discovering pluto

later today, the new horizons space craft will fly by pluto at a distance of only 12,500 km - its closest approach is about 1 earth away.   that's incredible!

this mission has already given us way better views of the dwarf planet than we've ever achieved (even with hubble).  what will the new data tell us?  what does the surface looks like? (are there craters? ice? cracks? plumes? mountains?)  what is the atmosphere is made of? (methane, nitrogen, and what else?) does its surface ice turn to gas during different seasons and then does it get released to space?

ultimately, we want to understand what the objects way out in the kuiper belt are made of because they can tell us how all the other planets and the entire solar system was formed.

Created by Alex Parker with NEW images of pluto!

new horizons cannot send data back at the same time it is taking images, so it is following an automatic program, written by the engineers and astronomers, to maximize its data collection during the flyby.  we will receive the first message and prelim images tomorrow (july 15th, 2015 - it takes 4.5 hours for the data to reach earth).  cant wait!

then new horizons will start sending data back to us over the next ~16 months as it flies away out into the depths of the kuiper belt at the outskirts of our solar system.

i'm excited.

i talked (enthusiastically) to Patricia Karvelas on radio national's drive program last friday about pluto and what to expect from this flyby. you can LISTEN HERE.

it also seems like the perfect time to break out this old number: pluto, the previous planet :)

Pluto, the previous planet from carolune on Vimeo.

kalaya - beautiful australian night sky timelapse

the australian night sky never disappoints, especially when viewed from far out into the outback.  a talented australian astrophotographer, greg priestley, was able to capture the milky way and the "emu" rising above uluru and kata tjuta in may 2014.

kalaya is the aboriginal word for emu.

beautiful work!

Kalaya - David Malin Awards from Greg Priestley on Vimeo.

dirty space news update

here are a few pieces of dirty space news that i've collected recently, all together in one happy place for your enjoyment.

from a paper simulating magnetic fields called "High Energy Neutrino Emission from Astrophysical Jets in the Galaxy."  i particularly like the last line of the abstract: "One of the main ingredients of the present work is the presence of a toroidal magnetic field that confines the jet flow and furthermore greatly affects the distribution of the high energy neutrinos." 

Caption from paper: A plot of the magnetic field magnitude roughly half way into the simulation. We can see the jet self-confinement due to magnetic forces resulting in a narrow beam.

Adrian Price-Whelan on twitter shared a graph he created for his research and wondered "maybe it's not that bad, just my inner 11 year old showing." i think we can all agree that it is that bad.  

helpfully, a fellow astronomer suggested that "if you switched x and y, it might not be quite so snigger-worthy." i'm not sure it helped... 

and finally, yet another space vehicle for our dirty space news entertainment - Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle completed its first developmental test flight.

there is even a viedo of the launch!

planetary pair: venus & jupiter approaching!

venus is incredibly bright in the evening sky right now, and if you get out and LOOK UP, you won't miss the other bright object right by it - the planet jupiter!  they will keep getting closer and closer to each other over the next week and a half, culminating in what will appear to be a very bright double star system on july 1st.

it's quite a beautiful sight - make sure you enjoy it!  read more by tanya munro at the conversation.

here was the view from Brno, Czech Republic as photographed by Pavel Gabzdyl.

Photo by Pavel Gabzdyl

the view it turned around from the southern hemisphere!  this shot was taken by chris wyatt in australia.

Photo by chris wyatt

Galaxy’s snacking habits revealed

an unexpected part of my position as "outreach officer" has been inheriting the role of "press officer" for the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO).  this isnt something i want to spend too much time on, but i do enjoy the occasional challenge of turning technical science results into fun stories accessible to media sources and a more general audience.

for this joint release, i received help and advice from a very experienced science communicator and press officer in western australia, pete wheeler.  much appreciated! i've learned a lot about the process of putting together the best material and advertising it properly to international media, as these are not things i've learned in my normal scientific training.

but definitely my favourite part has been the writing of the story to go with work led by AAO astronomer Ángel López-Sánchez.  so here you go - new science!

Multiwavelength image of the galaxies NGC 1512 and NGC 1510 combining optical and near-infrared data (light blue, yellow, orange), ultraviolet data (dark blue), mid-infrared data (red), and radio data (green). 

Galaxy’s snacking habits revealed

A team of Australian and Spanish astronomers have caught a greedy galaxy gobbling on its neighbours and leaving crumbs of evidence about its dietary past.

Galaxies grow by churning loose gas from their surroundings into new stars, or by swallowing neighbouring galaxies whole. However, they normally leave very few traces of their cannibalistic habits.

A study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS) not only reveals a spiral galaxy devouring a nearby compact dwarf galaxy, but shows evidence of its past galactic snacks in unprecedented detail.

Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) and Macquarie University astrophysicist, Ángel R. López-Sánchez, and his collaborators have been studying the galaxy NGC 1512 to see if its chemical story matches its physical appearance.

The team of researchers used the unique capabilities of the 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT), near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, to measure the level of chemical enrichment in the gas across the entire face of NGC 1512.

Chemical enrichment occurs when stars churn the hydrogen and helium from the Big Bang into heavier elements through nuclear reactions at their cores. These new elements are released back into space when the stars die, enriching the surrounding gas with chemicals like oxygen, which the team measured.

“We were expecting to find fresh gas or gas enriched at the same level as that of the galaxy being consumed, but were surprised to find the gases were actually the remnants of galaxies swallowed earlier,” Dr López-Sánchez said.

“The diffuse gas in the outer regions of NGC 1512 is not the pristine gas created in the Big Bang but is gas that has already been processed by previous generations of stars.”

CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array, a powerful 6-km diameter radio interferometer located in eastern Australia, was used to detect large amounts of cold hydrogen gas that extends way beyond the stellar disk of the spiral galaxy NGC 1512.

"The dense pockets of hydrogen gas in the outer disk of NGC 1512 accurately pin-point regions of active star formation", said CSIRO's Dr Baerbel Koribalski, a member of the research collaboration.

When this finding was examined in combination with radio and ultraviolet observations the scientists concluded that the rich gas being processed into new stars did not come from the inner regions of the galaxy either. Instead, the gas was likely absorbed by the galaxy over its lifetime as NGC 1512 accreted other, smaller galaxies around it.

Dr Tobias Westmeier, from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth, said that while galaxy cannibalism has been known for many years, this is the first time that it has been observed in such fine detail.

“By using observations from both ground and space based telescopes we were able to piece together a detailed history for this galaxy and better understand how interactions and mergers with other galaxies have affected its evolution and the rate at which it formed stars,” he said.

The team’s successful and novel approach to investigating how galaxies grow is being used in a new program to further refine the best models of galaxy evolution.

For this work the astronomers used spectroscopic data from the AAT at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia to measure the chemical distribution around the galaxies. They identified the diffuse gas around the dual galaxy system using Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) radio observations. In addition, they identified regions of new star formation with data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) orbiting space telescope.

“The unique combination of these data provide a very powerful tool to disentangle the nature and evolution of galaxies,” said Dr López-Sánchez.

“We will observe several more galaxies using the same proven techniques to improve our understanding of the past behaviour of galaxies in the local Universe.”

A chemical enrichment map of the NGC 1512 and NGC 1510 galaxy system showing the amount of oxygen gas in the star-forming regions around the two galaxies.

Full Press Release: here.

I'm speaking around sydney

if youre in sydney and want to hear some sciencey astro goodness - i'm speaking at a few events you can attend in the next week and a half. I'll think i'll be incredibly exhausted by the end of this run, but i'm really looking forward to ALL the events.  let me know if you will be attending any!

1) The Storytelling of Science - Saturday, 16 May 2015, 2-5pm
2) Pint of Science - Tuesday, 19 May 2015, Doors Open at 6:30 for 7pm start

3) Astronomy Open Night at Macquarie Uni- Saturday, 23 May 2015, 6:30-10pm

4) The Story of Light - The Astronomer's Perspective - Sunday, 24 May 2015, 2 - 3:30 pm

details below....

astro anecdotes

there are all sorts of astronomy folklore stories passed down through generations of astronomers.

did you know that the 107'' telescope at McDonald observatory has bullet holes in the primary mirror?

Six bullet holes in the primary mirror of the 2.7m telescope at McDonald Observatory.
Photo credit: McDonald Observatory.

I used to observe with that telescope all the time during my PhD and it was always fun to walk down the solid tube to see the "damage" up close.   the six holes only block 1% of the light and were filed smooth and painted black to stop any reflected light from invading the observations!

there is a blog now dedicated to recording all these stories i keep hearing over a beer at the pub - and many more i havent yet heard in person!

you can read them all here: astro anecdotes.

code quality

of course none of my astronomy code is like this!!

::ahem::

http://xkcd.com/1513/

what kills a galaxy?

or maybe a more appropriate title is "how do you know when a galaxy is officially old?"

Anyway, I wrote an article for the conversation with astronomers Tanya Hill and Sarah Brough describing some new research on how galaxies stop forming stars.

Giant galaxies die from the inside when they stop making stars

Galaxy clusters are impressive but do they hinder star formation? NASA, N Benitez (JHU), T Broadhurst (Racah Institute of Physics/The Hebrew University), H Ford (JHU), M Clampin (STScI), G Hartig (STScI), G Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory), the ACS Science Team and ESA