AMON stands for Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network. Its mission is to form a network of high-energy observatories across the globe that will search for previously unseen astrophysical signals and send alerts to more traditional telescopes in order to corroborate the possible celestial events.
A large new collection of space photos taken at wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye and blocked by Earth's atmosphere has been released as a New Year's gift to the people of Earth by NASA and Penn State. The images were captured by a telescope on board NASA's Swift satellite, whose science and flight operations are controlled by Penn State's Mission Operations Center using the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, which resulted from Penn State's collaboration with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory of the University College-London. The telescope is one of just a few that study ultraviolet light, much of which is blocked by Earth's atmosphere.
To see the complete story, go to http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Siegel1-2013.
The aging of star clusters is linked more with their lifestyle than with how old they actually are, according to a new NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope study coauthored by Steinn Sigurdsson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State.
"Our observations of star clusters have shown us that, although they all formed more than 10 billion years ago, some of them are still young at heart," Sigurdsson said. "We now can see how fast the clusters are racing toward their final collapse. It is as if each cluster has its own internal clock, some of which are ticking slower than others." Sigurdsson is a Penn State theorist working in collaboration with the European Research Council's Cosmic-Lab project. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Nature. More information is online at http://bit.ly/VT0Fhe.
Mercedes Richards, a Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has been elected to a three-year term as president of the International Astronomical Union Commission 42 on Close Binary Stars, one of the largest commissions. Richards served as vice president of the commission from 2009 to 2012.
A free presentation titled "James Webb Space Telescope: NASA's Next Great Observatory" will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13, in 100 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park campus. The program will be presented by Heidi Hammel, the Executive Vice President of AURA, Inc (The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy). This event is part of the 2012-2013 Friedman Lecture Series in Astronomy, which is free and open to the public.
Penn State's popular "AstroFest" program, a four-night festival of astronomy activities and stargazing during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, will welcome visitors from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. on July 11-14. People of all ages are welcome to participate in a variety of exciting and educational activities sponsored by the University's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Events are free and will be conducted rain or shine in classrooms and in the planetarium located on the fifth floor of Davey Laboratory.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) has announced the most accurate measurements yet of the distances to galaxies in the faraway universe, giving an unprecedented look at the time when the universe first began to expand at an ever-increasing rate.
The results, announced at a press conference in Manchester, England, are the culmination of more than two years of work by the team of scientists and engineers, including a Penn State astronomer, behind the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), one of the SDSS-III's four component surveys.
Lawrence W. Ramsey, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics and a former head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State, has been honored at the University with the title of Eberly College of Science Distinguished Senior Scholar. The honor is given in recognition of a sustained record of extraordinary achievement in research and education. Holders of this position have had a profound effect on their fields through creative innovation and internationally acclaimed scientific leadership, and have had exceptional accomplishments in teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students.
The scientists of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), including astronomers at Penn State, have produced a new map of the universe that is in full color, covers more than one quarter of the entire sky, and is full of so much detail that you would need five-hundred-thousand high-definition TVs to view it all. The map consists of more than one-trillion pixels measured by meticulously scanning the sky with a special-purpose telescope located in New Mexico. This week, at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, the SDSS scientists announced results of four separate studies of this new map that, taken together, provide a history of the universe over the last six-billion years.
A powerful new tool for probing the structure of our galaxy has been developed by astronomers associated with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, including two Penn State astronomers. The new tool is an infrared spectrograph for the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). Over the next three years, APOGEE's initial census of the chemical constitution and motion of more than 100,000 stars across the Milky Way will bring together data on stars with ages spanning nearly the full age of the universe.
Our Milky Way Galaxy continues to devour its small neighboring dwarf galaxies, reports a research team that includes a Penn State astronomer. The scientists have found evidence of the stellar snacking spread out across the sky. "Our study gives further striking evidence that we live in a galaxy that is constantly changing its structure via cannibalism of its smaller neighbors," said Donald Schneider, Distinguished Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and a coauthor of the paper describing the discovery.
The photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- with a temperature like a hot summer day in Arizona -- was revealed by Penn State Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kevin Luhman during a presentation at the Signposts of Planets conference at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on Oct. 20. A paper describing the discovery will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. "This planet-like companion is the coldest object ever directly photographed outside our solar system," said Luhman, who led the discovery team. "Its mass is about the same as many of the known extra-solar planets -- about six to nine times the mass of Jupiter -- but in other ways it is more like a star. Essentially, what we have found is a very small star with an atmospheric temperature about as cool as the Earth's."
Lawrence W. Ramsey, professor of astronomy and astrophysics who has served as head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University, has been appointed as chairman of the board of directors of the Gemini Observatory. The Gemini Observatory, which is operated by a partnership of seven countries, consists of twin 8.1-meter diameter optical/infrared telescopes located on two of the best observing sites on the planet -- the mountains in Hawaii and Chile. Ramsey also serves on the boards of directors or advisory councils of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the South African Large Telescope (SALT), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Advisory Council.
Penn State's popular AstroFest program, a four-night festival of astronomy and stargazing activities during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, returns this year from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 13 through Saturday, July 16, on the University Park campus. All ages are welcome to participate in a variety of exciting and educational activities sponsored by the Department of Astrophysics. Events are free and will be conducted rain or shine in classrooms and in the planetarium located on the fifth floor of the campus' Davey Laboratory.
According to a wealth of new data from NASA's X-ray Observatory, what scientists are calling a "supernova factory" has come to life in the Carnia Nebula, located a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. This discovery may help astronomers to better understand how some of the Milky Way Galaxy's heaviest and youngest stars race through their lives and release newly-forged elements into their surroundings.
AMON stands for Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network. Its mission is to form a network of high-energy observatories across the globe that will search for previously unseen astrophysical signals and send alerts to more traditional telescopes in order to corroborate the possible celestial events.
A large new collection of space photos taken at wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye and blocked by Earth's atmosphere has been released as a New Year's gift to the people of Earth by NASA and Penn State. The images were captured by a telescope on board NASA's Swift satellite, whose science and flight operations are controlled by Penn State's Mission Operations Center using the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope, which resulted from Penn State's collaboration with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory of the University College-London. The telescope is one of just a few that study ultraviolet light, much of which is blocked by Earth's atmosphere.
To see the complete story, go to http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Siegel1-2013.
The aging of star clusters is linked more with their lifestyle than with how old they actually are, according to a new NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope study coauthored by Steinn Sigurdsson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State.
"Our observations of star clusters have shown us that, although they all formed more than 10 billion years ago, some of them are still young at heart," Sigurdsson said. "We now can see how fast the clusters are racing toward their final collapse. It is as if each cluster has its own internal clock, some of which are ticking slower than others." Sigurdsson is a Penn State theorist working in collaboration with the European Research Council's Cosmic-Lab project. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Nature. More information is online at http://bit.ly/VT0Fhe.
Mercedes Richards, a Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has been elected to a three-year term as president of the International Astronomical Union Commission 42 on Close Binary Stars, one of the largest commissions. Richards served as vice president of the commission from 2009 to 2012.
A free presentation titled "James Webb Space Telescope: NASA's Next Great Observatory" will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13, in 100 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park campus. The program will be presented by Heidi Hammel, the Executive Vice President of AURA, Inc (The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy). This event is part of the 2012-2013 Friedman Lecture Series in Astronomy, which is free and open to the public.
Penn State's popular "AstroFest" program, a four-night festival of astronomy activities and stargazing during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, will welcome visitors from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. on July 11-14. People of all ages are welcome to participate in a variety of exciting and educational activities sponsored by the University's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Events are free and will be conducted rain or shine in classrooms and in the planetarium located on the fifth floor of Davey Laboratory.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) has announced the most accurate measurements yet of the distances to galaxies in the faraway universe, giving an unprecedented look at the time when the universe first began to expand at an ever-increasing rate.
The results, announced at a press conference in Manchester, England, are the culmination of more than two years of work by the team of scientists and engineers, including a Penn State astronomer, behind the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), one of the SDSS-III's four component surveys.
Lawrence W. Ramsey, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics and a former head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State, has been honored at the University with the title of Eberly College of Science Distinguished Senior Scholar. The honor is given in recognition of a sustained record of extraordinary achievement in research and education. Holders of this position have had a profound effect on their fields through creative innovation and internationally acclaimed scientific leadership, and have had exceptional accomplishments in teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students.
The scientists of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), including astronomers at Penn State, have produced a new map of the universe that is in full color, covers more than one quarter of the entire sky, and is full of so much detail that you would need five-hundred-thousand high-definition TVs to view it all. The map consists of more than one-trillion pixels measured by meticulously scanning the sky with a special-purpose telescope located in New Mexico. This week, at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, the SDSS scientists announced results of four separate studies of this new map that, taken together, provide a history of the universe over the last six-billion years.
A powerful new tool for probing the structure of our galaxy has been developed by astronomers associated with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, including two Penn State astronomers. The new tool is an infrared spectrograph for the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). Over the next three years, APOGEE's initial census of the chemical constitution and motion of more than 100,000 stars across the Milky Way will bring together data on stars with ages spanning nearly the full age of the universe.
Our Milky Way Galaxy continues to devour its small neighboring dwarf galaxies, reports a research team that includes a Penn State astronomer. The scientists have found evidence of the stellar snacking spread out across the sky. "Our study gives further striking evidence that we live in a galaxy that is constantly changing its structure via cannibalism of its smaller neighbors," said Donald Schneider, Distinguished Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and a coauthor of the paper describing the discovery.
The photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- with a temperature like a hot summer day in Arizona -- was revealed by Penn State Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kevin Luhman during a presentation at the Signposts of Planets conference at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on Oct. 20. A paper describing the discovery will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. "This planet-like companion is the coldest object ever directly photographed outside our solar system," said Luhman, who led the discovery team. "Its mass is about the same as many of the known extra-solar planets -- about six to nine times the mass of Jupiter -- but in other ways it is more like a star. Essentially, what we have found is a very small star with an atmospheric temperature about as cool as the Earth's."
Lawrence W. Ramsey, professor of astronomy and astrophysics who has served as head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University, has been appointed as chairman of the board of directors of the Gemini Observatory. The Gemini Observatory, which is operated by a partnership of seven countries, consists of twin 8.1-meter diameter optical/infrared telescopes located on two of the best observing sites on the planet -- the mountains in Hawaii and Chile. Ramsey also serves on the boards of directors or advisory councils of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the South African Large Telescope (SALT), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Advisory Council.
Penn State's popular AstroFest program, a four-night festival of astronomy and stargazing activities during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, returns this year from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 13 through Saturday, July 16, on the University Park campus. All ages are welcome to participate in a variety of exciting and educational activities sponsored by the Department of Astrophysics. Events are free and will be conducted rain or shine in classrooms and in the planetarium located on the fifth floor of the campus' Davey Laboratory.
According to a wealth of new data from NASA's X-ray Observatory, what scientists are calling a "supernova factory" has come to life in the Carnia Nebula, located a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. This discovery may help astronomers to better understand how some of the Milky Way Galaxy's heaviest and youngest stars race through their lives and release newly-forged elements into their surroundings.
