From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES): “Solar physicists build a 2D model which can explain the bright points in the solar corona”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

9.1.22
Daniel Nóbrega Siverio
dnobrega@iac.es

Fernando Moreno Insertis
fmi@iac.es

A numerical experiment conducted by two researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Daniel Nöbrega Siverio and Fernando Moreno Insertis, has allowed them to show, for the first time, how one of the most widely distributed structures in the solar atmosphere, the coronal bright points, can form and acquire energy by the action of the solar granulation.

When the Sun is observed from space detectors of X-rays or the extreme-ultraviolet, its atmosphere is found to be full of bright points, both during solar active epochs when a large number of sunspots is observed, and during quieter epochs. When they are inspected in detail we find that these coronal bright points (CBP) comprise a set of magnetic arcs, which emit huge quantities of energy por periods of hours or even days, probably via a process known as magnetic recombination.

Until now the models of CBPs were highly simplified and did not take into account critical aspects of solar physics ,such as the supply of energy to magnetic structures by solar granules.

In a study recently published in the prestigious journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters [below] Daniel Nóbrega Siverio and Fernando Moreno Insertis, astrophysicists at the IAC, have studied these bright points, using a latest generation numerical code, the Bifrost code. This code allows one to model the Sun with the realism needed to include convective and radiative processes which have a fundamental influence on the heating of the solar atmosphere.

With their model, these researchers show for the first time that the action of the solar granulation on a magnetic structure of the type expected to be found in many CBP gives rise to hot, bright arches, which explains the different features observed during solar space missions for decades. The article also includes predictions of what the cool zones below a CBP are like,and their small scale structure which has not yet been tackled observationally,and which will need data of extremely high resolution, such as those from the Swedish Solar Telescope (SST) on La Palma [below], the the recent Solar Orbiter space mission in order to confirm them.

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationSolar Orbiter.

This study has needed thousands of hours of calculations on two of the most advanced supercomputer facilities in Europe, Betzy (in Norway) and MareNostrum (in Spain). It has been carried out within the Whole Sun project, a programme funded by the European Research Council, in which the IAC is taking part, along with four other European institutions.

Betzy ATOS supercomputer. HPC Wire.

MareNostrum 4 supercomputer at Barcelona Supercomputing Center.

Science paper:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawai’i.

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) Via Manu Garcia – a friend from IAC-Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES): “An ancestral brown dwarf in our cosmic vicinity”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

Via

Manu Garcia – a friend from IAC-Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES)

The universe around us.
Astronomy, everything you wanted to know about our local universe and never dared to ask.

7.22.22

Contacts at the IAC:

Nicolas Lodieu
nlodieu@iac.es

Eduardo Martin
ege@iac.es

Rafael Rebolo
rrl@iac.es

Comparison between a low-mass star, the planet Jupiter and WISE1810. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz (IAC)

A study, led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has confirmed the presence of an unusual metal-poor brown dwarf less than 30 light-years away from the Sun. Their proximity could suggest a possible overabundance of brown dwarfs formed in the early stages of the Milky Way. The research has used several telescopes located in the observatories of Roque de Los Muchachos (La Palma) [below] and Calar Alto (Almería).

Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory 3.5 meter Telescope, located in Almería province in Spain on Calar Alto, a 2,168-meter-high (7,113 ft) mountain in Sierra de Los Filabres(ES)

The results are published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics [below].

On a cosmic scale, our immediate neighborhood is made up of just a few hundred stars and brown dwarfs with their own planetary systems. Unlike stars, brown dwarfs do not have enough mass for hydrogen to merge inside, which is the source of energy for stars like the Sun, so they go out over time. Due to their low luminosity and energy, they are very difficult to detect. However, their study is fundamental to understanding the processes of star and planetary formation..

Now, a team led by Nicolas Lodieu, a researcher at the IAC, has conducted a detailed observational study of a metal-poor brown dwarf candidate discovered in 2020 [The Astrophysical Journal (below)]. This type of brown dwarf has an atmosphere devoid of substances such as nitrogen and carbon.

The recent study has revealed that this object, dubbed WISE1810 (or WISE J181005.5-101002.3 according to International Astronomical Union standards) is only 29 light-years away, so it would be part of the immediate solar vicinity. Research has also determined that it has a cold surface temperature (525 °C), a luminosity one million times lower than that of the Sun and a mass in the range of brown dwarfs.

WISE1810 also has very peculiar photometric and spectroscopic properties that will require further investigation. “None of the current atmospheric models can reproduce the light emitted by this peculiar object over a wide range of wavelengths,” explains Lodieu.

Researchers are not aware of an object similar to this. “We do not see traces of ammonia and methane at near-infrared wavelengths, deducing that the atmosphere has about 3% of the solar chemical composition, but with great uncertainty,” explains María Rosa Zapatero Osorio, researcher at the Center for Astrobiology (CSIC-INTA) and co-author of the work.

It is the first time that the presence of such a faint and metal-starved object in our galaxy has been confirmed. “WISE1810 is a world of water vapor because steam and molecular hydrogen are the only strong traits we can see in the spectral energy distribution of the object,” says Professor Eduardo L. Martín of the IAC, also co-author of the paper.

After analyzing the observations, the research team has finally determined that WISE1810 is the closest metal-poor brown dwarf to the solar neighborhood. Most of these low-metallicity objects formed in the early days of our galaxy, so the presence of WISE1810 so close to the Sun could suggest a possible overabundance of brown dwarfs formed in the early stages of the Milky Way.

For the research, the OSIRIS, EMIR and HiPERCAM instruments of the Gran Telescopio Canarias [below], ALFOSC of the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) and Omega2000 of the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory have been used.

IAC Gran Telescopio Canarias OSIRIS spectrograph.

EMIR instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias.

TFC HiPERCAM mounted on the Gran Telescopio Canarias.

Nordic Optical Telescope [funded by Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and (since 1997) Iceland], at IAC Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands[Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in The Canary Islands[Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

ALFOSC of the Nordic Optical Telescope.

Omega2000 of the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory.

“Future observations could confirm that these types of brown dwarfs are more common than we thought, which will change our view of how stars and brown dwarfs formed in the early Milky Way,” Lodieu concludes.

Science papers:
Astronomy and Astrophysics
The Astrophysical Journal 2020

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawai’i.

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES): “Proton acceleration in thermonuclear nova explosions revealed by gamma rays”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

Proton acceleration in thermonuclear nova explosions revealed by gamma rays | Nature Astronomy.
Scheme of RS Ophiuchi. Matter from the red giant and captured by the white dwarf generates a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of the latter. The ejected material creates a shock wave where particles are accelerated that produce the gamma radiation.

6.22.22

Classical novae are cataclysmic binary star systems in which the matter of a companion star is accreted on a white dwarf. Accumulation of hydrogen in a layer eventually causes a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of the white dwarf, brightening the white dwarf to ~100.000 solar luminosities and triggering ejection of the accumulated matter. Novae provide the extreme conditions required to accelerate particles, electrons or protons, to high energies. Here we present the detection of gamma rays by the MAGIC telescopes from the 2021 outburst of RS Ophiuchi, a recurrent nova with a red giant companion, which allowed us to accurately characterize the emission from a nova in the 60 GeV to 250 GeV energy range.

Science paper:
Nature Astronomy

MAGIC Čerenkov gamma ray telescope on the Canary island of La Palma, Spain, Altitude 2,200 m (7,200 ft).

The theoretical interpretation of the combined Fermi LAT and MAGIC data suggests that protons are accelerated to hundreds of gigaelectronvolts in the nova shock.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Fermi Gamma-Ray Large Area Telescope.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope.

Such protons should create bubbles of enhanced cosmic ray density, of the order of 10 pc, from the recurrent novae.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawai’i .

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES): “Gliese 486 b:: a Rosetta stone for the study of exoplanets”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

6.22.22

Víctor J. Sánchez Béjar
victor.bejar@iac.es

Enric Pallé
epalle@iac.es

Rocky Super-Earth planet called Gliese 486b that could host ALIEN life discovered | Daily Mail Online.

An international scientific team, with the participation of the Institutito de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has measured the mass and radius of an Earth-like exoplanet with unprecedented accuracy. The detailed analysis allows to make robust predictions on the structure and composition of its interior and atmosphere. The study is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Since the first exoplanet around a solar-like star, 51 Pegasi b, was discovered in 1995, the astronomical community has continued to find new exoplanets that are less and less massive, closer and closer, and more and more Earth-like.

Recent research, led by the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA), has been able to model the interior and to estimate the relative sizes of the (metallic) core and (rocky) mantle of the exoplanet Gliese 486 b, a hot super-Earth discovered in 2021 orbiting the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 486, just 26 light-years from the Sun.

Thanks to the data carefully obtained with a suite of instruments and space telescopes, such as CHARA, CHEOPS, Hubble Space Telescope, MAROON-X, TESS and CARMENES, the team has also made predictions on the composition of the planet’s atmosphere and its detectability with the James Webb Space Telescope, which will soon point its segmented mirror to the planetary system.

CHARA Center for High Angular Resolution Array located on Mount Wilson, California

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU)/CHEOPS.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU) Hubble Space Telescope.

MAROON-X Exoplanet hunter on NSF’s NOIRLab Frederick C Gillett Gemini North Telescope Maunakea, Hawaii, USA, Altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft) from Bean Exoplanet Group at U Chicago.

NSF NOIRLab’s Gemini North Frederick C Gillett telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory Hawai’i (Altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

Massachusetts Institute of Technology TESS – Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite replaced the Kepler Space Telescope in search for exoplanets. TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

CARMENES spectrograph, mounted on the Calar Alto 3.5 meter Telescope, located in Almería province in Spain on Calar Alto, a 2,168-meter-high (7,113 ft) mountain in Sierra de Los Filabres.

Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory 3.5 meter Telescope, located in Almería province in Spain on Calar Alto, a 2,168-meter-high (7,113 ft) mountain in Sierra de Los Filabres(ES)

National Aeronautics Space Agency/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU)/ Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA) James Webb Infrared Space Telescope annotated, finally launched December 25, 2021, ten years late.

“Gliese 486 b has become the Rosetta Stone of exoplanetology” explains José A. Caballero, CAB researcher who led the research. “In the Solar System, we have the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Now, the fifth best studied terrestrial planet in the Universe is Gliese 486 b”.

For the scientific team, the most important results behind this work are not the values themselves, but the opportunities that they offer to future studies. These include those related to the formation of planetary magnetic fields in the liquid metallic outer core, because Gliese 486 b seems to have one as our Earth. These magnetic fields may act as a shield against the storms originated in the stellar host and prevent the erosion of the atmosphere.

Although Gliese 486 b seems to be too hot to be habitable, because of its precise and accurate characterisation, it may become the first (and only, for the moment) planet where we can formulate relevant questions, such as whether it has a primitive atmosphere made of hydrogen and helium, or whether it is composed of carbon dioxide and water steam from volcanic eruptions, or even whether it has tectonics.

Much of the data used in the study was obtained with the CARMENES spectrograph, mounted at the 3.5 m Calar Alto telescope in Almería (Spain). The consortium of this instrument comprises eleven research institutions in Spain and Germany, including the IAC. Its purpose is to monitor some 350 red dwarf stars for signs of low-mass planets.

The scientists also obtained spectroscopic observations with the MAROON-X at the 8.1 m Gemini North telescope (USA) and with the STIS instrument, onboard the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph

Photometric observations to derive the planet’s size stem from the ESA’s CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite) and NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) spacecrafts.

The star’s radius was measured with the CHARA (Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy) array on Mount Wilson, California. A battery of smaller telescopes, including amateur astronomers’, was used to determine the star’s rotation period.

The study involved the participation of IAC researchers Víctor J. Sánchez Béjar and Enric Pallé.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawaii (US).

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i (US) altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES): “Possible evidence of planet formation found in the Orion Nebula”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

6.9.22

Contact at the IAC:

José Eduardo Méndez Delgado
jemd@iac.es

César Esteban
cel@iac.es

Jorge García Rojas:
jogarcia@iac.es

ESO’s HAWK-I infrared instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile has been used to peer deeper into the heart of Orion Nebula than ever before. The spectacular picture reveals about ten times as many brown dwarfs and isolated planetary-mass objects than were previously known. Credit: ESO/H. Drass et al.

HAWK-I on the ESO Very Large Telescope at the Nasmyth A focus of Unit Telescope 4 (UT4) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, with an elevation of 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level.

The European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral][Observatoire européen austral][Europäische Südsternwarte](EU)(CL), Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert •ANTU (UT1; The Sun ) •KUEYEN (UT2; The Moon ) •MELIPAL (UT3; The Southern Cross ), and •YEPUN (UT4; Venus – as evening star). Elevation 2,635 m (8,645 ft) from above Credit J.L. Dauvergne & G. Hüdepohl atacama photo.

International research led by scientists at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has shown the existence of solid sulphur compounds in HH514, a jet of gas coming from the centre of the Orion Nebula. The concentration of this chemical element could be related to the process of exoplanet formation. The researchers have used three of the most important optical telescopes in the world: the Very Large Telescope (VLT)[above], the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The results are published in the scientific journal MNRAS.

Gran Telescopio Canarias at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, in the Canaries (ES)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU) Hubble Space Telescope.

In the Orion Nebula there are large numbers of protostars and protoplanetary discs. They are bathed in the intense field of ultraviolet radiation produced by the stars in the Trapezium of Orion, which ionize the gas and which can photo-evaporate these structures, and disintegrate them. For this reason planet formation is considered rather improbable in this hostile environment. However the chemical composition of the many jets of gas which originate in the protoplanetary discs and which are emitted into their environment can give us clues about this phenomenon.

Solid dust particles which are dragged and shocked by these jets can be destroyed, liberating their atoms into the gas phase, and enhancing their concentration. When planets form in a protoplanetary disc the accretion of material is not uniform; the large grains of dust, typically sulphides, can be trapped and grow, as recent theoretical studies have shown.

Now, research led by the IAC has found, in a jet of gas in HH514, in the very centre of the Orion Nebula, a concentration of sulphur twice as high as the solar value, which could be explained by the destruction of reservoirs of dust grains rich in sulphides. The high abundance of these compounds seems to show that there has been or that there still is planet formation in the protoplanetary disc from where the jet is coming.

“Sulphur is an important element for protein synthesis in living beings” explains José Eduardo Méndez Delgado, an IAC researcher who is the first author of the paper. “In the nebulae where stars form sulphur is mainly found in the gas phase, but on Earth we find it in rocks containing sulphides”. He emphasizes that the processes causing the change of sulphur from gas to dust, or viceversa, in the Universe in general are not well known. “Although various ideas have been proposed, we still lack the evidence to know just what is happening in the Orion Nebula. Our work on HH514 will give us a better understanding of this phenomenon, and will attract other researchers to analyse this subject.”

This rersearch has been carried out using observations from three of the most important optical telescopes, the VLT, the HST, and the GTC; the latter is situated in the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma). “Interpreting the results we obtained has been challenging. We have rejected many of the options which could explain the strange over-abundance of sulphur in HH514, although it is possible that there are still some details we are missing” says César Esteban, an IAC researcher and a co-author of the article.

“It is clear that the Orion Nebula still has many secrets to interpret. The connection between the jets of gas and possible planet formation in the Orion Nebula shows the interconnection between different fields of knowledge, and that only by collaborating will we gain improved understanding of the problema” concludes Jorge García Rojas, an IAC researcher (Severo Ochoa Advanced Fellow) and a co-author of the article.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawaii (US).

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i (US) altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) via Manu Garcia-a friend from IAC-Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries[Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES).: “Dwarf galaxies- key laboratories for the study of dark matter”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

Via

Manu Garcia, a friend from IAC-Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries[Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES).

The universe around us.
Astronomy, everything you wanted to know about our local universe and never dared to ask.

5.16.22 [Just now in social media.]
Giuseppina Battaglia
gbattaglia@iac.es

An optical image of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy (left) alongside an illustration of the gamma-ray signal that might arise from Dark Matter annihilating within the galaxy (right). Image left: Giuseppe Donatiello. Image right: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Fermi Gamma-Ray Large Area Telescope.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope.

The journal Nature Astronomy publishes today, in its collection of reviews dedicated to dwarf galaxies, a new article written by Giuseppina Battaglia, researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and the University of La Laguna, and Carlo Nipoti, researcher at the University of Bologna. The study describes the latest results on the search for Dark Matter in Local Group dwarf galaxies.

Dark Matter* in dwarf galaxies is the subject of a review article published today in the journal Nature Astronomy in its living collection of articles that, from December 2021, is dedicated to the smallest galaxies, both in mass and size, in our Universe. Dwarf galaxies are the most numerous and the first to form, so they are considered key laboratories for testing a large number of open questions in astrophysics, including the existence and properties of Dark Matter.

*See Dark Matter Background below

Since several decades, the study of the dynamics of galaxies has led scientist to make the hypothesis that only a minority of their mass is formed by luminous matter (matter made by “ordinary” particles) and that the majority is composed by “Dark Matter“, which does not emit or absorb electro-magnetic radiation and whose nature is still unknown. In particular, in dwarf galaxies, the mass in Dark Matter can be dozens to thousands of times that in luminous matter.

The review published today concerns in particular the motions of stars in those dwarf galaxies that inhabit the Local Group, our neighborhood, and the use of such motions to infer the amount of Dark Matter in these galaxies and how it is distributed.

Local Group. Andrew Z. Colvin 3 March 2011

“Given how close to us Local Group dwarf galaxies are, they are among the best systems in which to search for indirect signatures of the presence of Dark Matter from annihilation or decay,” says Giuseppina Battaglia, researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL) and co-author of the review. “But determining the properties of Dark Matter halos in dwarf galaxies is important not only for investigating the nature of dark matter, but also to advance in our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies.”

Caterpillar Project A Milky Way size Dark Matter halo and its subhalos circled, an enormous suite of simulations. Griffen et al. 2016.

“Importantly, according to the standard cosmological model, galaxies form in a bottom-up fashion, i.e, small galaxies form first, while the large ones are formed by a combination of the smaller ones merging together and accretion of matter,” noted Carlo Nipoti, researcher at the University of Bologna and co-author of the article.

National Aeronautics Space AgencyWilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Standard Model of Cosmology.

“In other words, dwarf galaxies would be the “bricks” with which the other cosmic structures are built.”
__________________________________
Dark Matter Background
Fritz Zwicky discovered Dark Matter in the 1930s when observing the movement of the Coma Cluster., Vera Rubin a Woman in STEM, denied the Nobel, some 30 years later, did most of the work on Dark Matter.

Fritz Zwicky.
Coma cluster via NASA/ESA Hubble, the original example of Dark Matter discovered during observations by Fritz Zwicky and confirmed 30 years later by Vera Rubin.
In modern times, it was astronomer Fritz Zwicky, in the 1930s, who made the first observations of what we now call dark matter. His 1933 observations of the Coma Cluster of galaxies seemed to indicated it has a mass 500 times more than that previously calculated by Edwin Hubble. Furthermore, this extra mass seemed to be completely invisible. Although Zwicky’s observations were initially met with much skepticism, they were later confirmed by other groups of astronomers.

Thirty years later, astronomer Vera Rubin provided a huge piece of evidence for the existence of dark matter. She discovered that the centers of galaxies rotate at the same speed as their extremities, whereas, of course, they should rotate faster. Think of a vinyl LP on a record deck: its center rotates faster than its edge. That’s what logic dictates we should see in galaxies too. But we do not. The only way to explain this is if the whole galaxy is only the center of some much larger structure, as if it is only the label on the LP so to speak, causing the galaxy to have a consistent rotation speed from center to edge.

Vera Rubin, following Zwicky, postulated that the missing structure in galaxies is dark matter. Her ideas were met with much resistance from the astronomical community, but her observations have been confirmed and are seen today as pivotal proof of the existence of dark matter.
Astronomer Vera Rubin at the Lowell Observatory in 1965, worked on Dark Matter (The Carnegie Institution for Science).

Vera Rubin, with Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) image tube spectrograph attached to the Kitt Peak 84-inch telescope, 1970.

Vera Rubin measuring spectra, worked on Dark Matter(Emilio Segre Visual Archives AIP SPL).
Dark Matter Research

Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search from DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US) at Stanford University (US) at SNOLAB (Vale Inco Mine, Sudbury, Canada).

LBNL LZ Dark Matter Experiment (US) xenon detector at Sanford Underground Research Facility(US) Credit: Matt Kapust.

Lamda Cold Dark Matter Accerated Expansion of The universe http scinotions.com the-cosmic-inflation-suggests-the-existence-of-parallel-universes. Credit: Alex Mittelmann.

DAMA at Gran Sasso uses sodium iodide housed in copper to hunt for dark matter LNGS-INFN.

Yale HAYSTAC axion dark matter experiment at Yale’s Wright Lab.

DEAP Dark Matter detector, The DEAP-3600, suspended in the SNOLAB (CA) deep in Sudbury’s Creighton Mine.

The LBNL LZ Dark Matter Experiment (US) Dark Matter project at SURF, Lead, SD, USA.

DAMA-LIBRA Dark Matter experiment at the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics’ (INFN’s) Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS) located in the Abruzzo region of central Italy.

DARWIN Dark Matter experiment. A design study for a next-generation, multi-ton dark matter detector in Europe at The University of Zurich [Universität Zürich](CH).

PandaX II Dark Matter experiment at Jin-ping Underground Laboratory (CJPL) in Sichuan, China.

Inside the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment U Washington (US) Credit : Mark Stone U. of Washington. Axion Dark Matter Experiment.
__________________________________

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawaii (US).

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i (US) altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES): “The star cluster Westerlund 1- a nursery of giant stars within the shadows”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

25/05/2022
Ricardo Dorda
rdorda@iac.es

Image of the young star cluster Westerlund 1

A scientific team led by the University of Alicante, with participation by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has produced a detailed study of the most massive young star cluster in the Milky Way. This cloud of stars contains different types of giant stars in diverse phases of evolution, and can be used as an excellent laboratory for the study of the formation and evolution of massive stars.

Stars tend to form in clusters, containing from just a few to several thousand stars, which share the same age and composition, although they show evolutionary differences. Among the clusters within the inner regions of the Milky Way, an outstanding example is the young cluster Westerlund 1º (Wd 1) which is less than ten million years old (the Sun, for comparison is five thousand million years old) and considered the most massive cluster in our Galaxy. Its population is an ideal laboratory for the study of massive stars. But it is hidden behind a dusty region which makes it hard to study. Now a research group has managed to penetrate the dust, to estimate the distance to the cluster very accurately, and to analyze the surrounding stellar population.

The population of stars associated with Westerlund 1, which looks like a catalogue of giant stars, includes all types of massive stars, from O-type giants and supergiants, to red supergiants, several extremely bright B-type hypergiants, and several yellow hypergiants, among others. Some of them are in rare evolutionary phases, and in different ways of interaction in binary systems, which makes this group of stars ideal for disentangling the evolutionary processes in very massive stars. However the exact determination of the masses and ages of the stars dependes on the parameters derived for the cluster, and up to now one of the main unknown quantities was its distance, as well as the effect of the extinction of its light by the interstellar dust between us and the cluster.

Galactic relic and glossary of giant stars

“”Wd 1 is undoubtedly one of the most interesting objects in our Galaxy” says Ignacio Negueruela, Professor at the University of Alicante, who is first author on the paper. “Because fo the major quantity of dust along our line of sight to the cluster, even a satellite telescope as advanced as Gaia finds it difficult to give us high quality data. We have had to apply a complicated statistical treatment to the observations to obtain such an accurate value for the distance. But Gaia has given us much more information, providing us with the real size of the cluster, and allowing us to idenify previously unknown stars within in.”

Emilio J. Alfaro, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) and a co-author of the article emphasizes the importance of the data from Gaia to select the stars which are cluster members, and to determine their exact distances.

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU) GAIA satellite.

“The cluster lies some thirteen thousand light years away from the Sun, which means that its mass is closer to one hundred thousand solar masses than to a few tens of thousands, and shows that it is the most massive young star cluster in the local group of galaxies, with the exception of R136 in the Large Magellanic Cloud.”

Large Magellanic Cloud. ESO’s VISTA telescope reveals a remarkable image of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

“All the stars which we can get to see in this cluster are much more massive and brighter than the Sun. Some are so big that if we put one of them at the centre of the solar system it would almost reach the orbit of Saturn. In fact one of them is a candidate for the biggest star we know. The importance of the cluster is that all of these extreme objects can be associated with the population from which they come” concludes Ricardo Dorda, a researcher at the IAC who participated in the research.

New clues to the Milky Way’s spiral structure

The data from Gaia-EDR3 together with new spectroscopic observations obtained with AAOmega (The Omega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope) have allowed the team to locate a large concentration of blue stars, which could be at some six thousand five hundred light years from the Sun, and which are a star formation complex, or a segment of a spiral arm previously unknown.

Gaia EDR3 StarTrails 600

The AAOmega Spectrograph | Anglo-Australian Telescope.

The Australian Astronomical Observatory AAT Anglo Australian Telescope, at Siding Spring Observatory, near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, at an altitude of 1,165 m (3,822 ft).

“The detection of a concentration of blue stars, with angular motion very similar to that of the cluster, but closer to us, requires a more detailed study to show us their nature and origin. This direction in the Galactic plane has large numbers of young stars, and our determination of the distance to Wd 1 also gives us an indication of the probable position of one of the internal spiral arms of the Galaxy, which is basic to our understanding of its compex spiral structure” adds Alfaro.

Only globular clusters, old concentrations of stars in the galactic halo, have masses in the range comparable to, or bigger than, Westerlund 1 (between ten thousand and a million solar masses). But they are among the oldest objects int the Galaxy, whose ages are greater than twelve thousand million years. Studying the formation of this very young stellar cluster could give us clues helping to understand how the most massive clusters are forming at the present time, and why there are so few of them.

Science paper:
Astronomy & Astrophysics

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawaii (US).

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i (US) altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES): “Astronomers observe potential magnetic flip around a supermassive black hole”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

05/05/2022 [Just now in social media.]

Contacts at the IAC:
José Acosta,
jose.acosta@iac.es

Josefa Becerra,
josefa.becerra.gonzalez@iac.es

Artist’s impression of the unusual eruption of the galaxy 1ES 1927+654. A sudden reversal of the magnetic field around its million-solar-mass black hole may have triggered the outburst. Credit: NASA.

An international research, in which a team from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has participated, has provided new evidence for an enigmatic outburst from a galaxy 216 million light-years away, proposing a new interpretation based on a spontaneous flip of the magnetic field surrounding its central black hole. The study has used joint data from different satellites and telescopes, including the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) [below] and the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC)[below], both located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma). The results will be published in the coming days in The Astrophysical Journal.

In early March 2018, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae alerted astronomers that a galaxy called 1ES 1927+654 had brightened by nearly 100 times in visible light. A search for earlier detection by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System showed that the eruption had begun months earlier, at the end of 2017. Three months after the discovery the X-ray emission from the galaxy disappeared.

“Rapid changes in visible and ultraviolet light have been seen in a few dozen galaxies similar to this one,” says Sibasish Laha, a research scientist at the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the United States. “But this event marks the first time we’ve seen X-rays dropping out completely while the other wavelengths brighten.”

“An earlier interpretation of the eruption suggested that it was triggered by a star that passed so close to the black hole it was torn apart, disrupting the flow of gas,” says Josefa Becerra, researcher at the IAC and co-author of the article. “However, such an event would fade out more rapidly than this outburst.”

The research team analyzed new and archival observations across the spectrum. NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and ESA’s (European Space Agency) XMM-Newton satellite provided UV and X-ray measurements.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Neil Gehrels Swift X-ray, and UV/Visible light Observatory.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU) XMM Newton X-ray Telescope.

Visible light observations came from the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) and the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan), both located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma. Radio measurements were acquired from the Very Long Baseline Array, a network of 10 radio telescopes located across the United States; the Very Large Array in New Mexico; and the European VLBI Network.

NRAO Very Long Baseline Array(US)-Very Long Baseline Array-USA

National Radio Astronomy Observatory(US)Karl G Jansky Very Large Array located in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, ~50 miles (80 km) west of Socorro. The VLA comprises twenty-eight 25-meter radio telescopes.

European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network

“The high quality of the GTC/OSIRIS spectrum allows us to disentangle the stellar contribution from that of the active core,” says José Acosta, IAC researcher and co-author of the paper. “The stellar population of the host galaxy is dominated by young stars and the nuclear spectrum is dominated by strong emission lines,” he says.

Most big galaxies, including our own Milky Way, host a supermassive black hole weighing millions to billions of times the Sun’s mass. When matter falls toward one, it first collects into a vast, flattened structure called an accretion disk. As the material slowly swirls inward, it heats up and emits visible, UV, and lower-energy X-ray light. Near the black hole, a cloud of extremely hot particles – called the corona – produces higher-energy X-rays. The brightness of these emissions depends on how much material streams toward the black hole.

The unique disappearance of the X-ray emission provides astronomers with an important clue. They suspect the black hole’s magnetic field creates and sustains the corona, so any magnetic change could impact its X-ray properties. “A magnetic reversal, where the north pole becomes south and vice versa, seems to best fit the observations,” says co-author Mitchell Begelman, a professor in the department of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder who developed the model. “The field initially weakens at the outskirts of the accretion disk, leading to greater heating and brightening in visible and UV light,” he explains.

As the flip progresses, the field becomes so weak that it can no longer support the corona and the X-ray emission vanishes. The magnetic field then gradually strengthens in its new orientation. In Oct 2018, about 3-4 months after they disappeared, the X-rays came back, indicating that the corona had been fully restored.

Magnetic reversals are likely to be common events in the cosmos. The geologic record shows that Earth’s field flips unpredictably, averaging a few reversals every million years in the recent past. The Sun, by contrast, undergoes a magnetic reversal as part of its normal cycle of activity, switching north and south poles roughly every 11 years.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawaii (US).

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i (US) altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) via Manu Garcia-a friend from IAC : “An atlas of active galaxies shows that superwinds are common even in the most dormant”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

via

Manu Garcia, a friend from IAC-Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries[Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES).

The universe around us.
Astronomy, everything you wanted to know about our local universe and never dared to ask.

4.27.22
Silbia López de Lacalle
sll@iaa.es

Color image of NGC4321 at a large scale, combining three images with different wide filters. Source: IAA-CSIC, Nordic Optical Telescope.

Nordic Optical Telescope [funded by Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and (since 1997) Iceland], at IAC Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands[Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES) The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in The Canary Islands[Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) is studying in depth a sample of LINERs, the least luminous type of active galaxy, and finds that galactic superwinds occur in half of them

Galactic superwinds, capable of generating large amounts of energy and transporting gas over great distances, play a fundamental role in the evolution of galaxies. In the case of active galaxies, whose brightness is attributed to the existence of a supermassive black hole surrounded by a disk of matter that feeds it, it is common to observe superwinds produced by the black hole. However, the properties of these phenomena have yet to be characterized in detail, and in the less bright active galaxies they are hardly known. A study carried out by researchers at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) has published the most complete atlas of superwinds in a type of low-power active galaxies that are the most abundant in the local universe.

“It is believed that all galaxies with an active nucleus in their center generate the presence of so-called galactic winds, which are nothing more than dust and gas from the host galaxy that are expelled out at high speeds,” says Laura Hermosa, a researcher at the IAA-CSIC that leads the work–. Until now, it had not been verified whether the existence of these winds was also common in the less active nuclei that exist, the so-called LINERs”.

LINERs, an acronym for “low ionization nuclear emission line region”, represent about a third of the galaxies in our environment. Its nucleus emits a specific type of radiation (the emission of weakly ionized or neutral atoms), and its energy shows an intensity greater than galaxies whose energy only comes from stars, but less than those in which supermassive black holes are consuming material very actively.

In the latter, galactic superwinds generate feedback processes that can even stop star formation, but until now it was not even known how frequent they are in LINER galaxies. This could be due to the fact that the particularities of these objects prevent their formation or to an observation bias: these phenomena tend to be found in very powerful active nuclei, where they are easily identified, since the fluxes usually show a scale proportional to the luminosity of the nucleus. active.

Combination of the central regions of three galaxies in the sample (NGC5813, NGC5363 and NGC0266), showing continuous red and extended emission from ionized gas in blue-green. All are superwind candidates, although in the third the emission in the spiral arms by star-forming regions stands out. Source: IAA-CSIC, NOT telescope.

“In this work we have obtained images of the ionized gas of a sample of seventy LINER galaxies, becoming the largest sample in this type of study carried out to date. The winds are visible in the images as an extended emission emerging from the galactic core. Combining the information from the images with existing spectroscopic information in the literature, we have quantified for the first time how common winds are in these types of active galaxies and found that approximately 50% of all LINERs in the local universe show galactic superwinds.” , points out Laura Hermosa (IAA-CSIC).

The work has also made it possible to divide the sample into four different types of wind configurations depending on how the emission is distributed: “nucleus-halo” for unresolved nuclear emission, “disk” for structures similar to small spiral arms or disks, ” bubble” for the biconical, filamentary, or bubble-shaped structures emerging from the nucleus that the team identifies as superwind candidates, and “dusty” when large amounts of dust obscure the nuclear emission.

“Furthermore, combining the optical information with the X-rays, we see a correlation between both emissions for 60% of the sample, which indicates that both emissions are generated in the same spatial region of the active galaxies (LINER type), as shown. has already seen in others of greater luminosity”, concludes Laura Hermosa (IAA-CSIC).

Science paper:
Astronomy & Astrophysics

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawaii (US).

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i (US) altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES): “Astronomers discover a four-planet system with a peculiar migration process”

From IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias](ES)

5.2.22
Contact at the IAC:

Hans J. Deeg
hdeeg@iac.es

Felipe Murgas
fmurgas@iac.es

Enric Pallé
epalle@iac.es

Artist’s impression of a planetary system composed of rocky, low-mass planets orbiting their star. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz (IAC).

An international research, in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) participates, has discovered a new planetary system comprised of 4 planets orbiting the star TOI-500. This is the first system known to host an Earth analogue with a period shorter than one day and 3 additional low-mass planets whose orbital configuration can be explained via a non-violent and smooth migration scenario. The study is published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The inner planet, dubbed TOI-500b, is a so-called ultra-short period (USP) planet, as its orbital period is only 13 hours. It is regarded as an Earth analogue, that is, an Earth-like rocky planet with radius, mass, and density comparable to those of our planet. “In contrast to Earth, though, its proximity to the star makes it so hot (about 1350 °C) that its surface is most likely an immense expanse of lava,” says Luisa Maria Serrano, researcher at the of the Physics Department of The University of Turin [Università degli Studi di Torino](IT) and first author of the paper. The new planet could be a true reflection of what the Earth will look like in the future, when the Sun becomes a red giant star, much bigger and brighter than it is now.

TOI-500b was initially identified as a planet candidate by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a space telescope designed to look for planets in orbit around nearby bright stars using the transit method.

Planet transit. NASA/Ames.

The National Aeronautics and Space Agency Massachusetts Institute of Technology TESS – Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite replaced the Kepler Space Telescope in search for exoplanets. TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

This method measures the minute decrease of the brightness of a star as the planet crosses the stellar disk as seen from the telescope. TOI-500b was subsequently confirmed thanks to a one-year-long observing campaign carried out by the University of Turin with the HARPS spectrograph at The European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral] [Observatoire européen austral][Europaiche Sûdsternwarte] (EU)(CL).

ESO/HARPS spectrograph at Cerro La Silla.

3.6m telescope & HARPS at Cerro LaSilla, Chile, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2400 metres.

The analysis of the TESS and HARPS data has provided precise measurements of the mass; radius and orbital parameters of the inner ultra-short period planet TOI-500b. “The HARPS measurements have also allowed us to detect 3 additional low-mass planets orbiting TOI-500 every 6.6, 26.2, and 61.3 days. TOI-500 is a remarkable planetary system, important for understanding the dynamical fate of planets,” says Davide Gandolfi, researcher at the of the Physics Department of the University of Turin and co-author of the paper.

The novelty presented by the newly published paper lies in the migration process that led the planetary system to its current configuration. “It is commonly accepted that ultra-short period planets did not form in their current-day orbits, as the innermost regions of their natal protoplanetary disk have inadequate density and temperature to form planets. They must have originated further out and then migrated inwards close to their host star,” says Hans J. Deeg, researcher at the IAC who participated in the study.

Although there is no consensus on the migration process, it is often believed to occur via a violent process, involving planet-planet scattering, which would shrink and excite the orbits of the planets. In their study the authors show that the planets orbiting TOI-500 may have always been on nearly circular orbits, and then migrated inwards following a so-called secular and quasi-static migration process that lasted about 2 billion years. “This is a quiet migration pattern, in which planets move slowly on orbits closer and closer to their star, without bumping into each other and without exiting their orbits,” explains Felipe Murgas, researcher at the IAC and co-author of the paper.

“This paper demonstrates the importance of coupling the discovery of systems hosting USP planets with numerical simulations to test possible migratory processes that may have led them to their current orbital configuration,” says Enric Pallé, researcher at the IAC and co-author of the article. “Acquiring data across a long time baseline makes it possible to unveil the inner architecture of systems similar to TOI-500 and understand how planets have settled into their orbits”, conclude.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

IAC-The Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias] (ES) operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands:

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma
Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

The Instituto de Astrofísica the headquarters, which is in La Laguna (Tenerife).

Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos at La Palma (ES) at an altitude of 2400m.

The seeing statistics at ORM make it the second-best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory Hawaii (US).

Maunakea Observatories Hawai’i (US) altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The site also has some of the most extensive astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere; its fleet of telescopes includes the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world’s largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009; the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope; the William Herschel Telescope (second largest in Europe), and the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope.

Gran Telescopio Canarias [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) sited on a volcanic peak 2,267 metres (7,438 ft) above sea level.

Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (IT) (ES) a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Altitude 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

Isaac Newton Group 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Islands(ES), 2,396 m (7,861 ft).

The Swedish 1m Solar Telescope SST at the Roque de los Muchachos observatory on La Palma Spain, Altitude 2,360 m (7,740 ft).

The observatory was established in 1985, after 15 years of international work and cooperation of several countries with the Spanish island hosting many telescopes from Britain, The Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. The island provided better seeing conditions for the telescopes that had been moved to Herstmonceux by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, including the 98 inch aperture Isaac Newton Telescope (the largest reflector in Europe at that time). When it was moved to the island it was upgraded to a 100-inch (2.54 meter), and many even larger telescopes from various nations would be hosted there.

Tiede Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands (ES)

Teide Observatory [Observatorio del Teide], IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at 2,390 metres (7,840 ft), located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Later the emphasis for optical telescopes shifted more towards Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.