Coppejans / Northwestern
Postdoctoral researcher Deanne Coppejans was the Northwestern media contact for the 2017 total solar eclipse. Here she is describing the science of the eclipse on NBC Chicago.
NBC Chicago
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
Gallery of Andromeda Star Clusters from Andromeda Project Catalog
Johnson et al. 2015
Hubble Image Mosaic of Andromeda, based on PHAT survey data.
L. Clifton Johnson / Northwestern
“Hot Jupiters” are Jupiter-like planets with orbits close to their host star. Their origins are debated, and some young planetary system may even host multiple Hot Jupiters. Here, we investigate a planetary system of two Hot Jupiters orbiting a Sun-like star. The system is born on the edge of instability, and over time, the planets’
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
Firefly is a portable web-based 3d visualization software developed in partnership between the Northwestern University Galaxy Formation and Visualization groups. It was developed with the data output of the FIRE simulations in mind but can visualize any 3d dataset (in coordinate or phase space). In this video I demonstrate some of the key features of
Aaron Geller / Alex Gurvich / Northwestern
Here we show the evolution of a Milky Way-like galaxy over time. The top row shows the galaxy as it would appear today, the middle 3.5 billion years ago, and the bottom almost 10 billion years ago. Columns give different views of the same snapshot in time, leftmost is the mock view through the Hubble
Alex Gurvich / Northwestern
A screenshot from Firefly, an interactive, web-based, and publicly available particle visualization platform created by Aaron Geller and Alex Gurvich. Shown here is a snapshot in time from a simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy with the stars in blue, the gas in red, and the dark matter in yellow. In the real universe the gas
Aaron Geller / Alex Gurvich / Northwestern
In this movie, the color of each pixel represents the temperature of the gas (blue for cold and green for hot) and the brightness of each pixel represents the density (dim for low density bright for high density). Thus diffuse and hot gas looks like a hazy green mist while cold and dense gas looks
Alex Gurvich / Northwestern
Marked on this ALMA image are the locations and orientations of 11 gas outflows, which look like the bipolar lobes made by young protostars. These outflows are all within about 3 light-years of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, marked with a star. Outflow #1 has the most obvious structure; the rest don’t show up well
ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Yusef-Zadeh et al.; B.Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)
