The U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) is supporting Intuitive Machines’ second lunar mission, IM-2, which landed on the surface of the Moon, Thursday, March 6th.
Recent News
Next-Generation Very Large Array Antenna Design to be Used By German Astronomers
The U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory has announced a significant collaboration with the Bavarian State Government to construct a cutting-edge radio telescope atop Germany’s highest mountain. This radio telescope will use the design of the proposed NSF NRAO’s Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA).
NSF VLA Contributes Crucial Puzzle Piece to ‘Peculiar’ High Energy Transient
High-energy transient signals are most often determined to be gamma-ray burst events, but the recently-launched Einstein Probe has expanded astronomers’ ability to quickly respond to similar signals occurring at X-ray wavelengths. Now, a multi-wavelength study of EP240408a concludes that while many of the signal’s characteristics might lead to the conclusion that it is a gamma-ray burst, the non-detection at radio wavelengths precludes that possibility.
IMAGE RELEASE: Galaxies in the Perseus Cluster
For galaxies, as for people, living in a crowd is different from living alone. Recently, astronomers used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to learn how a crowded environment affects galaxies in the Perseus Cluster, a collection of thousands of galaxies some 240 million light-years from Earth.
Left: The giant galaxy NGC 1275, at the core of the cluster, is seen in new detail, including a newly-revealed wealth of complex, filamentary structure in its radio lobes.
Center: The galaxy NGC 1265 shows the effects of its motion through the tenuous material between the galaxies. Its radio jets are bent backward by that interaction, then merge into a single, broad “tail.” The tail then is further bent, possibly by motions within the intergalactic material.
Right: The jets of the galaxy IC 310 are bent backward, similarly to NGC 1265, but appear closer because of the viewing angle from Earth. That angle also allows astronomers to directly observe energetic gamma rays generated near the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s core.
Such images can help astronomers better understand the complex environment of galaxy clusters, which are the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the universe, and which harbor a variety of still poorly-understood phenomena.
“These images show us previously-unseen structures and details and that helps our effort to determine the nature of these objects,” said Marie-Lou Gendron-Marsolais, an ESO/ALMA Fellow in Santiago, Chile. She and a number of international collaborators are announcing their results in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
CREDIT: M. Gendron-Marsolais et al.; S. Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF; SDSS.
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This news article was originally published on the NRAO website on November 12, 2020.
Recent News
Space Company Taps Coast-to-Coast Radio Telescopes for Moon Mission
The U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) is supporting Intuitive Machines’ second lunar mission, IM-2, which landed on the surface of the Moon, Thursday, March 6th.
Next-Generation Very Large Array Antenna Design to be Used By German Astronomers
The U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory has announced a significant collaboration with the Bavarian State Government to construct a cutting-edge radio telescope atop Germany’s highest mountain. This radio telescope will use the design of the proposed NSF NRAO’s Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA).
NSF VLA Contributes Crucial Puzzle Piece to ‘Peculiar’ High Energy Transient
High-energy transient signals are most often determined to be gamma-ray burst events, but the recently-launched Einstein Probe has expanded astronomers’ ability to quickly respond to similar signals occurring at X-ray wavelengths. Now, a multi-wavelength study of EP240408a concludes that while many of the signal’s characteristics might lead to the conclusion that it is a gamma-ray burst, the non-detection at radio wavelengths precludes that possibility.