http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php The Computational Astronomy Press Room The Press Room highlights computational astronomy work around the UC campuses and DOE laboratories comprising the UC-HiPACC consortium. Thu, 16 Oct 2014 08:15:15 -0700 http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Astronomers%20map%20planet%E2%80%99s%20blast-furnace%20atmospher http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Astronomers%20map%20planet%E2%80%99s%20blast-furnace%20atmospher UCSC 10/9/2014—The atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star has been mapped in unprecedented detail using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The map provides information about temperatures at different layers of the world’s atmosphere and traces the amount and distribution of water vapor on the planet. The findings have ramifications for the understanding of atmospheric dynamics and the formation of giant planets like Jupiter. The planet, called WASP-43b, is 260 light-years away. About the same size as Jupiter, it is nearly twice as massive. The planet is so close to its orange dwarf host star that it completes an orbit in just 19 hours. The planet is also gravitationally locked so that it keeps one hemisphere facing the star, just as our moon keeps one face toward Earth. Jonathan Fortney, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz and postdoctoral researcher Mike Line did most of the theoretical work and modeling of the planet's atmosphere, now presented in two new papers, one published online in Science on October 2 and the other published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on September 12. UC Santa Cruz 16 Oct 2014 07:52:52 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Dead%20star%20shines%20on http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Dead%20star%20shines%20on LLNL 10/9/2014—A supernova is the cataclysmic death of a star, but its remnants shine on. Astronomers have found a pulsating, dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns. This is the brightest pulsar—a dense stellar remnant leftover from a supernova—ever recorded, and was seen using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers were involved in the design and testing of the NuSTAR X-ray optics. Like black holes, neutron stars are the burnt-out cores of exploded stars, but puny in mass by comparison. Pulsars are neutron stars that send out beams of light. As the star spins, these beams intercept Earth-like lighthouse beacons, producing a pulsed signal. NuSTAR’s discovery of the massive pulsar is helping astronomers better understand mysterious sources of extreme X-rays, called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). Before now, all ULXs were thought to be actively feeding black holes. This NuSTAR finding, published in in the Oct. 9 issue of Nature, shows that at least one ULX, about 12 million light-years away in a galaxy called Messier 82 (M82), is not a black hole but a pulsar. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 16 Oct 2014 07:40:58 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Claire%20Max%20to%20lead%20UC%20Observatories http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Claire%20Max%20to%20lead%20UC%20Observatories UCSC 10/2/2014—The University of California has appointed Claire Max, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, to serve as director of UC Observatories on an interim basis while an international search is conducted to appoint a permanent director. Max succeeds Sandra Faber, whose two-year appointment as interim director ended in June. Max is internationally known for her research in plasma physics, astronomy, and astronomical instrumentation. A pioneer in the field of adaptive optics, she has served as director of the Center for Adaptive Optics at UC Santa Cruz. UC Observatories (UCO) is a multicampus research unit headquartered on the UC Santa Cruz campus. UCO operates the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton and the UCO Technical Labs at UC Santa Cruz and UCLA, and is a managing partner of the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. UCO is also the center for UC's participation in the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) project. UC Santa Cruz 16 Oct 2014 07:36:36 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Computers%20as%20surrogate%20astronomers http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Computers%20as%20surrogate%20astronomers UCB/BIDS 10/2/2014—Joshua Bloom wants to train computers to be surrogate astronomers so they can discover new celestial phenomena within the streaming torrent of data from telescopes. He is one of three professors at UC Berkeley will receive $1.5 million over the next five years from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as part of the foundation’s Data-Driven Discovery Initiative. Bloom, a professor of astronomy and head of the campus’s Center for Time Domain Informatics, has pioneered the use of machine learning in astronomy. He and his students teach computers to sift and analyze data, ideally in real time, to pick out anomalies that may signal new and weird cosmic phenomena—from explosive events in space to unusual variable stars. Machine learning techniques he has applied to data from the Palomar Transient Factory have produced 65 papers so far. As a Moore Investigator in Data-Driven Discovery, Bloom will be able to collaborate with statisticians and computer scientists to explore machine learning more thoroughly, and find ways to expand into other fields, such as particle physics, where large amounts of data are typical. UC Berkeley 16 Oct 2014 07:33:03 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Perfect%20fluid%3A%20recreating%20the%20Big%20Bang http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Perfect%20fluid%3A%20recreating%20the%20Big%20Bang LBNL 10/2/2014—By accelerating heavy atomic nuclei to high energies and blasting them into each other, scientists are able to recreate the hot temperature conditions of the early universe. By combining data from two high-energy accelerators, nuclear scientists have refined the measurement of a remarkable property of exotic matter known as quark-gluon plasma. Relying on a branch of theory called relativistic hydrodynamics in which the motion of fluids is described by equations from Einstein’s theory of special relativity, researchers from the JET Collaboration have developed such a model that can describe the process of expansion and the observed phenomena of an ultra-hot perfect fluid, allowing them to understand how jets propagates through the dynamic fireball. The findings reveal new aspects of the ultra-hot, “perfect fluid” that give clues to the state of the young universe just microseconds after the big bang. The multi-institutional JET Collaboration, led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), published their results in Physical Review C. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 16 Oct 2014 07:26:13 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Come%20out%2C%20come%20out%2C%20wherever%20you%20are http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Come%20out%2C%20come%20out%2C%20wherever%20you%20are LBNL 10/1/2014—The Daya Bay Collaboration, an international group of scientists studying the subtle transformations of neutrinos—electrically neutral, almost undetectable subatomic particles—has published its first results on the search for a so-called sterile neutrino, a possible new type of neutrino beyond the three known neutrino “flavors,” or types. The existence of elusive sterile neutrinos, if proven, would have a profound impact on our understanding of the universe, and could impact the design of future neutrino experiments. The new results, published in Physical Review Letters, show no evidence for sterile neutrinos in a previously unexplored mass range. The fact that neutrinos have mass at all is a relatively new discovery, as is the observation at Daya Bay that the electron neutrino is a mixture of at least three mass states. While scientists don’t know the exact values of the neutrino masses, they are able to measure the differences between them, or “mass splittings.” They also know that neutrinos are dramatically less massive than the well-known electron, though both are members of the family of particles called “leptons.” Their unexpected observations have led to the possibility that the neutrino could be a special type of matter and a very important component of the mass of the universe. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 16 Oct 2014 07:23:54 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Unusual%20death%20for%20ancient%20stars http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Unusual%20death%20for%20ancient%20stars NERSC/UCSC 9/29/2014—Certain primordial stars with masses tens of thousands of times that of the Sun may have exploded as supernovae and burned completely, leaving no remnant black hole behind. First-generation stars fused the first chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium; in death, they sent their chemical creations into space, paving the way for subsequent generations of stars, solar systems and galaxies. Postdoctoral researcher Ke-Jung Chen at UC Santa Cruz and his colleagues used a one-dimensional stellar evolution code called KEPLER to model the life of a primordial supermassive star. They found that such a star lived only a fast 1.69 million years before general relativistic effects caused it to become unstable and start to collapse. As the star collapsed, it rapidly synthesized heavy elements like oxygen, neon, magnesium and silicon starting with helium in its core. That process released more energy than the binding energy of the star, halting the collapse and causing a massive explosion: a supernova. In a narrow window of mass between 55,000 to 56,000 solar masses, it could explode completely instead of becoming a supermassive black hole. That mechanism was never before found. Their findings were published in Astrophysical Journal. NERSC release: http://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/news/science-news/2014/simulations-reveal-unusual-death-for-ancient-stars/ ; UCSC release: http://news.ucsc.edu/2014/09/unusual-supernova.html 16 Oct 2014 07:20:43 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Moses%20to%20lead%20to%20promised%20telescope http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Moses%20to%20lead%20to%20promised%20telescope LLNL 9/4/2014—Ed Moses, a longtime scientific leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been appointed by the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) as president of their organization, effective Oct. 2, 2014. The GMTO is a major international collaboration to build a billion-dollar, 25-meter telescope, located at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The GMT will be significantly larger than any telescope in existence today. It will be used to discover and characterize planets around other stars (including the search for telltale signs of life), to probe the formation of stars and galaxies shortly after the Big Bang, to measure the masses of black holes and to explore fundamental issues in cosmology and physics, including dark matter and dark energy. The giant telescope is expected to come on line early in the next decade. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 09 Sep 2014 10:56:25 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Early%20mixing%20explains%20stellar%20family%20resemblance http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Early%20mixing%20explains%20stellar%20family%20resemblance UCSC 8/31/2014—The chemical uniformity of stars in the same cluster is the result of turbulent mixing in the clouds of gas where star formation occurs, according to a study by astrophysicists at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Their results, published August 31 in Nature, show that even stars that don't stay together in a cluster will share a chemical fingerprint with their siblings which can be used to trace them to the same birthplace. The new study suggests that astronomers could potentially find the sun's long-lost siblings even if they are now on the opposite side of the galaxy. UC Santa Cruz 09 Sep 2014 10:54:54 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#%E2%80%9CFingerprinting%E2%80%9D%20our%20Sun%E2%80%99s%20long-lost%20sibling http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#%E2%80%9CFingerprinting%E2%80%9D%20our%20Sun%E2%80%99s%20long-lost%20sibling UC-HiPACC 8/31/2014—Early, fast, turbulent mixing of gas within giant molecular clouds—the birthplaces of stars—means all stars formed from a single cloud bear the same unique chemical “tag” or “DNA fingerprint,” writes computational astronomers at University of California, Santa Cruz in the journal Nature, published online on August 31, 2014. Could such chemical tags help astronomers identify our own Sun’s long-lost sibling stars? UCHiPACC 09 Sep 2014 10:52:23 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Green%20light%20%24%24%20for%20LSST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Green%20light%20%24%24%20for%20LSST UCD 8/4/2014—The National Science Foundation has agreed to support the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy to manage the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) construction project, with a budget of up to $473 million. The LSST is designed to image the entire night sky every three nights for 10 years, producing 15 terabytes of data per night. Project designers aim to have this data freely available online within a minute of imaging. The telescope is expected to see "first light" in 2019 and begin full science operations in 2022. LSST will allow astronomers to detect comets, asteroids, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and other fast-moving or changing objects. It will give insight into the beginnings of the solar system, map the distribution of dark matter, and give insights into “dark energy,” the mysterious force that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. UC Davis 09 Sep 2014 10:50:33 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Deviant%20shape%20of%20Moon%3A%20blame%20early%20tides http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Deviant%20shape%20of%20Moon%3A%20blame%20early%20tides UCSC 7/30/2014—The shape of the moon deviates from a simple sphere in ways that scientists have struggled to explain. A new study by researchers at UC Santa Cruz shows that most of the moon's overall shape can be explained by taking into account tidal effects acting early in the moon's history. The results, published July 30 in Nature, provide insights into the moon's early history, its orbital evolution, and its current orientation in the sky. UC Santa Cruz 09 Sep 2014 10:46:56 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Core%20problem%3A%20Mercury%E2%80%99s%20off-kilter%20magnetic%20fiel http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Core%20problem%3A%20Mercury%E2%80%99s%20off-kilter%20magnetic%20fiel UCLA 7/29/2014—Mercury’s magnetic field is bizarre: it is approximately three times stronger at its northern hemisphere than at its southern one, revealed measurements from NASA’s Messenger spacecraft. A team led by Hao Cao, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar working in the laboratory of Christopher T. Russell, created a mathematical model to explore how the dynamics of Mercury’s core contribute to this unusual phenomenon. Among factors Hao and his colleagues considered were how fast Mercury rotates and the chemistry and complex motion of fluid inside the planet. The planetary physicists found Mercury’s asymmetric magnetic field provides evidence that iron turns from a liquid to a solid at the core’s outer boundary. Their research was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. UCLA 09 Sep 2014 10:41:08 PST http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRoom.php#Power%20source%20for%20101%20geysers%20on%20frozen%20Enceladus http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressArchive.php#Power%20source%20for%20101%20geysers%20on%20frozen%20Enceladus UCSC 7/28/2014—Scientists on NASA’s Cassini mission have identified 101 distinct geysers erupting on Saturn's small, icy moon Enceladus and uncovered critical clues to what powers them. Their results, including the possibility that liquid water may be reaching all the way to the surface, are presented in two back-to-back articles published in the Astronomical Journal. UC Santa Cruz 09 Sep 2014 10:38:24 PST