Topic: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

NASA takes Radar images of Asteroid on Halloween

November 5, 2015 |

Written by DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The highest-resolution radar images of asteroid 2015 TB145’s safe flyby of Earth have been processed. NASA scientists used giant, Earth-based radio telescopes to bounce radar signals off the asteroid as it flew past Earth on October 31st at 10:00am PDT (1:00pm EDT) at about 1.3 lunar distances (300,000 miles, or 480,000 kilometers) from Earth.

Asteroid 2015 TB145 is spherical in shape and approximately 2,000 feet (600 meters) in diameter.

Asteroid 2015 TB145 is depicted in eight individual radar images collected on Oct. 31, 2015 between 5:55 a.m. PDT (8:55 a.m. EDT) and 6:08 a.m. PDT (9:08 a.m. EDT). (NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR/NRAO/AUI/NSF)

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NASA study discovers Brown Dwarfs have strong Auroras around them

August 4, 2015 |

Written by Elizabeth Landau
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Mysterious objects called brown dwarfs are sometimes called “failed stars.” They are too small to fuse hydrogen in their cores, the way most stars do, but also too large to be classified as planets.

But a new study in the journal Nature suggests they succeed in creating powerful auroral displays, similar to the kind seen around the magnetic poles on Earth.

“This is a whole new manifestation of magnetic activity for that kind of object,” said Leon Harding, a technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and co-author on the study.

This artist’s concept shows an auroral display on a brown dwarf. If you could see an aurora on a brown dwarf, it would be a million times brighter than an aurora on Earth. (Chuck Carter and Gregg Hallinan/Caltech)

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NASA study shows Twisting Whip like Wave emitting from Black Hole

July 15, 2015 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Fast-moving magnetic waves emanating from a distant supermassive black hole undulate like a whip whose handle is being shaken by a giant hand, according to a new study using data from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Long Baseline Array.

Scientists used this instrument to explore the galaxy/black hole system known as BL Lacertae (BL Lac) in high resolution.

“The waves are excited by a shaking motion of the jet at its base,” said David Meier, a now-retired astrophysicist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, both in Pasadena.

This cartoon shows how magnetic waves, called Alfven S-waves, propagate outward from the base of black hole jets. (Caltech)

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NASA reports Saturn and it’s system of Moons mapped with high accuracy

January 12, 2015 |

Written by Preston Dyches
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Scientists have paired NASA’s Cassini spacecraft with the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio-telescope system to pinpoint the position of Saturn and its family of moons to within about 2 miles (4 kilometers).

The measurement is some 50 times more precise than those provided by ground-based optical telescopes. The feat improves astronomers’ knowledge of Saturn’s orbit and benefits spacecraft navigation and basic physics research.

Researchers have determined the location of the Saturn system’s center of mass to within just a couple of miles (or kilometers), a factor of 50 improvement over previous knowledge. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

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NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captures image of distant Ringed Galaxy

October 23, 2014 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – It might look like a spoked wheel or even a “Chakram” weapon wielded by warriors like “Xena,” from the fictional TV show, but this ringed galaxy is actually a vast place of stellar life. A newly released image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the galaxy NGC 1291.

Though the galaxy is quite old, roughly 12 billion years, it is marked by an unusual ring where newborn stars are igniting.

“The rest of the galaxy is done maturing,” said Kartik Sheth of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory of Charlottesville, Virginia. “But the outer ring is just now starting to light up with stars.”

A new image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, taken in infrared light, shows where the action is taking place in galaxy NGC 1291. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Space Telescopes help Astronomers separate two galaxies that appeared as one

December 1, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – What might look like a colossal jet shooting away from a galaxy turns out to be an illusion. New data from the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) reveal that two galaxies, one lying behind the other, have been masquerading as one.

In a new image highlighting the chance alignment, radio data from the VLA are blue and infrared observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) are yellow and orange, respectively. Visible data are also shown, with starlight in purplish blue and heated gas in rose.

The edge-on spiral galaxy UGC 10288 appeared to be a single object in previous observations. However, new detailed radio data from the NRAO’s Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) revealed that the large perpendicular extension of UGC 10288’s halo (blue) is really a distant background galaxy with radio jets. (VLA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SDSS/NOAO/University of Manitoba)

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NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes along with ALMA telescope find trio of Young Galaxies Merging

November 24, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Astronomers using the combined power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile and NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have discovered a far-flung trio of primitive galaxies nestled inside an enormous blob of primordial gas nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth.

It’s possible the trio will eventually merge into a single galaxy similar to our own Milky Way.

The big blob-like structure shown here, named Himiko after the legendary ancient queen of Japan, turns out to be three galaxies thought to be in the process of merging into one. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/NAOJ/Subaru)

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ALMA Opens Its Eyes

October 15, 2011 |

Humanity’s most complex ground-based astronomy observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has officially opened for astronomers at its 16,500-feet elevation site in northern Chile.

Thousands of scientists from around the world competed to be the first few researchers to explore some of the darkest, coldest, farthest, and most hidden secrets of the Cosmos with this new astronomical tool.

“We went to one of the most extreme locations on Earth to build the world’s largest array of millimeter/sub-millimeter telescopes having a level of technical sophistication that was merely a dream only a decade ago,” said Dr. Mark McKinnon, North American ALMA Project Manager at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia. “And, now, here we are at the start of ALMA Early Science. We made the impossible possible. This truly is a great occasion!”

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