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The Hubble Telescope Isn't Finished Yet

Started by Recusant, April 08, 2022, 06:06:23 AM

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Recusant

Thirty years or so, and still keeping an eye on things. If there are any problems with the links please let me know.

"A star nicknamed 'Earendel' may be the most distant yet seen" | Science News

Quote

A newfound possible star (arrow) is from the universe's first 900 million years, researchers say. It's only visible because of an intervening galaxy cluster, which magnifies the light of this object and a background galaxy, seen as the red arc.
Image Credits: NASA, ESA, Brian Welch/JHU, Dan Coe/STSCI; Image Processing: NASA, ESA, Allyssa Pagan/STSCI





A chance alignment may have revealed a star from the universe's first billion years.

If confirmed, this star would be the most distant one ever seen, obliterating the previous record (SN: 7/11/17). Light from the star traveled for about 12.9 billion years on its journey toward Earth, about 4 billion years longer than the former record holder, researchers report in the March 30 Nature. Studying the object could help researchers learn more about the universe's composition during that early, mysterious time.

"These are the sorts of things that you only hope you could discover," says astronomer Katherine Whitaker of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who was not part of the new study.

[Continues . . .]

The paper ("A highly magnified star at redshift 6.2") is available through the token link at the bottom of the story above.

QuoteAbstract:

Galaxy clusters magnify background objects through strong gravitational lensing. Typical magnifications for lensed galaxies are factors of a few but can also be as high as tens or hundreds, stretching galaxies into giant arcs. Individual stars can attain even higher magnifications given fortuitous alignment with the lensing cluster. Recently, several individual stars at redshifts between approximately 1 and 1.5 have been discovered, magnified by factors of thousands, temporarily boosted by microlensing.

Here we report observations of a more distant and persistent magnified star at a redshift of 6.2±0.1, 900 million years after the Big Bang. This star is magnified by a factor of thousands by the foreground galaxy cluster lens WHL0137–08 (redshift 0.566), as estimated by four independent lens models.

Unlike previous lensed stars, the magnification and observed brightness (AB magnitude, 27.2) have remained roughly constant over 3.5 years of imaging and follow-up. The delensed absolute UV magnitude, −10±2, is consistent with a star of mass greater than 50 times the mass of the Sun. Confirmation and spectral classification are forthcoming from approved observations with the James Webb Space Telescope.
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Recusant

I like this one--another discovery made with the Hubble.

"A 'slingshot scenario': On the trail of a runaway supermassive black hole" | YaleNews

QuoteYale astronomers are on the lookout for a "runaway" black hole — a supermassive black hole that was catapulted away from the center of its host galaxy by the gravitational force of multiple black holes interacting at once.

A trail of a potential rogue black hole was detected in Hubble Telescope images of an unrelated foreground galaxy, the researchers say.

If confirmed with further observations, the discovery would prove a 50-year-old theory predicting the existence of runaway black holes.

"This was a bit of serendipity," said Yale's Pieter van Dokkum, lead astronomer for the multi-institution research team. "We noticed an almost straight line of light in the Hubble images that pointed to the heart of a galaxy. As we had never seen something like that before, we decided to investigate it a month later with the Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer on the Keck I telescope."

In a new study to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the researchers suggest that three black holes came together about 40 million years ago in the aftermath of the collisions of their host galaxies. Due to the strong gravitational forces unleashed by this galactic pileup, one of the black holes ended up speeding away from the scene of the "accident."

The line of gas and stars that the researchers spotted in the Hubble image — which is 200 light years long — would be the "wake" of the runaway black hole. Its endpoint is a bright point of light, which may be where the runaway black hole is located. The mass of the black hole, the researchers said, is estimated to be as much as the mass of 10 million suns, and it is racing through space with a velocity of 4 million miles per hour.

[Continues . . .]



Image Credit: Astrophysical Journal Letters



The paper is open access:

"A Candidate Runaway Supermassive Black Hole Identified by Shocks and Star Formation in its Wake" | The Astrophysical Journal Letters

QuoteAbstract:

The interaction of a runaway supermassive black hole (SMBH) with the circumgalactic medium (CGM) can lead to the formation of a wake of shocked gas and young stars behind it. Here we report the serendipitous discovery of an extremely narrow linear feature in Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys images that may be an example of such a wake.

The feature extends 62 kpc from the nucleus of a compact star-forming galaxy at z = 0.964. Keck Low-resolution Imaging Spectrometer spectra show that the [O III]/ ratio varies from ∼1 to ∼10 along the feature, indicating a mixture of star formation and fast shocks. The feature terminates in a bright [O III] knot with a luminosity of ≈1.9 × 1041 erg s−1.

The stellar continuum colors vary along the feature and are well fit by a simple model that has a monotonically increasing age with the distance from the tip. The line ratios, colors, and overall morphology are consistent with an ejected SMBH moving through the CGM at a high speed while triggering star formation.

The best-fit time since ejection is ∼39 Myr, and the implied velocity is vBH ∼ 1600 km s−1. The feature is not perfectly straight in the HST images, and we show that the amplitude of the observed spatial variations is consistent with the runaway SMBH interpretation. Opposite the primary wake is a fainter and shorter feature, marginally detected only in [O III] and the rest-frame far-ultraviolet. This feature may be shocked gas behind a binary SMBH that was ejected at the same time as the SMBH that produced the primary wake.

"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Tank

Oh fudge! Can you imagine if we had one of those coming towards us?
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Recusant

Having some hardware problems, but seems to have weathered them.  :thumbsup:

"Hubble Space Telescope is back in the game after NASA fixes gyro glitch" | The Register

QuoteThe Hubble Space Telescope is expected to resume science operations on Friday, after a gyroscope glitch forced NASA to suspend astronomical observations for weeks.

"After analyzing the data, the team has determined science operations can resume under three-gyro control," the US space agency confirmed in its latest update. "Based on the performance observed during the tests, the team has decided to operate the gyros in a higher-precision mode during science observations. Hubble's instruments and the observatory itself remain stable and in good health."

Launched in 1990, the telescope has been serviced multiple times over its decades-long lifetime. In 2009 Hubble was equipped with six new gyros. Only three remain operational.

Gyros measure how fast the telescope turns, and help it stay fixed onto a cosmic target as it orbits in space. One of them began behaving oddly, however, leading to faulty readings – so Hubble automatically entered safe mode on November 19.

NASA initially managed to fix the issue, but the problem returned again and again. By November 23, Hubble had entered and exited safe mode two more times and engineers decided to run more tests to try and come up with a better solution. Subsequently NASA appears to have found a better system and the 'scope is expected to resume operations on December 8 and hopefully keep going for a while longer.

[Continues . . .]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tom62

Did they try to turn it off and on again ;) ?
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

billy rubin

its been an impressive instrument overall, considering the colossal fuck up in focus h we h it was launched


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Tank

I bet the QA bod who fucked up didn't put it on their CV!
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Asmodean

The plucky old scope that could. I wonder how that Starlink swarm will do by comparison... Poorly, something tells me.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Icarus

A flyby of Pluto. Looks like the surface either has patches of rust or substantial crops of rhubarb.


Icarus

#11

Asmodean

Quote from: Icarus on December 19, 2023, 01:04:20 AMA flyby of Pluto. Looks like the surface either has patches of rust or substantial crops of rhubarb.


It's The Asmo's rhubarb farm. He was going to get back at Luxembourg by flooding the markets with cheap Plutonian rhubarb, but was found out. :sadnod:
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.