CosmicRami

CosmicRami, 4 days ago to Astro

#JWST is often cited for its amazing work with galaxies, BUT LOOK AT IT DISSECTING UP THE CRAB NEBULA AND SHOWING US STAR GUTS FROM A 1000-YEAR OLD STELLAR DETONATION.

Wow! Look at the pulsar!

So epic that we can see this detail, the different structures, elements, velocities, energies, etc. from an event that Chinese and Japanese astronomers witnessed and documented 1000 years back.

We're connected through time with this event to them!

https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.00172

#CrabPulsar #Pulsar #Supernova #Astrophysics #Astrodon

four tile image of the central region of the Crab Nebula in black and white, showing the wispy rings that are in the nebula near the pulsar. The pulsar and other features are annotated.
a blue cloud of gas, and embedded in it is a hot pink structure of twisted and looping filaments. This is the crab nebula and the blue represents synchrotron radiation and pink represents dust. Several arrows are annotated to show the gaps in the edges of the structure.
six tile image showing the grab nebula in six different filters from the JWST. The images progress from a cloudy structure to a cloudy structure with the filaments showing internally.

CosmicRami, 5 days ago to Astro

The people I work with are doing cool shit!

I finally got a chance to interview fellow PhD'er Sarah Caddy from our faculty about this excellent new research and looking at stars and satellites (like the ISS) DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS!

THey're using a telescope called 'The Huntsman' and look how many eyes it has 🕷️🔭

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/news/seeing-stars-day

#SpaceAustralia #Astrodon #Astronomy #Telescopes

📸 Caddy et al. 2024

CosmicRami, 7 days ago to queer

June is #PRIDE month, where it's fun to convince homophobes and transphobes that light is actually gay and every time they open their eyes, they now are also "a gay".

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Also, let them know that Jupiter is proudly Trans and won't be taking any questions.

📸 Jupiter pic: NASA/ESA/HUBBLE/ @spacegeck

clours of the spectrum on a wall with the wavelength of light in nanometers indicated around the transition of each colour
a bright rainbow arching over an arch bridge - the Sydney Harbour Bridge - off in the distance across the harbour
A false colour image of Jupiter that shows a mix of purple, blues and white with different clouds and band structures.

CosmicRami, 9 days ago to Astro

I'm so excited about this find!

Aussie astronomers have used Murriyang (Parkes radio telescope) to confirm the closest millisecond pulsar to the Galactic Centre!

Got to chat with CSIRO astronomer Marcus Lower (Lead Author of the paper) about this exciting new science.

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/news/millisecond-pulsar-lurking-galactic-centre

#SpaceAustralia #Astrodon #Pulsars #Astrophysics

📸 Heywood et al. 2022 / me

The Parkes radio telescope tilted on its side and slightly upwards. In the foreground are gardens and three poles with three flags upon them.

CosmicRami, 10 days ago to astrophotography

Got another 1.5 hours of light last night from nearby(ish) galaxy NGC 3621 which features the recent supernova #SN2024ggi

Have now been grabbing light from this event over a few months and can see its colour/flux temporal evolution.

Caught it with VIVID’s extreme light pollution too! (VIVID is a very popular festival of light here in Sydney in which light pollution increases by several orders of magnitude!)

#Astrophotography #Astrodon #Supernova #NGC3621

Five vertical narrow tiles, each showing a zoomed in section of an astrophotograph of a spiral galaxy’s edge. There is an arrow annotated to one of the bright stars in the galaxy which is the supernova on each of these images.

CosmicRami, 11 days ago to Astro

If you haven't noticed, radio astronomers worldwide are getting very shouty at radio frequency interference (RFI - akin to light pollution) increasing.

We create these multi-billion, grand-scale projects in specifically legislated radio quiet zones away from human populations to ensure we have the best capabilities to detect the faintest signals from the furthers reaches of the cosmos.

Then along comes the RFI from satellite constellations.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/square-kilometre-array-wa-to-face-satellite-noise-interference/103830954

#RFI #Satellites #RadioAstronomy #Astrodon

CosmicRami, 13 days ago to science

The black hole that ate its own star. This is some neat science!

A new paper reports that VFTS 243, a massive binary system featuring an O-class star and a 10 solar-mass black hole companion, might have formed through the 'complete collapse scenario'.

My new article in #SpaceAustralia

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/news/black-holes-eat-their-own-stars

📸: ESO / l. Calçada

#BlackHoles #Science #Astrophysics #Astrodon

CosmicRami, 15 days ago to Astronomy

I taunt astronomers in other EM regimes because unlike us cool radio astro folks, they mostly can't do astronomy during the day (where we can).

Now, folks from our uni (Macquarie Uni) and fellow PhD'er Sarah Caddy, are building telescopes for daytime obs.

THIS IS BETELGEUSE IN THE DAY! 🤯

To get these results, we've built a telescope that has MANY eyes, and named it after the huge spider we have here called 'The Huntsman' (which of course, has many eyes).

Some nice work coming from this 'scope!

More: shorturl.at/D3IKL

Paper: shorturl.at/kp2Xj

#Telescopes #Astronomy #Astrodon

Woman standing next to a telescope that is made up of many smaller telescopes giving an appearance of many eyes looking upwards

CosmicRami, 17 days ago to Astro

For the first time since Nov. 2023, two of the four instruments aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft (currently ~24,472,559,000 km away or about 22.5 light hours from us) have started re-transmitting science data!

These spacecraft are older than me and still going strong.

Go you good thing!

https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/05/22/voyager-1-resumes-sending-science-data-from-two-instruments/

#Astrodon

CosmicRami, 19 days ago to Astro

Just catching up on this image of NGC 3783 captured by Hubble and oooooft, the more you look at it, the more is revealed.

First, that majestic grand spiral galaxy, but then, all the OTHER galaxies in the background.

So good!

📸 ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. C. Bentz, D. J. V. Rosario

#Hubble #Astrodon #Galaxies

CosmicRami, 23 days ago to random

Friends! Today is International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) - where we remember that we still need to fight for global LGBTIQA+ rights, equality, support and celebrate our wonderfully diverse communities.

Feel free to use this image (+ alt-text) across your socials.

If you can spare some change on this IDAHOBIT, here are a few Aussie orgs that you could donate to, to keep up the good fight:

Minus18 - https://www.minus18.org.au/donate/

BLAQ - https://blaq.org.au/donate/

LGBTQ Domestic Violence Awareness Foundation - https://shoutforgood.com/embed/lightbox?client_token=fda092d0-472a-42f4-aac6-5a20ee0eea17

LGBTIQ+ Health Australia - https://www.lgbtiqhealth.org.au/donate

QLife - https://qlife.org.au/

Twenty10 - https://twenty10.org.au/donate/

#LGBTIQA+ #IDAHOBIT

CosmicRami, 27 days ago to Astro

Coronal mass ejections entrap magnetic fields, along with producing the wonderful aurora we have seen all over the world for the last few days.

Well, we can also measure this magnetism by looking at pulsar signals (and in particular rotation measure effects) when a CME crosses in front!

This image is from Howard et al. (2021) which shows where pulsars are when a CME crossed the line of sight.

Happy to report people were observing pulsar signals during last few days where the big solar storms passed Earth!

So there is some really neat science going to come from the Sun burping and causing some nice aurora events, using pulsars!

#pulsars #radioastronomy #aurora #astrophysics #astrodon

CosmicRami, 1 month ago to Astro

I forgot to post this a couple weeks back! It was the 20-year anniversary of one of the first exoplanets
ever found - and it was lurking around a pulsar!

Draugr (Norse for "undead creatures") is one of three planets that orbits the pulsar Lich (also an undead creature).

The official name of the system is PSR B1257+12 and it features the three planets in orbit around the nasty pulsar.

It's located about 1900 light-years away in the constellation Virgo and was discovered in 1994, two years after the first two exoplanets were found around Lich.

The EXTREMELY NEAT thing about Draugr is that, to date, it remains the least massive exoplanet ever discovered, even when compared to the planets in our Solar System - which tells us something!

Found through pulsar timing, its mass is only ~2 times the lunar mass.

Here's the discovery paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.264.5158.538

Pulsar planets really have had it rough.

Remember, to form a pulsar you need a supernova! So they can be second-gen planets from supernova debris!

Read more about pulsar planets in my #SpaceAustralia article here: https://www.spaceaustralia.com/news/science-talk-what-are-pulsar-planets

📷 NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt

#RadioAstronomy #pulsars #exoplanets #astrodon

CosmicRami, 1 month ago to Astronomy

Wooooaaahhhh!

The new JWST image of a small bit of the Horsehead Nebula is INCREDIBLE.

To give you a sense of scale here, here’s an image of the nebula from my backyard. That small white box … that’s the JWST field of view! 🤯🤯🤯

Look at ALL those galaxies, all in that tiny white box.

JWST image credit:

Dodgy image with white boxes is my own.

#JWST #SpaceTelescope #HorseheadNebula #Astronomy #Galaxies #Astrodon

At the bottom of the image a small portion of the Horsehead Nebula is seen close-in, as a curved wall of thick, smoky gas and dust. Above the nebula various distant stars and galaxies can be seen up to the top of the image. One star is very bright and large, with six long diffraction spikes that cross the image. The background fades from a dark red colour above the nebula to black.

jpm, 1 month ago to random

Hey @CosmicRami my daughter has a really good space-question: how did ice get into space?

CosmicRami, 1 month ago to Astro

Ohh, today's @APoD is like a scene from another world! Superb photography, and there's no need to look far off into space for it.

It features a beautiful crescent Moon hanging in the red dawn Sicilian sky, while Mt Etna blows vortex rings into the atmosphere.

Outstanding!

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

📸 D. Giannobile/APOD

#Volcano #Astrodon #MountEtna #Italy

CosmicRami, 1 month ago to astrophotography

Here’s a second night of imaging #SN2024ggi using Seestar S50 from my backyard.

Got about 2 hours of data but then NGC 3621 crossed the meridian near the zenith and things started failing.

Still, pretty darn good for a 5cm aperture. Saturated the colours a bit to highlight blue-white hues of supernova!

#Supernova #astrophotography #NGC3621 #astronomy #astrodon

CosmicRami, 1 month ago to Astro

Happy 51st B'day to Deep Space Station 43 (DSS43)! 📡

One of my fav antennas, and at 70m diameter, the largest steerable antenna in the Southern Hemisphere, located at @canberradsn

DSS43 keeps in touch with super important missions like Voyager2, only acquirable from this station!

Read the piece I wrote about CDSCC in #SpaceAustralia: https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/canberras-deep-space-network-ready-return-moon

#Astrodon #RadioAstronomy #SpaceExploration #DeepSpaceNetwork #Astronomy

CosmicRami, 1 month ago to astrophotography

🚨 A STAR HAS DIED! ⭐💥

And I just happened to catch it from my city light-polluted backyard, using a 5cm aperture SeestarS50!

Check it out ... on the left is my image (only 25 mins of data). The cross hairs indicate a 'new star' appearing in galaxy NGC 3621. The right image is from Stellarium and I have annotated where the new star appears, and how it was not there before.

This is a type II supernova, so a massive star's core collapsed and triggered off an extremely violent explosion that we are seeing 22 million years later.

It likely formed a neutron star or pulsar!

It is incredibly bright and I encourage everyone to turn their telescopes towards it and get data / light curves!

#astrophotography #Astrodon #NGC3621 #Supernova #AT2024ggi

high quality image of a galaxy showing its bright core region and swirling spiral arms, amongst a dense stellar field. A yellow circle is drawn on an outer region of the galaxy.

CosmicRami, 1 month ago to Astronomy

*** SUPERNOVA ALERT ***
🔭📸🚨

Astrophotographers/astronomers with 'scopes capable of low-res spectrography:

Turn your telescopes to NGC 3621, a field galaxy only 7 MPC away! Supernova alert issued with progenitor data available. ⭐💥

NGC 3621 (aka the Frame Galaxy or Southern Cross Galaxy) is fairly bright and if you are around the same latitude as Sydney (many southern cities) it gets very near zenith around 9 - 10pm local time, so an easy and bright target.

More info:

https://www.wis-tns.org/astronotes/astronote/2024-100

https://www.wis-tns.org/astronotes/astronote/2024-102

Here's the galaxy shot prior by Joe DePasquale /ESO.

#Supernova #Astronomy #Astrodon #Galaxy #NGC3621

CosmicRami, 2 months ago to Astro

Looking at eclipses with radio telescope also gives us insightful info into the active regions of the Sun (like sunspots) as well as helping study background sources twinkling in the Solar wind.

Some stills from Emil Lenc’s video of a partial solar eclipse (2023) seen by CSIRO’s ASKAP 📡📡📡📡📡

#ASKAP #CSIRO #RadioAstronomy #Astrodon #SolarEclipse

Radio image of the Sun, annotated with a yellow circle. The Sun has several bright features on it. The Moon, annotated with a grey circle is now touching bottom right part of the solar disc.
Radio image of the Sun, annotated with a yellow circle. The Sun has several bright features on it. The Moon, annotated with a grey circle is now covering most of the solar disc.
Radio image of the Sun, annotated with a yellow circle. The Sun has several bright features on it. The Moon, annotated with a grey circle is now touching top left part of the solar disc.

CosmicRami, 2 months ago to Astro

The DES Galaxy Collection: No. 11!

Name: NGC 4302

Category: Captivating Couple

Distance: ~55 mly away

Constellation: Coma Berenices

Interesting: NGC4302's beautiful edge-on perspective gives excellent dark dust lane features, and interacts with NGC 4298.

NGC 4298 is also a lovely almost face-on spiral with some astronomers reporting it might harbour an intermediate-mass black hole estimated mass ranging from 20,000 - 500,000 Suns.

📸 DES Legacy

#Galaxies #DESLegacy #Astrodon

CosmicRami, 2 months ago to Astro

Our Sun will eventually stop using nuclear fusion to produce energy and become a cooling white dwarf. It's what white dwarfs do.

A subpopulation of white dwarfs might have a way to generate heat, post-formation. The reported mechanism in this paper is the release of gravitational energy through internal dynamics.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07102-y

#Astrodon #Astrophysics #WhiteDwarf #CompactRemnants

CosmicRami, 3 months ago to ska

EXCITING NEWS!

The first SKA-low antennas are being installed today in Australia!

Here's a feature article I wrote (2021) that outlines the road that has led to the development of the world's largest radio telescope for #SpaceAustralia

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/index.php/feature/road-leads-square-kilometre-array

📸 M. Goh/ICRAR/Curtin

#RadioAstronomy #Telescopes #SKA #Astrophysics #Astrodon

CosmicRami, 3 months ago to Astro

YYYYYYAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!

Today's @APoD was taken by our team mate, the excellent John Sarkissian! And look, it is off our beautiful dish Murriyang (Parkes radio telescope) grabbing signal and data from IM-1.

#Astrodon #Parkes #Murriyang