Telescopes

Blogs about telescopes and astronomical observations instruments

A combination of data collected with the ALMA radio telescope, shown in red, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, shown in blue. Sagittarius A* is at the center.

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports evidence of a cosmic wind emanating from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Mark D. Gorski and Lena Murchikova of Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics used observations with the ALMA radio telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to create a high-quality map of the cold carbon monoxide gas surrounding Sagittarius A*. The map shows a cone-shaped cavity where a hot, energetic wind blows and sweeps away the gas.

Abell 2744-QS01. The insets show zooms of three separate views of QS01 generated by gravitational lensing

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Two articles, one published in the journal “Nature” and one in the “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society”, report different aspects of a study of the supermassive black hole cataloged as Abell 2744-QSO1, or simply QSO1, indicating that it’s older than its host galaxy. A team of researchers used observations with the James Webb Space Telescope to study QSO1 and measured its mass at about 50 million times the Sun’s. This means it makes up at least two-thirds of the total mass of the galaxy, an anomaly that betrays its age and leaves open some possible hypotheses about its origin.

Artist's concept of the zone called ENDTRANZ, colored in red, part of a forming star system

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of a study that has identified an important part of the planetary formation process. A team of researchers led by Indrani Das of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) has discovered a transition zone where gas becomes a part of a planet-forming disk using the ALMA radio telescope. This zone was called ENDTRANZ (Envelope Disk Transition Zone) and was located around the protostar L1527 IRS.

An artist's concept comparing the semi-heavy water content of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS to that of Earth. The insets show the relative abundance of water containing deuterium instead of normal hydrogen

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports the results of a study on the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which indicate that it formed in a much colder environment than the solar system. This conclusion was reached by a team of researchers led by Luis E. Salazar Manzano, a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, using observations conducted with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope. Specifically, the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) revealed a ratio of so-called semi-heavy water to ordinary water at least 30 times higher than that found in solar system comets and over 40 times higher than that found in Earth’s oceans. Such an enrichment of water with so many deuterium atoms can only occur in very cold environments, around 30 Kelvin.

A 3D map of the local universe with the various galaxy superclusters. On the left is the Vela Supercluster

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An article submitted for publication in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports the results of an astronomical study that used a hybrid technique to examine the Vela Supercluster. A team of researchers combined redshifts with the distances and peculiar velocities of galaxies within the Vela Supercluster to obtain a complete portrait of it, a result that was previously impossible due to its location, hidden by the Milky Way’s so-called zone of avoidance.

Key information was obtained using the SALT optical telescope and the MeerKAT radio telescope, both in South Africa. Given the importance of this nation in this research, the authors used the nickname Vela-Banzi, adding a term in Xhosa, a Bantu language, which means “revealing widely.”