The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), one of the largest and most sensitive telescopes of its kind in the world, received a visit from United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres, who had the opportunity to learn about how ALMA’s high-tech systems capture and combine signals from the cosmos.
An international team of astronomers led by Jessica Speedie, Department of Physics & Astronomy Ph.D. candidate at the University of Victoria (Canada), observed the well-characterized protoplanetary disk around AB Aurigae and found observational evidence that matches the alternative “top-down” theoretical sequence of planet formation.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has conducted test observations with the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of the Earth. This feat was achieved by detecting light from distant galaxies at a frequency of around 345 GHz, equivalent to a wavelength of 0.87 mm. The Collaboration estimates that, in the future, they will be able to make black hole images 50% more detailed than before. This improvement will sharpen images of supermassive black holes, and allow astronomers to image more black holes than ever before.
An international team of astronomers, including scientists at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) have discovered a powerful, rotating, magnetic wind that they believe is helping a galaxy’s central supermassive black hole to grow.