New technique helps NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope
Astronomers have turned a cluster of galaxies into a gargantuan magnifying lens, using it to study another galaxy, 10.7 billion light years away, in unprecedented detail.
Massive galaxies with extra-large extended “puffy” disks produced stars for longer than their more compact cousins, new modelling reveals.
In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers led by Dr Anshu Gupta and Associate Professor Kim-Vy Tran from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), show that the sheer size of a galaxy influences when it stops making new stars.
The complex mechanics determining how galaxies spin, grow, cluster and die have been revealed following the release of all the data gathered during a massive seven-year Australian-led astronomy research project.
The scientists observed 13 galaxies at a time, building to a total of 3068, using a custom-built instrument called the Sydney-AAO Multi-Object Integral-Field Spectrograph (SAMI), connected to the 4-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. The telescope is operated by the Australian National University.
ANU astronomer Brad Tucker showing students from Rockhampton High School how to use their powerful new telescope. Credit: ANU Media
Children in remote and regional schools will soon be visited by astronomers bearing gifts in a quest to kindle interest in the cosmos.
The scientists – drawn from the ranks of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3D (ASTRO 3D) and the Australian National University – will donate a powerful telescope and high-tech accessories to each school so classes can continue to explore the Universe long after the astronomers have left.
Theories on how the Milky Way formed are set to be rewritten following discoveries about the behaviour of some of its oldest stars.
An investigation into the orbits of the Galaxy’s metal-poor stars – assumed to be among the most ancient in existence – has found that some of them travel in previously unpredicted patterns.
How do stars destroy lithium? Was a drastic change in the shape of the Milky Way caused by the sudden arrival of millions of stellar stowaways?
These are just a couple of the astronomical questions likely to be answered following the release today of ‘GALAH DR3’, the largest set of stellar chemical data ever compiled.
The data, comprising more than 500 GB of information gleaned from more than 30 million individual measurements, was gathered by astronomers including Sven Buder, Sarah Martell and Sanjib Sharma from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) using the Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT) at the Australian Astronomical Observatory at Siding Spring in rural New South Wales.
Australian researchers find ways to overcome the blinding glare of quasars
The telescope, due to launch in late 2021, is the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built.
Two new studies led by Madeline Marshall from Australia’s University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) find that the Webb will be able to reveal galaxies currently masked by powerful lights called quasars.
Scientists are asking all Australians to step outside on the longest night of the year to help them measure light pollution around the country.
“We’re expecting thousands of people to join us on Australia’s longest night, Sunday 21 June, to help researchers create a map of Australia’s darkest skies, and learn about light pollution and its effect on people, animals, and astronomy,” says Marnie Ogg, CEO and founder of the Australasian Dark Sky Alliance.
Modelling shows big galaxies get bigger by merging with smaller ones
Distribution of dark matter density overlayed with the gas density. This image cleanly shows the gas channels connecting the central galaxy with its neighbours. Credit: Gupta et al/ASTRO 3D/ IllustrisTNG collaboration.
Galaxies
grow large by eating their smaller neighbours, new research reveals.
Exactly
how massive galaxies attain their size is poorly understood, not least because
they swell over billions of years. But now a combination of observation and
modelling from researchers led by Dr Anshu Gupta from Australia’s ARC Centre of
Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) has provided a
vital clue.
Data gathered by NASA’s now defunct Kepler telescope provides a solution to an astronomical mystery.
An artist impression of the Milky Way, showing the thick and thin discs. Credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/R.Hurt/SSC
Star-quakes recorded by NASA’s Kepler space telescope have
helped answer a long-standing question about the age of the “thick disc” of the
Milky Way.
In a paper published in the
journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
a team of 38 scientists led by researchers from Australia’s ARC Centre of
Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in Three Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) use data
from the now-defunct probe to calculate that the disc is about 10 billion years
old.