Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have captured the first direct, high-resolution images of a magnetic field wrapped tightly around the outflow of gas streaming away from a forming star — evidence that solves a decades-old puzzle about how young stars sculpt the powerful jets that form them.
Astronomers studying a rare stellar explosion first spotted as a brief burst of X-rays used radio observations to help show that the dying star did not produce the powerful jet often associated with gamma-ray bursts.
Meet Mario Vargas, a technical specialist III at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Central Development Laboratory.
These joint efforts support the pathfinder for ngVLA technologies, focusing on very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) capabilities that enable ultra-sharp imaging of the Universe.