From European Southern Observatory and ALMA: “Astronomers Reveal Interstellar Thread of One of Life’s Building Blocks”

European Southern Observatory

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

ALMA

15 January 2020

ESO Contacts

Víctor Rivilla
INAF Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory
Florence, Italy
Tel: +39 055 2752 319
Email: rivilla@arcetri.astro.it

Kathrin Altwegg
University of Bern
Bern, Switzerland
Tel: +41 31 631 44 20
Email: kathrin.altwegg@space.unibe.ch

Leonardo Testi
European Southern Observatory
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6541
Email: ltesti@eso.org

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6670
Cell: +49 151 241 664 00
Email: pio@eso.org

ALMA Contacts

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA

ALMA and Rosetta map the journey of phosphorus

Phosphorus, present in our DNA and cell membranes, is an essential element for life as we know it. But how it arrived on the early Earth is something of a mystery. Astronomers have now traced the journey of phosphorus from star-forming regions to comets using the combined powers of ALMA and the European Space Agency’s probe Rosetta.

This ALMA image shows a detailed view of the star-forming region AFGL 5142. A bright, massive star in its infancy is visible at the centre of the image. The flows of gas from this star have opened up a cavity in the region, and it is in the walls of this cavity (shown in colour), that phosphorus-bearing molecules like phosphorus monoxide are formed. The different colours represent material moving at different speeds. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Rivilla et al.

This wide-field view shows the region of the sky, in the constellation of Auriga, where the star-forming region AFGL 5142 is located. This view was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin

This video starts by showing a wide-field view of a region of the sky in the constellation of Auriga. It then zooms in to show the star-forming region AFGL 5142, recently observed with ALMA. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Rivilla et al.; Mario Weigand, http://www.SkyTrip.de; ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2; Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org). Music: Astral Electronics

This animation shows the key results from a study that has revealed the interstellar thread of phosphorus, one of life’s building blocks. Thanks to ALMA, astronomers could pinpoint where phosphorus-bearing molecules form in star-forming regions like AFGL 5142. The background of this animation shows a part of the night sky in the constellation of Auriga, where the star-forming region AFGL 5142 is located. The ALMA image of this object appears on the top left, and one of the locations where the team found phosphorus-bearing molecules is indicated by a circle. The most common phosphorus-bearing molecule in AFGL 5142 is phosphorus monoxide, represented in orange and red in the diagram that appears on the bottom left. Another molecule found was phosphorus nitride, represented in orange and blue. Using data from the ROSINA instrument onboard ESA’s Rosetta, astronomers also found phosphorus monoxide on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which appears on the bottom right at the end of the video. This first sighting of phosphorus monoxide on a comet helps astronomers draw a connection between star-forming regions, where the molecule is created, all the way to Earth, where it played a crucial role in starting life.
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser/L.Calçada; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Rivilla et al.; ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM; Mario Weigand, http://www.SkyTrip.de

ESA/Rosetta spacecraft, European Space Agency’s legendary comet explorer Rosetta

Their research shows, for the first time, where molecules containing phosphorus form, how this element is carried in comets, and how a particular molecule may have played a crucial role in starting life on our planet.

“Life appeared on Earth about 4 billion years ago, but we still do not know the processes that made it possible,” says Víctor Rivilla, the lead author of a new study published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The new results from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, and from the ROSINA instrument on board Rosetta, show that phosphorus monoxide is a key piece in the origin-of-life puzzle.

ESA Rosetta ROSINA

With the power of ALMA, which allowed a detailed look into the star-forming region AFGL 5142, astronomers could pinpoint where phosphorus-bearing molecules, like phosphorus monoxide, form. New stars and planetary systems arise in cloud-like regions of gas and dust in between stars, making these interstellar clouds the ideal places to start the search for life’s building blocks.

The ALMA observations showed that phosphorus-bearing molecules are created as massive stars are formed. Flows of gas from young massive stars open up cavities in interstellar clouds. Molecules containing phosphorus form on the cavity walls, through the combined action of shocks and radiation from the infant star. The astronomers have also shown that phosphorus monoxide is the most abundant phosphorus-bearing molecule in the cavity walls.

After searching for this molecule in star-forming regions with ALMA, the European team moved on to a Solar System object: the now-famous comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The idea was to follow the trail of these phosphorus-bearing compounds. If the cavity walls collapse to form a star, particularly a less-massive one like the Sun, phosphorus monoxide can freeze out and get trapped in the icy dust grains that remain around the new star. Even before the star is fully formed, those dust grains come together to form pebbles, rocks and ultimately comets, which become transporters of phosphorus monoxide.

ROSINA, which stands for Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis, collected data from 67P for two years as Rosetta orbited the comet. Astronomers had found hints of phosphorus in the ROSINA data before, but they did not know what molecule had carried it there. Kathrin Altwegg, the Principal Investigator for Rosina and an author in the new study, got a clue about what this molecule could be after being approached at a conference by an astronomer studying star-forming regions with ALMA: “She said that phosphorus monoxide would be a very likely candidate, so I went back to our data and there it was!”

This first sighting of phosphorus monoxide on a comet helps astronomers draw a connection between star-forming regions, where the molecule is created, all the way to Earth.

“The combination of the ALMA and ROSINA data has revealed a sort of chemical thread during the whole process of star formation, in which phosphorus monoxide plays the dominant role,” says Rivilla, who is a researcher at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory of INAF, Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics.

“Phosphorus is essential for life as we know it,” adds Altwegg. “As comets most probably delivered large amounts of organic compounds to the Earth, the phosphorus monoxide found in comet 67P may strengthen the link between comets and life on Earth.”

This intriguing journey could be documented because of the collaborative efforts between astronomers. “The detection of phosphorus monoxide was clearly thanks to an interdisciplinary exchange between telescopes on Earth and instruments in space,” says Altwegg.

Leonardo Testi, ESO astronomer and ALMA European Operations Manager, concludes: “Understanding our cosmic origins, including how common the chemical conditions favourable for the emergence of life are, is a major topic of modern astrophysics. While ESO and ALMA focus on the observations of molecules in distant young planetary systems, the direct exploration of the chemical inventory within our Solar System is made possible by ESA missions, like Rosetta. The synergy between world leading ground-based and space facilities, through the collaboration between ESO and ESA, is a powerful asset for European researchers and enables transformational discoveries like the one reported in this paper.”

More information

This research was presented in a paper to appear in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The team is composed of V. M. Rivilla (INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Florence, Italy [INAF-OAA]), M. N. Drozdovskaya (Center for Space and Habitability, University of Bern, Switzerland [CSH]), K. Altwegg (Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern, Switzerland), P. Caselli (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany), M. T. Beltrán (INAF-OAA), F. Fontani (INAF-OAA), F.F.S. van der Tak (SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, and Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, The Netherlands), R. Cesaroni (INAF-OAA), A. Vasyunin (Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia, and Ventspils University of Applied Sciences, Latvia), M. Rubin (CSH), F. Lique (LOMC-UMR, CNRS–Université du Havre), S. Marinakis (University of East London, and Queen Mary University of London, UK), L. Testi (INAF-OAA, ESO Garching, and Excellence Cluster “Universe”, Germany), and the ROSINA team (H. Balsiger, J. J. Berthelier, J. De Keyser, B. Fiethe, S. A. Fuselier, S. Gasc, T. I. Gombosi, T. Sémon, C. -y. Tzou).

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope [below] and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer [below]as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA [below] working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope [below]. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Čerenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX [below] and ALMA [below], the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT [below], which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

See the full article here .

This blog post was built on the ESO release for this work.
If ALMA does their own release, a blog post will be done from that release.

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

ESO La Silla HELIOS (HARPS Experiment for Light Integrated Over the Sun)

ESO/HARPS at La Silla

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

MPG/ESO 2.2 meter telescope at Cerro La Silla, Chile, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2400 metres

ESO/Cerro LaSilla, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2400 metres.

ESO VLT 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,

2009 ESO VLTI Interferometer image, Cerro Paranal, with an elevation of 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level, •ANTU (UT1; The Sun ),
•KUEYEN (UT2; The Moon ),
•MELIPAL (UT3; The Southern Cross ), and
•YEPUN (UT4; Venus – as evening star).

ESO VLT 4 lasers on Yepun

Glistening against the awesome backdrop of the night sky above ESO_s Paranal Observatory, four laser beams project out into the darkness from Unit Telescope 4 UT4 of the VLT.

ESO/NTT at Cerro La Silla, Chile, at an altitude of 2400 metres

ESO VLT Survey telescope

Part of ESO’s Paranal Observatory, the VISTA Telescope observes the brilliantly clear skies above the Atacama Desert of Chile. Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky, with an elevation of 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

ESO/E-ELT,to be on top of Cerro Armazones in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. located at the summit of the mountain at an altitude of 3,060 metres (10,040 ft).

ESO/MPIfR APEX high on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile’s Atacama region, at an altitude of over 4,800 m (15,700 ft)at the Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in the Atacama desert.

Leiden MASCARA instrument, La Silla, located in the southern Atacama Desert 600 kilometres (370 mi) north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2,400 metres (7,900 ft)

Leiden MASCARA cabinet at ESO Cerro la Silla located in the southern Atacama Desert 600 kilometres (370 mi) north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2,400 metres (7,900 ft)

ESO Next Generation Transit Survey at Cerro Paranel, 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level

ESO Speculoos telescopes four 1m-diameter robotic telescopes at ESO Paranal Observatory 2635 metres 8645 ft above sea level

ESO TAROT telescope at Paranal, 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level

ESO ExTrA telescopes at Cerro LaSilla at an altitude of 2400 metres

A novel gamma ray telescope under construction on Mount Hopkins, Arizona. a large project known as the Čerenkov Telescope Array, composed of hundreds of similar telescopes to be situated in the Canary Islands and Chile. The telescope on Mount Hopkins will be fitted with a prototype high-speed camera, assembled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and capable of taking pictures at a billion frames per second. Credit: Vladimir Vassiliev

From ALMA via NRAO: “The Turbulent Life of Two Supermassive Black Holes Caught in a Galaxy Crash”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

via

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

ALMA sees material around two growing supermassive black holes in unprecedented detail.

1.6.20

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu

https://vimeo.com/nrao
ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), E. Treister; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello; NASA/ESA Hubble. An international team of astronomers used ALMA to create the most detailed image yet of the gas surrounding two supermassive black holes in a merging galaxy.

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), E. Treister; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello; NASA/ESA Hubble
NGC 6240 as seen with ALMA (top) and the Hubble Space Telescope (bottom). In the ALMA image, the molecular gas is blue and the black holes are the red dots. The ALMA image provides the sharpest view of the molecular gas around the black holes in this merging galaxy.

Artist impression of the merging galaxy NGC 6240. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello

An international team of astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to create the most detailed image yet of the gas surrounding two supermassive black holes in a merging galaxy.

400 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Ophiuchus, two galaxies are crashing into each other and forming a galaxy we know as NGC 6240. This peculiarly-shaped galaxy has been observed many times before, as it is relatively close by. But NGC 6240 is complex and chaotic. The collision between the two galaxies is still ongoing, bringing along in the crash two growing supermassive black holes that will likely merge as one larger black hole.

To understand what is happening within NGC 6240, astronomers want to observe the dust and gas surrounding the black holes in detail, but previous images have not been sharp enough to do that. New ALMA observations have increased the resolution of the images by a factor of ten – showing for the first time the structure of the cold gas in the galaxy, even within the sphere of influence of the black holes.

“The key to understanding this galaxy system is molecular gas,” explained Ezequiel Treister of the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile. “This gas is the fuel that is needed to form stars, but it also feeds the supermassive black holes, which allows them to grow.”

Most of the gas is located in a region between the two black holes. Less detailed observations taken previously suggested that this gas might be a rotating disk. “We don’t find any evidence for that,” said Treister. “Instead, we see a chaotic stream of gas with filaments and bubbles between the black holes. Some of this gas is ejected outwards with speeds up to 500 kilometers per second. We don’t know yet what causes these outflows.”

Another reason to observe the gas in such detail is that it helps to determine the mass of the black holes. “Previous models, based on surrounding stars, indicated that the black holes were much more massive than we expected, around a billion times the mass of our Sun,” said Anne Medling of the University of Toledo in Ohio. “But these new ALMA images for the first time showed us how much gas is caught up inside the black holes’ sphere of influence. This mass is significant, and therefore we now estimate the black hole masses to be lower: around a few hundred million times the mass of our Sun. Based on this, we think that most previous black hole measurements in systems like this could be off by 5-90 percent.”

The gas also turned out to be even closer to the black holes than the astronomers had expected. “It is located in a very extreme environment,” explained Medling. “We think that it will eventually fall into the black hole, or it will be ejected at high speeds.”

The astronomers don’t find evidence for a third black hole in the galaxy, which another team recently claimed to have discovered. “We don’t see molecular gas associated with this claimed third nucleus,” said Treister. “It could be a local star cluster instead of a black hole, but we need to study it much more to say anything about it with certainty.”

ALMA’s high sensitivity and resolution are crucial to learn more about supermassive black holes and the role of gas in interacting galaxies. “This galaxy is so complex, that we could never know what is going on inside it without these detailed radio images,” said Loreto Barcos-Muñoz of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia. “We now have a better idea of the 3D-structure of the galaxy, which gives us the opportunity to understand how galaxies evolve during the latest stages of an ongoing merger. In a few hundred million years, this galaxy will look completely different.”

This research was presented at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii, and in two papers:

“The Molecular Gas in the NGC 6240 Merging Galaxy System at the Highest Spatial Resolution,” by E. Treister et al., accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
“How to Fuel an AGN: Mapping Circumnuclear Gas in NGC 6240 with ALMA,” by A. M. Medling et al., The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

See the full NRAO article 1.6.20 here .

See also the full ALMA article 1.7.20 here.

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

NRAO/Karl V Jansky VLA, on the Plains of San Agustin fifty miles west of Socorro, NM, USA

The NRAO operates a complementary, state-of-the-art suite of radio telescope facilities for use by the scientific community, regardless of institutional or national affiliation: the Very Large Array (VLA)

NRAO VLBA

NRAO/VLBA

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

Access to ALMA observing time by the North American astronomical community will be through the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC).

*The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) comprises ten radio telescopes spanning 5,351 miles. It’s the world’s largest, sharpest, dedicated telescope array. With an eye this sharp, you could be in Los Angeles and clearly read a street sign in New York City!

Astronomers use the continent-sized VLBA to zoom in on objects that shine brightly in radio waves, long-wavelength light that’s well below infrared on the spectrum. They observe blazars, quasars, black holes, and stars in every stage of the stellar life cycle. They plot pulsars, exoplanets, and masers, and track asteroids and planets.

largest, sharpest, dedicated telescope array. With an eye this sharp, you could be in Los Angeles and clearly read a street sign in New York City!

Astronomers use the continent-sized VLBA to zoom in on objects that shine brightly in radio waves, long-wavelength light that’s well below infrared on the spectrum. They observe blazars, quasars, black holes, and stars in every stage of the stellar life cycle. They plot pulsars, exoplanets, and masers, and track asteroids and planets.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA: “UFRO will evaluate alternatives for antenna control systems for ALMA”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

27 December, 2019

© ALMA (NRAO/NAOJ/ESO)

Some of the ALMA observatory’s control systems were designed over 10 years ago and will soon need to be replaced. Universidad de la Frontera (UFRO) in Temuco, Chile, was awarded Quimal funds from Conicyt to explore maintenance alternatives for these real-time systems.

“We are very pleased with the outcome, which is the product of an active collaboration between the observatory and the university over the last five years,” says Jorge Ibsen, Head of Computing at ALMA. “This project marks an important contribution from southern Chile to the development of local astro-engineering.”

Dr. Patricio Galeas, professor in charge of the project, will work with a budget of around 200 million Chilean pesos and will have two years to develop the project in conjunction with ALMA. This is the first time that UFRO has been awarded an initiative of this size in the field of astronomy.

“This development represents an important experience for the University and can generate the knowledge needed to solve similar problems in other astronomic observatories,” indicates Dr. Patricio Galeas, adding that the research team will be made up of both academic staff and students.

The general purpose of the initiative is to design and implement a Proof of Concept (PoC) for the real-time control system, using cutting-edge industry standards.

Tzu Chiang-Chen, Manager of the Engineering Services Group, says that “this project is of vital importance for ALMA, because it won’t just solve the obsolescence issue in the antennas’ real-time control system. It will also generate the transfer of knowledge between the observatory and UFRO.”

The main purpose of the Quimal fund awarded to UFRO is to strengthen and promote the development of scientific astronomical research and related sciences, through projects with special emphasis on the design and construction of astronomic instrumentation; the development of astronomy-related technologies for emerging fields of research; and cutting-edge technological transfer processes. The competition was targeted at astronomers, astrophysicists and engineers from areas related to astronomy to promote the association of national institutions and researchers in the development of avant-garde technologies.

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA: “In the Shadow of a Black Hole”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

10 April, 2019

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.
This 17-minute film explores the efforts that led to this historic image, from the science of Einstein and Schwarzschild to the struggles and successes of the EHT collaboration. Credit:ESO

Event Horizon Telescope Array

Arizona Radio Observatory/Submillimeter-wave Astronomy (ARO/SMT)

Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment

Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA)

Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE)

Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO)

IRAM 30m Radio telescope, on Pico Veleta in the Spanish Sierra Nevada,, Altitude 2,850 m (9,350 ft)

Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) 30m

James Clerk Maxwell Telescope interior, Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA

Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano

CfA Submillimeter Array Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA, Altitude 4,080 m (13,390 ft)

Submillimeter Array Hawaii SAO

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array, Chile

South Pole Telescope SPTPOL

Future Array/Telescopes

IRAM NOEMA in the French Alps on the wide and isolated Plateau de Bure at an elevation of 2550 meters, the telescope currently consists of ten antennas, each 15 meters in diameter.interferometer, Located in the French Alpes on the wide and isolated Plateau de Bure at an elevation of 2550 meters

NSF CfA Greenland telescope

Greenland Telescope

ARO 12m Radio Telescope, Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona, USA, Altitude 1,914 m (6,280 ft)

ARO 12m Radio Telescope

Caltech Owens Valley Radio Observatory, located near Big Pine, California (US) in Owens Valley, Altitude1,222 m (4,009 ft)

The first image of a black hole. This is the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87. Image via JPL/ Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.

Katie Bouman-Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Headed to Caltech.

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA: “Carbon Cocoons Surround Growing Galaxies – ALMA Spots Earliest Environment Pollution in the Universe”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

Valeria Foncea
Education and Public Outreach Officer
Joint ALMA Observatory Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6258
Cell phone: +56 9 7587 1963
Email: valeria.foncea@alma.cl

Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu

Researchers have discovered gigantic clouds of gaseous carbon spanning more than a radius of 30,000 light-years around young galaxies using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This is the first confirmation that carbon atoms produced inside of stars in the early Universe have spread beyond galaxies. No theoretical studies have predicted such huge carbon cocoons around growing galaxies, which raises questions about our current understanding of cosmic evolution.

ALMA and NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of a young galaxy surrounded by a gaseous carbon cocoon. The red color shows the distribution of carbon gas imaged by combining the ALMA data for 18 galaxies. The stellar distribution photographed by HST is shown in blue. The image size is 3.8 arcsec x 3.8 arcsec, which corresponds 70,000 light years x 70,000 light years at the distance of 12.8 billion light years away.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, Fujimoto et al.

“We examined the ALMA Science Archive thoroughly and collected all the data that contain radio signals from carbon ions in galaxies in the early Universe, only one billion years after the Big Bang,” says Seiji Fujimoto, the lead author of the research paper who is an astronomer at the University of Copenhagen, and a former Ph.D. student at the University of Tokyo. “By combining all the data, we achieved unprecedented sensitivity. To obtain a dataset of the same quality with one observation would take 20 times longer than typical ALMA observations, which is almost impossible to achieve.”

Heavy elements such as carbon and oxygen did not exist in the Universe at the time of the Big Bang. They were formed later by nuclear fusion in stars. However, it is not yet understood how these elements spread throughout the Universe. Astronomers have found heavy elements inside baby galaxies but not beyond those galaxies, due to the limited sensitivity of their telescopes. This research team summed the faint signals stored in the data archive and pushed the limits.

“The gaseous carbon clouds are almost five times larger than the distribution of stars in the galaxies, as observed with the Hubble Space Telescope,” explains Masami Ouchi, a professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the University of Tokyo. “We spotted diffuse but huge clouds floating in the coal-black Universe.”

Then, how were the carbon cocoons formed? “Supernova explosions at the final stage of stellar life expel heavy elements formed in the stars,” says Professor Rob Ivison, the Director for Science at the European Southern Observatory. “Energetic jets and radiation from supermassive black holes in the centers of the galaxies could also help transport carbon outside of the galaxies and finally to throughout the Universe. We are witnessing this ongoing diffusion process, the earliest environmental pollution in the Universe.”

The research team notes that at present theoretical models are unable to explain such large carbon clouds around young galaxies, probably indicating that some new physical process must be incorporated into cosmological simulations. “Young galaxies seem to eject an amount of carbon-rich gas far exceeding our expectation,” says Andrea Ferrara, a professor at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.

The team is now using ALMA and other telescopes around the world to further explore the implications of the discovery for galactic outflows and carbon-rich halos around galaxies.

Artist’s impression of a young galaxy surrounded by a huge gaseous cloud.
Credit: NAOJ

Paper and the Research Team
These observation results are published as S. Fujimoto et al. “First Identification of 10 kpc [CII] Halo around Star-Forming Galaxies at z=5-7” in The Astrophysical Journal on December 16, 2019.

The research team members are:
Seiji Fujimoto (The University of Tokyo/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/Waseda, University, current affiliation is University of Copenhagen), Masami Ouchi (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/The University of Tokyo) , Andrea Ferrara (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Andrea Pallottini (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Rob. J. Ivison (European Southern Observatory), Christopher Behrens (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Simona Gallerani (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Shohei Arata (Osaka University), Hidenobu Yajima (University of Tsukuba), and Kentaro Nagamine (Osaka University/The University of Tokyo/University of Nevada)

This research was supported by World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI Initiative), MEXT, Japan, JSPS KAKENHI (No. 15H02064, 16J02344, 17H01110, 17H01111, 17H01114), NAOJ ALMA Scientific Research Grant Number 2017-06B, Munich Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics (MIAPP) of the DFG cluster of excellence ”Origin and Structure of the Universe,” 2018 Graduate Research Abroad in Science Program Grant (GRASP2018), the Hayakawa Satio Fund awarded by the Astronomical Society of Japan, and the ERC Advanced Grants INTERSTELLAR H2020/740120 and COSMIC ISM 321302.

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA: “ALMA Spots Most Distant Dusty Galaxy Hidden in Plain Sight”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

Media contact:

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu
Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Artist impression of what MAMBO-9 would look like in visible light. The galaxy is very dusty and it has yet to build most of its stars. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, B. Saxton

ALMA radio image of the dusty star-forming galaxy called MAMBO-9. The galaxy consists of two parts, and it is in the process of merging. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), C.M. Casey et al.; NRAO/AUI/NSF, B. Saxton

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)
have spotted the light of a massive galaxy seen only 970 million years after the Big Bang. This galaxy, called MAMBO-9, is the most distant dusty star-forming galaxy that has ever been observed without the help of a gravitational lens.

Dusty star-forming galaxies are the most intense stellar nurseries in the universe. They form stars at a rate up to a few thousand times the mass of the Sun per year (the star-forming rate of our Milky Way is just three solar masses per year) and they contain massive amounts of gas and dust. Such monster galaxies are not expected to have formed early in the history of the universe, but astronomers have already discovered several of them as seen when the cosmos was less than a billion years old. One of them is galaxy SPT0311-58, which ALMA observed in 2018.

Because of their extreme behavior, astronomers think that these dusty galaxies play an important role in the evolution of the universe. But finding them is easier said than done. “These galaxies tend to hide in plain sight,” said Caitlin Casey of the University of Texas at Austin and lead author of a study published in The Astrophysical Journal. “We know they are out there, but they are not easy to find because their starlight is hidden in clouds of dust.”

MAMBO-9’s light was already detected ten years ago by co-author Manuel Aravena, using the Max-Planck Millimeter BOlometer (MAMBO) instrument on the IRAM 30-meter telescope in Spain and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in France. But these observations were not sensitive enough to reveal the distance of the galaxy. “We were in doubt if it was real, because we couldn’t find it with other telescopes. But if it was real, it had to be very far away,” says Aravena, who was at that time a PhD student in Germany and is currently working for the Universidad Diego Portales in Chile.

Thanks to ALMA’s sensitivity, Casey and her team have now been able to determine the distance of MAMBO-9. “We found the galaxy in a new ALMA survey specifically designed to identify dusty star-forming galaxies in the early universe,” said Casey. “And what is special about this observation, is that this is the most distant dusty galaxy we have ever seen in an unobstructed way.”

The light of distant galaxies is often obstructed by other galaxies closer to us. These galaxies in front work as a gravitational lens: they bend the light from the more distant galaxy. This lensing effect makes it easier for telescopes to spot distant objects (this is how ALMA could see galaxy SPT0311-58). But it also distorts the image of the object, making it harder to make out the details.

In this study, the astronomers saw MAMBO-9 directly, without a lens, and this allowed them to measure its mass. “The total mass of gas and dust in the galaxy is enormous: ten times more than all the stars in the Milky Way. This means that it has yet to build most of its stars,” Casey explained. The galaxy consists of two parts, and it is in the process of merging.

Casey hopes to find more distant dusty galaxies in the ALMA survey, which will give insight into how common they are, how these massive galaxies formed so early in the universe, and why they are so dusty. “Dust is normally a by-product of dying stars,” she said. “We expect one hundred times more stars than dust. But MAMBO-9 has not produced that many stars yet and we want to find out how dust can form so fast after the Big Bang.”

“Observations with new and more capable technology can produce unexpected findings like MAMBO-9,” said Joe Pesce, National Science Foundation Program Officer for NRAO and ALMA. “While it is challenging to explain such a massive galaxy so early in the history of the universe, discoveries like this allow astronomers to develop an improved understanding of, and ask ever more questions about, the universe.”

The light from MAMBO-9 travelled about 13 billion years to reach ALMA’s antennas (the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old today). That means that we can see what the galaxy looked like in the past (Watch this video to learn how ALMA works as a time-machine). Today, the galaxy would probably be even bigger, containing one hundred times more stars than the Milky Way, residing in a massive galaxy cluster.

Additional Information

Reference: “Physical characterization of an unlensed dusty star-forming galaxy at z = 5.85,”
C.M. Casey et. al., The Astrophysical Journal.

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA- “ALMA Reveals Origin of Mysterious Blast: AT2018cow originated from supernova in a strongly-magnetized, dense environment”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu

The origin of the cosmic explosion “AT2018cow” discovered on June 16, 2018 is still controversial; it could have originated from a tidal disruption or from a stellar explosion. A team of researchers tackled this mystery by utilizing the ALMA Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT) for ALMA polarimetry observations during two epochs (11 and 17 days after the discovery) plus coincident photometry by the Morita Array. Although polarization observation is one of the special modes of ALMA, the team prepared the observing plan soon after the discovery of AT2018cow based on their experiences observing Gamma-Ray Bursts with ALMA.

Artist’s impression of the mysterious burst AT2018cow.
Credit: NAOJ

One possible scenario for this mysterious blast is that AT2018cow’s progenitor was similar to those of other stellar explosions but was surrounded by a large amount of material before its explosion. In this scenario, the explosion produced relativistic jets with synchrotron emission and also generated polarized light. The team successfully confirmed the characterized peak frequency caused by the synchrotron emission. But surprisingly, the ALMA polarimetry did not detect the expected polarized light from AT2018cow.

The research team interpreted this to mean that the dense surrounding material and strong magnetic field played important roles in suppressing the polarization. Under these conditions, the Faraday rotation effect, which is an interaction between light and a magnetic field in a medium, is strong. The synchrotron emissions from different parts in the relativistic jets have different Faraday rotation effects, which lead to suppression of the net polarization.

The research team emphasized that these ALMA observations establish a specific method for multi-messenger astronomy (observations of differing signals, such as electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, neutrinos, or cosmic rays) with this kind of transients. Based on their 230 GHz observations, the maximum energy of the accelerated particles reached at least GeV level. Since observations at higher frequencies are key to estimating the lower limit for the maximum energy of the particles, ALMA polarimetry at a higher frequency (i.e. ~THz) could examine whether AT2018cow-like objects are the origin of PeV cosmic rays. The origin of cosmic rays is still a crucial issue in high-energy astrophysics.

Paper and Research Team
These observation results were published as Huang, Shimoda, Urata, Toma et al. “ALMA Polarimetry of AT2018cow” in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The research team members are:
Kuiyun Huang (CYCU), Jiro Shimoda (Tohoku Univ.), Yuji Urata (NCU), Kenji Toma (Tohoku Univ.), Kazutaka Yamaoka (Nagoya Univ.), Keiichi Asada (ASIAA), Hiroshi Nagai (NAOJ/SOKENDAI), Satoko Takahashi (JAO/NAOJ/SOKENDAI), Glen Petitpas (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Makoto Tashiro (Saitama Univ.)

This work is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan grants MOST 105-2112-M-008-013-MY3 and 106-2119-M-001-027. This work is also supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 18H01245.

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA: “Two Cosmic Peacocks Show Violent History of the Magellanic Clouds”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

14 November, 2019

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu

ALMA images of two molecular clouds N159E-Papillon Nebula (left) and N159W South (right). Red and green show the distribution of molecular gas in different velocities seen in the emission from 13CO. Blue region in N159E-Papillon Nebula shows the ionized hydrogen gas observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. Blue part in N159W South shows the emission from dust particles obtained with ALMA. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Fukui et al./Tokuda et al./NASA-ESA Hubble Space Telescope

NASA/ESA Hubble Telescope

Artist’s impression of the formation process of peacock-shaped clouds. After collision of two clouds (left), complicated filamentary structures with a pivot in the bottom are formed in the boundary region (center), and a massive star is formed in the dense part with ionized region shown in blue (right). Credit: NAOJ

Two peacock-shaped gas clouds were revealed in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) by observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). A team of astronomers found several massive baby stars in the complex filamentary clouds, which agrees well with computer simulations of giant collisions of gas clouds. The researchers interpret this to mean that the filaments and young stars are telltale evidence of violent interactions between the LMC and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) 200 million years ago.

Large Magellanic Cloud. Adrian Pingstone December 2003

Small Magellanic Cloud. NASA/ESA Hubble and ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2

Astronomers know that stars are formed in collapsing clouds in space. However, the formation processes of giant stars, 10 times or more massive than the Sun, are not well understood because it is difficult to pack such a large amount of material into a small region. Some researchers suggest that interactions between galaxies provide a perfect environment for massive star formation. Due to the colossal gravity, clouds in the galaxies are stirred, stretched, and often collide with each other. A huge amount of gas is compressed in an unusually small area, which could form the seeds of massive stars.

A research team used ALMA to study the structure of dense gas in N159, a bustling star formation region in the LMC. Thanks to ALMA’s high resolution, the team obtained a very detailed map of the clouds in two sub-regions, N159E-Papillon Nebula and N159W South.

Interestingly, the cloud structures in the two regions look very similar: fan-shaped filaments of gas extending to the north with the pivots in the southernmost points. The ALMA observations also found several massive baby stars in the filaments in the two regions.

“It is unnatural that in two regions separated by 150 light-years, clouds with such similar shapes were formed and that the ages of the baby stars are similar in two regions separated 150 light years,” says Kazuki Tokuda, a researcher at Osaka Prefecture University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. “There must be a common cause of these features. Interaction between the LMC and SMC is a good candidate.”

Magellanic Bridge ESA Gaia satellite. Image credit V. Belokurov D. Erkal A. Mellinger.

In 2017, Yasuo Fukui, a professor at Nagoya University and his team revealed the motion of hydrogen gas in the LMC and found that a gaseous component right next to N159 has a different velocity than the rest of the clouds. They suggested a hypothesis that the starburst is caused by a massive flow of gas from the SMC to the LMC, and that this flow originated from a close encounter between the two galaxies 200 million years ago.

The pair of the peacock-shaped clouds in the two regions revealed by ALMA fits nicely with this hypothesis. Computer simulations show that many filamentary structures are formed in a short time scale after a collision of two clouds, which also backs this idea.

“For the first time, we uncovered the link between massive star formation and galaxy interactions in very sharp detail,” says Fukui, the lead author of one of the research papers. “This is an important step in understanding the formation process of massive star clusters in which galaxy interactions have a big impact.”

Additional Information

This research was presented in the following two papers on 14 November 2019 in The Astrophysical Journal.

Fukui et al. “An ALMA view of molecular filaments in the Large Magellanic Cloud I: The formation of high-mass stars and pillars in the N159E-Papillon Nebula triggered by a cloud-cloud collision”
Tokuda et al. “An ALMA view of molecular filaments in the Large Magellanic Cloud II: An early stage of high-mass star formation embedded at colliding clouds in N159W-South”

Research team members are:

Yasuo Fukui (Nagoya University), Kazuki Tokuda (Osaka Prefecture University/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Kazuya Saigo (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Ryohei Harada (Osaka Prefecture University), Kengo Tachihara (Nagoya University), Kisetsu Tsuge (Nagoya University), Tsuyoshi Inoue (Nagoya University), Kazufumi Torii (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Atsushi Nishimura (Nagoya University), Sarolta Zahorecz (Osaka Prefecture University/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Omnarayani Nayak (Space Telescope Science Institute), Margaret Meixner (Johns Hopkins University/Space Telescope Science Institute), Tetsuhiro Minamidani (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Akiko Kawamura (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Norikazu Mizuno (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/Joint ALMA Observatory), Remy Indebetouw (University of Virginia/National Radio Astronomy Observatory), Marta Sewiło (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Maryland), Suzanne Madden (Université Paris-Saclay), Maud Galametz(Université Paris-Saclay), Vianney Lebouteiller (Université Paris-Saclay), C.-H. Rosie Chen (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy), and Toshikazu Onishi (Osaka Prefecture University)

This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (No. 22244014, 23403001, 26247026, 18K13582, 18K13580,18H05440), NAOJ ALMA Scientific Research Grant (No. 2016-03B), and NASA (No.80GSFC17M0002).

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA: “ALMA Witness Planet Formation in Action”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu

Artist’s impression of gas flowing like a waterfall into a protoplanetary disk gap, which is most likely caused by an infant planet. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello.

Scientists measured the motion of gas (arrows) in a protoplanetary disk in three directions: rotating around the star, towards or away from the star, and up- or downwards in the disk. The inset shows a close-up of where a planet in orbit around the star pushes the gas and dust aside, opening a gap. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, B. Saxton.

A computer simulation showed that the patterns of gas flows are unique and are most likely caused by planets in three locations in the disk. Planets in orbit around the star push the gas and dust aside, opening gaps. The gas above the gaps collapses into it like a waterfall, causing a rotational flow of gas in the disk. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), J. Bae; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello.

For the first time, astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have witnessed 3D motions of gas in a planet-forming disk. At three locations in the disk around a young star called HD 163296, gas is flowing like a waterfall into gaps that are most likely caused by planets in formation. These gas flows have long been predicted and would directly influence the chemical composition of planets atmospheres. This research appears in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

The birthplaces of planets are disks made out of gas and dust. Astronomers study these so-called protoplanetary disks to understand the processes of planet formation. Beautiful images of disks made with ALMA show distinct gaps and ring features in the dust, which may be caused by infant planets.

To get more certainty that planets cause these gaps, and to get a complete view of planetary formation, scientists study the gas in the disks in addition to dust. Ninety-nine percent of a protoplanetary disk’s mass is gas, of which carbon monoxide (CO) is the brightest component, and ALMA can observe it.

Last year, two teams of astronomers demonstrated a new planet-hunting technique using this gas. They measured the velocity of CO gas rotating in the disk around the young star HD 163296. Localized disturbances in the movements of the gas revealed three planet-like patterns in the disk.

In this new study, lead author Richard Teague from the University of Michigan and his team used new high-resolution ALMA data from the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP) to study the gas’s velocity in more detail. “With the high-fidelity data from this program, we were able to measure the gas’s velocity in three directions instead of just one,” said Teague. “For the first time, we measured the motion of the gas in every possible direction. Rotating around, moving towards or away from the star, and up or downwards in the disk.”

Teague and his colleagues saw the gas moving from the upper layers towards the middle of the disk at three different locations. “What most likely happens is that a planet in orbit around the star pushes the gas and dust aside, opening a gap,” Teague explained. “The gas above the gap then collapses into it like a waterfall, causing a rotational flow of gas in the disk.”

This is the best evidence to date that there are indeed planets forming around HD 163296. But astronomers cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that planets cause the gas flows. For example, the star’s magnetic field could also cause disturbances in the gas. “Right now, only direct observation of the planets could rule out the other options. But, the patterns of these gas flows are unique, and very likely, only planets can cause them,” said coauthor Jaehan Bae of the Carnegie Institution for Science, who tested this theory with a computer simulation of the disk.

The location of the three predicted planets in this study correspond to the results from last year. Their positions probably are at 87, 140, and 237 AU (An astronomical unit – AU – is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun). The closest planet to HD 163296 is calculated to be half the mass of Jupiter, the middle planet is Jupiter-mass, and the farthest planet is twice as massive as Jupiter.

Gas flows from the surface towards the midplane of the protoplanetary disk have been predicted since the late nineties. But this is the first time that astronomers observed them. Besides being useful to detect infant planets, these flows can also shape our understanding of how gas giant planets obtain their atmospheres.

“Planets form in the middle layer of the disk, the so-called midplane. This is a cold place, shielded from radiation from the star,” Teague explained. “We think that the gaps caused by planets bring in warmer gas from the more chemically active outer layers of the disk and that this gas will form the atmosphere of the planet.”

Teague and his team did not expect that they would be able to see this phenomenon. “The disk around HD 163296 is the brightest and biggest disk we can see with ALMA,” said Teague. “But it was a big surprise to see these gas flows so clearly. The disks appear to be much more dynamic than we thought.”

“This gives us a much more complete picture of planet formation than we ever dreamed,” said coauthor Ted Bergin of the University of Michigan. “By characterizing these flows, we can determine how planets like Jupiter are born and characterize their chemical composition at birth. We might be able to use this to trace the birth location of these planets, as they can move during formation.”

Additional information

This research is presented in a paper by R. Teague et al. in Nature.

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

From ALMA: “ALMA Observes Counter-intuitive Flows Around Black Hole”

ESO/NRAO/NAOJ ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres

From ALMA

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cell phone: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Masaaki Hiramatsu
Education and Public Outreach Officer, NAOJ Chile
Observatory
, Tokyo – Japan
Phone: +81 422 34 3630
Email: hiramatsu.masaaki@nao.ac.jp

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: pio@eso.org

Iris Nijman
Public Information Officer
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Charlottesville, Virginia – USA
Cell phone: +1 (434) 249 3423
Email: alma-pr@nrao.edu

Artist impression of the heart of galaxy NGC 1068, which harbors an actively feeding supermassive black hole, hidden within a thick doughnut-shaped cloud of dust and gas. ALMA discovered two counter-rotating flows of gas around the black hole. The colors in this image represent the motion of the gas: blue is material moving toward us, red is moving away. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello.

ALMA image showing two disks of gas moving in opposite directions around the black hole in galaxy NGC 1068. The colors in this image represent the motion of the gas: blue is material moving toward us, red is moving away. The white triangles are added to show the accelerated gas that is expelled from the inner disk – forming a thick, obscuring cloud around the black hole. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), V. Impellizzeri; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello.

At the center of a galaxy called NGC 1068, a supermassive black hole hides within a thick doughnut-shaped cloud of dust and gas. When astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study this cloud in more detail, they made an unexpected discovery that could explain why supermassive black holes grew so rapidly in the early Universe.

“Thanks to the spectacular resolution of ALMA, we measured the movement of gas in the inner orbits around the black hole,” explains Violette Impellizzeri of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), working at ALMA in Chile and lead author on a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Surprisingly, we found two disks of gas rotating in opposite directions.”

Supermassive black holes already existed when the Universe was young, just a billion years after the Big Bang. But how these extreme objects, whose masses are up to billions of times the mass of the Sun, had time to grow so fast, is an outstanding question among astronomers. This new ALMA discovery could provide a clue. “Counter-rotating gas streams are unstable, which means that clouds fall into the black hole faster than they do in a disk with a single rotation direction,” said Impellizzeri. “This could be a way in which a black hole can grow rapidly.”

NGC 1068 (also known as Messier 77) is a spiral galaxy approximately 47 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Cetus. At its center is an active galactic nucleus, a supermassive black hole that is actively feeding itself from a thin, rotating disk of gas and dust, also known as an accretion disk.

Previous ALMA observations revealed that the black hole is gulping down material and spewing out gas at incredibly high speeds. This gas that gets expelled from the accretion disk likely contributes to hiding the region around the black hole from optical telescopes.

Impellizzeri and her team used ALMA’s superior zoom lens ability to observe the molecular gas around the black hole. Unexpectedly, they found two counter-rotating disks of gas. The inner disk spans 2-4 light-years and follows the rotation of the galaxy, whereas the outer disk (also known as the torus) spans 4-22 light-years and is rotating the opposite way.

“We did not expect to see this, because gas falling into a black hole would normally spin around it in only one direction,” said Impellizzeri. “Something must have disturbed the flow because it is impossible for a part of the disk to start rotating backward all on its own.”

Counter-rotation is not an unusual phenomenon in space. “We see it in galaxies, usually thousands of light-years away from their galactic centers,” explained co-author Jack Gallimore from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. “The counter-rotation always results from the collision or interaction between two galaxies. What makes this result remarkable is that we see it on a much smaller scale, tens of light-years instead of thousands from the central black hole.”

The astronomers think that the backward flow in NGC 1068 might be caused by gas clouds that fell out of the host galaxy, or by a small passing galaxy on a counter-rotating orbit captured in the disk.

At the moment, the outer disk appears to be in a stable orbit around the inner disk. “That will change when the outer disk begins to fall onto the inner disk, which may happen after a few orbits or a few hundred thousand years. The rotating streams of gas will collide and become unstable, and the disks will likely collapse in a luminous event as the molecular gas falls into the black hole. Unfortunately, we will not be there to witness the fireworks,” said Gallimore.

Additional Information

The research team was composed by Violette Impellizzeri1,2, Jack F. Gallimore3, Stefi A. Baum4, Moshe Elitzur5, Richard Davies6, Dieter Lutz6, Roberto Maiolino7, Alessandro Marconi8,9, Robert Nikutta10, Christopher P. O’Dea4, and Eleonora Sani11.

1 Joint ALMA Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile

2 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA

3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837, USA

4 University of Manitoba, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada

5 Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

6 Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Giessenbachstrasse 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany

7 Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK

8 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Universit’a di Firenze, via G. Sansone 1, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy

9 INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50135, Firenze, Italy

10 National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA

11 European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile

See the full article here .

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

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which is managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.