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+--- Thread: Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea (/showthread.php?tid=17412)
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RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 08-27-2018
The magnetism of our Galaxy's super-massive black hole
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-magnetized-inflow-accreting-center-milky.html
This if from UKIRT's sister telescope, the JCMT on MK. I'll let you read the link for the info but thought I'd very briefly explain how astronomers on Mauna Kea measure magnetic fields as it's close to my own research, although my previous work has been on magnetic fields around young protostellar stars.
Many molecules in space are "polar". Carbon monoxide, water and silicates are examples. It means they have a distribution of charge and they should align with magnetic fields in space. However, in the gas-phase, they also rotate which messes up everything. However, if those molecules become trapped in interstellar dust grains, they are no longer able to rotate, but they can still vibrate but only in the direction of their charge. Most dust particles aren't spheres but elongated which means the grains have a charge distribution which isn't symmetrical. Therefore, although it's not very efficient, they tend to align with a magnetic field.
We can measure this. These dust grains are cold and tend to emit radiation in the infrared and submillimeter wavelengths. As your science teacher may have shown you at school, you can use polarizing optics, just like some sunglasses, to detect polarized light. You rotate the optics and it goes from dark to light. Astronomers use this same method especially in the infrared and submillimeter to measure the polarization of light (it's a little more sophisticated than just using your sunglasses though!) and from those measurements can tell the orientation of the dust grains and therefore deduce the distribution of a magnetic field.
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 09-04-2018
Jupiter and water
Apologies, a little late with this one but Jupiter seems to have a lot of water in its atmosphere which has come as a little bit of a surprise. This is according to observations carried out by the IRTF and the Kecks on Mauna Kea. In particular, Jupiter's Great Red Spot, an enormous Earth-sized storm on the planet, has revealed itself to contain water clouds.
http://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/looking-for-water-in-jupiters-great-red-spot/
"The report’s conclusions are based on measurements of the thermal radiation leaking from the depths of the Great Red Spot made by de Pater and astronomer Mike Wong using telescopes at the Keck Observatory and NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF), both in Hawaii. The 5-micron infrared radiation measurements displayed the chemical signature of water above the planet’s deepest clouds."
The five-micron infrared wavelength regime in astronomy is a particularly difficult for ground-based telescopes. It's something I specialize in so am really happy this regime is now easier to explore given the advanced technology that has been developed in recent years. Greenhouse molecules in our own atmosphere absorb and re-emit so much infrared radiation at these wavelengths it can be difficult to tell if it comes from space or our own atmosphere.
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - SBH - 09-05-2018
"The report’s conclusions are based on measurements of the thermal radiation leaking from the depths of the Great Red Spot made by de Pater and astronomer Mike Wong”
Obviously you’re using the Wong data, misinterpretation could be from your MS surface 2 tablet keyboard adding 6’s repeatedly while operating UKIRT. [
]
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - dan d - 09-05-2018
Wow tom ,thats pretty exciting!!!just imagine a hundred years from now a ram scoop being able to collect water vapor from the top of the red spot and using it for fuel!
Aloha
Dan
Dan D
HPP
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 09-05-2018
Good one, SBH!
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - SBH - 09-06-2018
I’m sorry I read too much Gary Larson literature is a kid.
I love this thread and appreciate all the information you share with us here!
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 09-13-2018
"Gemini Confirms the Most Distant Radio Galaxy"
The Gemini observatory on MK confirmed that the romantically-named TGSS J1530+1049 radio galaxy is the farthest radio galaxy ever detected at around 12.5 billion light years. The region emitting radio waves is small suggesting the light from the galaxy we see comes from when it was very young and the supermassive black hole at its center was still attracting matter and growing the galaxy.
https://www.gemini.edu/node/21096
"The measured redshift of TGSS J1530+1049 places it near the end of the Epoch of Reionization, when the majority of the neutral hydrogen in the Universe was ionized by high-energy photons from young stars and other sources of radiation. "The Epoch of Reionization is very important in cosmology, but it is still not well understood," said Roderik Overzier, also of Brazil's Observatorio Nacional, and the Principal Investigator of the Gemini program. "Distant radio galaxies can be used as tools to find out more about this period.""
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - mella l - 09-14-2018
Washington Post! Curious A solar observatory in New Mexico is evacuated for a week and the FBI is investigating. No one will say why.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-solar-observatory-in-new-mexico-is-evacuated-for-a-week-and-the-fbi-is-investigating-no-one-will-say-why/2018/09/14/ea006a96-b78b-11e8-a2c5-3187f427e253_story.html?utm_term=.a228b20399ef
Discoveries out of New Mexico observatory are on hole for a bit as the FBI investigates something!
mella l
Art and Science
bytheSEA
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 09-26-2018
"Hyper Suprime-Cam survey maps dark matter in the universe"
Data obtained by the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea have been used to create the deepest ever wide-field map of the distribution of matter in the universe, including dark matter.
https://phys.org/news/2018-09-hyper-suprime-cam-survey-dark-universe.html
"The present-day universe is a pretty lumpy place. As the universe has expanded over the last 14 billion years or so, galaxies and dark matter have been increasingly drawn together by gravity, creating a clumpy landscape with large aggregates of matter separated by voids where there is little or no matter.
The gravity that pulls matter together also impacts how we observe astronomical objects. As light travels from distant galaxies towards Earth, the gravitational pull of the other matter in its path, including dark matter, bends the light. As a result, the images of galaxies that telescopes see are slightly distorted, a phenomenon called weak gravitation lensing. Within those distortions is a great amount of information that researchers can mine to better understand the distribution of matter in the universe, and it provides clues to the nature of dark energy."
RE: Discoveries by the telescopes on Mauna Kea - TomK - 10-02-2018
"The Goblin": the most distant solar system object so far
A dwarf planet nicknamed "the Goblin" as it was first discovered around Halloween in 2015, is now known to be the most distant object discovered in our solar system. It was first detected using the Subaru telescope on MK in 2015 and subsequent observations using other telescopes have defined its orbit so we now know its roughly 80 AU away from the sun, more than twice the distance of Pluto (AU = astronomical unit = the average distance between the sun and earth = roughly 90 million miles). Its orbit takes the Goblin out to about 2,300 AU and orbits the sun once every 40,000 years.
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/2015TG387/