AURA

Big Big Solar Observatory Summer School is in session! NSO scientists are pictured here with graduate students visiting the NSF Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS) facility in Big Bear, California. This tour is part of the BBSO Summer School's goal to stimulate the interest of next-generation researchers in using high-resolution solar data taken with large ground-based telescopes. SOLIS was designed and built by the NSO to provide long-term observations of the Sun to better understand the solar activity cycle, sudden energy releases in the solar atmosphere, and solar irradiance changes and their relationship to global change.

Congratulations to the Rubin team!

Welcome to the 2024-25 AURA Board of Directors to Tucson for their first meeting! M. Mountain, M. Donahue, A. Baker, K. Bjorkman, E. CoBabe-Ammann, M. Rubio, B. Flaugher, L. Infante, E. Barton, K. Cruz, J. McAteer, (not shown D. Jaffe, R. S. Oey, J. Oglesby, D. Reitze, W. Rockward, R. Davies)

Can't wait for Rubin Observatory!

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Butterfly in space...

Check out our ! This ghostly 👻, butterfly-shaped planetary nebula 🦋, captured with Gemini Observatory North telescope,operated by National Science Foundation (NSF) NOIRLab is known as Kohoutek 3-46. Kohoutek 3-46 derives its name from the prolific planetary nebula hunter who discovered it, Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek.

Located in the constellation Cygnus, Kohoutek 3-46 is estimated to be around 20,000 years old and around 7200 light-years away.

Download the high resolution version of this image here: https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw2430a/

📷: /NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Image processing: J. Miller (International Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab) & M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab)

🌄 Experience this spectacular sunset from the side windows of the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO)!🌅

🪟Side windows, but wait! Doesn’t the telescope look out of the top of the observatory? Yes, it does! These side windows act as vents allowing air to flow over the primary mirror to regulate its temperature. 🌬️🔭

Why? 🌡️ Maintaining the mirror at the same temperature as the surrounding air minimizes air turbulence near the mirror surface, which can degrade image quality.🌟

Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/D. Munizaga

✨Watch the stars swirl around the south celestial pole in this of the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO).✨

In the center of the vortex is Sigma Octantis, the southern hemisphere’s pole star, fainter than the North Star, Polaris. To the upper left of the Blanco Telescope, you can see the illuminated paths of two satellites. 🛰️

The red squiggles in the foreground are from someone walking with a red flashlight — commonly used to preserve night vision around observatories.🔴🔦

Download the high resolution version of this image here: https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw2429a/

📸: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/D. Munizaga

Calling teachers of intro astronomy: you're invited to explore Exploding Stars with Rubin Observatory!

🕗 When: Saturday, July 27 | 8-11 am PDT/ 11am-2pm EDT
📍 Where: Online
🔗 Register by July 26: https://forms.gle/nHiduKu1hZtqB41e6

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More details:

Vera C. Rubin Observatory will partner with the [AAS] for a free online workshop exploring our Exploding Stars formal education classroom investigation. During this webinar you will:

✨ Become familiar with the new data and analysis tools in this classroom investigation
✨ Be introduced to supplementary resources such as videos, a phenomenon, and assessments
✨ Ask science questions of a professional astronomer who is familiar with supernova data
✨ Discuss classroom implementation with colleagues

Certificates of participation for three hours of professional development are available from Rubin Observatory to those who attend the complete workshop in real time. The workshop will be recorded for those who wish to view it later.

Look at this swirly, whirly spiral!

In 2006, the Hubble Space Telescope observed NGC 1376, a galaxy lying over 180 million light-years from Earth. Located in the constellation Eridanus, its nearly face-on perspective has enabled astronomers to closely study its structure and components.

Begin at the center, at the yellow-white core. Reddish-brown dust lanes are easily seen in this area and thinly stretch throughout the galaxy’s spiral arms. Moving further along the spiral arms as they wind clockwise toward the frame’s edges, bright blue-white knots signify areas of star formation. While young, hot stars are being formed in these regions, they emit ultraviolet light—the perfect wavelength of light for Hubble.

Infrequently scattered throughout the scene are small, red background galaxies.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

30 Years ago today Heidi B. Hammel led the team that observed with Hubble as Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter.

On this day 30 years ago, fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 began impacting Jupiter at a speed of about 37 miles per second (60 kilometers per second). The newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope had a “ringside seat” as 21 comet chunks hit the gas giant over six days.

Like the splash from throwing a rock into a pond, the impacts created giant plumes of material that rose as high as 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) above the cloud tops. In the aftermath, the plume splashback scarred Jupiter’s atmosphere with dark clouds of impact debris, the largest of which was about the size of the Earth. Some spots remained visible for months before gradually fading and mixing with the atmosphere.

Revisit the dramatic impacts: https://bit.ly/4c5C6Mu

New dates added! Live like an astronomer with Kitt Peak National Observatory’s Overnight Telescope Observing Program — tickets are on sale now. https://kpno.noirlab.edu/tours-programs/nighttime-programs/

📷KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/D. Salman

Congratulations to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on this second anniversary of science operations! This image is breathtaking!

Today marks the second anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope’s science operations! We’re celebrating with an interacting galaxy duo known as the Penguin and the Egg. Webb observed them in near- and mid-infrared light, transforming our view of their cosmic embrace.

Their slow dance started between 25 and 75 million years ago—and they will continue to shimmy and sway before merging into a single galaxy hundreds of millions of years from now.

Before their first approach, the Penguin held the shape of a spiral. Their “dance” pulled on the Penguin’s thinner areas of gas and dust, causing them to crash in waves and form stars. In contrast, the Egg’s elliptical shape is relatively unchanged. Also look closely to spot a faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow that marks their interactions.

Explore every facet of this image as well as several videos: https://webbtelescope.pub/4eWBxpZ

The nearest major black hole to Earth has been identified by astronomers who combined 20 years of precise observations from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The target is buried in the heart of the globular star cluster Omega Centauri, located 17,700 light-years away. Weighing an estimated 8,200 solar masses, this so-called intermediate-mass black hole is puny compared to the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole in the center of our Milky Way galaxy. That black hole is a little farther away, 26,000 light-years.

Because black holes cannot be directly observed, astronomers must use “stellar forensics,” by measuring how a black hole’s gravitational pull affects the motions of nearby stars. The faster a star moves, the more powerful the tug from the black hole: https://bit.ly/3W9nLcn

🆕 The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) in Omega Centauri! 🕳️

🔴 IMBHs are the ‘missing link’ in black hole evolution, with only a few IMBH candidates ever discovered. If they exist, how common are they? How do they form? And can they grow into supermassive black holes?

🔴 Omega Centauri is the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. It is distinct from other globular clusters as it rotates relatively quickly, appears flattened, and is almost as massive as a small galaxy.

🔴 Astronomers tracked stars in Omega Centauri using hundreds of Hubble images, and discovered seven stars that shouldn’t be there 🌠 they are moving so fast they should have escaped the cluster forever.

🔴 The most likely explanation is that the gravity of a massive object is keeping them close – an IMBH with a mass at least 8200 times that of our Sun.

Read more: https://ow.ly/NAeC50SyCVG

📷 ESA - European Space Agency / Hubble Space Telescope , NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration M. Häberle

We're hiring! We are looking for a Gemini Observatory Director to be responsible for the operation of the International Gemini Observatory, for its overall scientific productivity, and for keeping Gemini at the forefront in science, technology, and instrumentation. Apply here: https://bit.ly/3VQXgqO

The dark nebula L1527 lights up like flares in this mid-infrared display from the James Webb Space Telescope. This look isn’t the first, Webb captured the same region in 2022 in near-infrared light. This new view shows just how much dust surrounds the red protostar.

The white region just above and below the protostar is a mixture of hydrocarbons, ionized neon, and thick dust. As the protostar consumes material from its disk, shown as an edge-on dark line, it also propels matter away from itself, creating cavities above and below the disk. Soot-like hydrocarbon dust molecules glow blue in the cavities’ edges.

As the protostar continues to age, it will consume, destroy, and push away much of the surrounding molecular cloud, causing many of the structures we see here to fade away: https://webbtelescope.pub/4bxsqcm