Summary: Using the both ALMA and the VLT, astronomers have imaged the cold, rock-strewn rings encircling the planet Uranus. Rather than observing the reflected sunlight from these rings, ALMA and the VLT imaged the millimeter and mid-infrared “glow” naturally emitted by the frigidly cold particles of the rings themselves. The rings of Uranus are...
How a Telescope Made Mostly of Nothing Became Astronomy’s ‘Killer App’ Astronomers have captured the first direct visual evidence of a black hole at the center of Messier 87 (M87), a giant elliptical galaxy 55 million light-years from Earth. This unprecedented observation was made possible by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), an array of eight...
AUI and AWB travel the Embassy Circuit to Bring New Opportunities to South America Washington DC – A casual stroll down Embassy Row can send a traveler from one continent to another in matter of seconds. Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and Astronomers Without Borders (AWB) recently made such a trip to bring a stellar experience to the...
As comet 46P/Wirtanen neared Earth on December 2, astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) took a remarkably close look the innermost regions of the comet’s coma, the gaseous envelope around its nucleus. ALMA imaged the comet when it was approximately 16.5 million kilometers from Earth. At its closet on December...