Laniakea supercluster: Newly identified galactic supercluster, home to the Milky Way

A slice of the Laniakea Supercluster in the supergalactic equatorial plane, an imaginary plane containing many of the most massive clusters in this structure. 

The colours represent density within this slice, with red for high densities and blue for voids, areas with relatively little matter. 

Individual galaxies are shown as white dots. 

Velocity flow streams within the region gravitationally dominated by Laniakea are shown in white, while dark blue flow lines are away from the Laniakea local basin of attraction. 

The orange contour encloses the outer limits of these streams, a diameter of about 160 Mpc. This region contains the mass of about 100 million billion suns. 

Credit: SDvision interactive visualization software by DP at CEA/Saclay, France.

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT), among other telescopes, have determined that our own Milky Way galaxy is part of a newly identified ginormous supercluster of galaxies, which they have dubbed "Laniakea," which means "immense heaven" in Hawaiian.

This discovery clarifies the boundaries of our galactic neighbourhood and establishes previously unrecognized linkages among various galaxy clusters in the local Universe.

"We have finally established the contours that define the supercluster of galaxies we can call home," said lead researcher R. Brent Tully, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

"This is not unlike finding out for the first time that your hometown is actually part of much larger country that borders other nations."

The paper explaining this work is the cover story of the September 4 issue of the journal Nature.

Superclusters are among the largest structures in the known Universe. They are made up of groups, like our own Local Group, that contain dozens of galaxies, and massive clusters that contain hundreds of galaxies, all interconnected in a web of filaments.

Though these structures are interconnected, they have poorly defined boundaries.

To better refine cosmic mapmaking, the researchers are proposing a new way to evaluate these large-scale galaxy structures by examining their impact on the motions of galaxies.

A galaxy between structures will be caught in a gravitational tug-of-war in which the balance of the gravitational forces from the surrounding large-scale structures determines the galaxy's motion.

By using the GBT and other radio telescopes to map the velocities of galaxies throughout our local Universe, the team was able to define the region of space where each supercluster dominates.

"Green Bank Telescope observations have played a significant role in the research leading to this new understanding of the limits and relationships among a number of superclusters," said Tully.


The Milky Way resides in the outskirts of one such supercluster, whose extent has for the first time been carefully mapped using these new techniques.

This so-called Laniakea Supercluster is 500 million light-years in diameter and contains the mass of one hundred million billion Suns spread across 100,000 galaxies.

This study also clarifies the role of the Great Attractor, a gravitational focal point in intergalactic space that influences the motion of our Local Group of galaxies and other galaxy clusters.

Two views of the Laniakea Supercluster. 

Credit: SDvision interactive visualization software by DP at CEA/Saclay, France

Within the boundaries of the Laniakea Supercluster, galaxy motions are directed inward, in the same way that water streams follow descending paths toward a valley.

The Great Attractor region is a large flat bottom gravitational valley with a sphere of attraction that extends across the Laniakea Supercluster.

The name Laniakea was suggested by Nawa'a Napoleon, an associate professor of Hawaiian Language and chair of the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at Kapiolani Community College, a part of the University of Hawaii system. The name honors Polynesian navigators who used knowledge of the heavens to voyage across the immensity of the Pacific Ocean.

More information: Nature, dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13674

Elliptical galaxies: Chandra helps explain 'red and dead galaxies'

Credit: X-ray: NASA /Chandra CXC /Stanford Univ /N.Werner et al.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has shed new light on the mystery of why giant elliptical galaxies have few, if any, young stars.

This new evidence highlights the important role that supermassive black holes play in the evolution of their host galaxies.

Because star-forming activity in many giant elliptical galaxies has shut down to very low levels, these galaxies mostly house long-lived stars with low masses and red optical colours.

Astronomers have therefore called these galaxies "red and dead."

Previously it was thought that these red and dead galaxies do not contain large amounts of cold gas—the fuel for star formation, helping to explain the lack of young stars.

ESA's Herschel Space Observatory

However, astronomers have used ESA's Herschel Space Observatory to find surprisingly large amounts of cold gas in some giant elliptical galaxies.

In a sample of eight galaxies, six contain large reservoirs of cold gas.

This is the first time that astronomers have seen large quantities of cold gas in giant elliptical galaxies that are not located at the center of a massive galaxy cluster.

With lots of cold gas, astronomers would expect many stars to be forming in these galaxies, contrary to what is observed.

To try to understand this inconsistency, astronomers studied the galaxies at other wavelengths, including X-rays and radio waves.

The Chandra observations map the temperature and density of hot gas in these galaxies.

For the six galaxies containing abundant cold gas, including NGC 4636 and NGC 5044 shown here, the X-ray data provide evidence that the hot gas is cooling, providing a source for the cold gas observed with Herschel.

However, the cooling process stops before the cold gas condenses to form stars. What prevents the stars from forming?

A strong clue comes from the Chandra images. The hot gas in the center of the six galaxies containing cold gas appears to be much more disturbed than in the cold gas-free systems.

This is a sign that material has been ejected from regions close to the central black hole. These outbursts are possibly driven, in part, by clumpy, cold gas that has been pulled onto the black hole.

The outbursts dump most of their energy into the center of the galaxy, where the cold gas is located, preventing the cold gas from cooling sufficiently to form stars.

The other galaxies in the sample, NGC 1399 and NGC 4472, are also forming few if any stars, but they have a very different appearance. No cold gas was detected in these galaxies, and the hot gas in their central regions is much smoother.

Additionally, they have powerful jets of highly energetic particles, as shown in radio images from the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array.

These jets are likely driven by hot gas falling towards the central supermassive black holes.

By pushing against the hot gas, the jets create enormous cavities that are observed in the Chandra images, and they may heat the hot, X-ray emitting gas, preventing it from cooling and forming cold gas and stars.

The centers of NGC 1399 and NGC 4472 look smoother in X-rays than the other galaxies, likely because their more powerful jets produce cavities further away from the center, where the X-ray emission is fainter, leaving their bright cores undisturbed.

More information: A paper describing these results was published on 24 February 2014 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/439/3/2291 , Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/1310.5450

Remarkable Features below the surface of the Moon

Mare Serenitatis / Sea of Serenity. 

Credit: Bruce Campbell (Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum); Arecibo /NAIC; NRAO /AUI /NSF

New images of Earth's Moon reveal more than can be seen with the naked eye, thanks to the combined efforts of the two largest radio telescopes of their kind, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

To make these images, radar signals beamed from Arecibo's powerful transmitter penetrated far below the Moon's dusty surface.

The signals then rebounded back and were picked up by the sensitive receivers on the GBT.

This observing technique, known as bistatic radar, has been used to study many objects in our solar system, including asteroids and other planets.

The first image reveals previously hidden features around an area known as Mare Serenitatis, or the Sea of Serenity, which is near the Apollo 17 landing site.

The radar observations were able to "see" approximately 10-15 meters (33-50 feet) below the lunar surface.

The light and dark features are the result of compositional changes in the lunar dust and differences in the abundance of rocks buried within the soil.

The second image is a similar observation of the lunar impact crater known as Aristillus.

The radar echoes reveal geologic features of the large debris field created by the force of the impact.

The dark "halo" surrounding the crater is due to pulverized debris beyond the rugged, radar-bright rim deposits.

The image also shows traces of lava-like features produced when lunar rock melted from the heat of the impact.

The crater is approximately 55 kilometers (34 miles) in diameter and 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) deep.

Aristillus Crater. 

Credit: Bruce Campbell (Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum); Arecibo/NAIC; NRAO/AUI/NSF

These images help planetary scientists interpret the complex history of the Moon, which is often obscured by dust layers built up over billions of years, better understand the geology of earlier landing sites, and plan for future lunar exploration.

SOAR Telescope: A sharp eye on Southern binary stars

Click to view the animation demonstrating the orbit of the close binary pair Ba, Bb in the HIP 83716 Triple System. 

The orbit has been calculated from five observations (blue circles) taken between 2009, when the close binary was discovered at SOAR, and 2014, the date of the most recent observation. 

Animation Credit: M. A. Newhouse & NOAO/AURA/NSF

Unlike our sun, with its retinue of orbiting planets, many stars in the sky orbit around a second star.

These binary stars, with orbital periods ranging from days to centuries, have long been the primary tool for measuring basic quantities like the star's mass.

While masses of normal stars are now well determined, some binaries present special interest because their stars are unusual (e.g. very young) or because they may contain planets, gas clouds, or other stars.

Now, astronomers at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) and at the US Naval Observatory (USNO) are making use of the latest technology, speckle imaging, to measure the separation of close binary stars.

By observing them over a period of years, their obits have been determined with exquisite precision.

Using the new speckle camera at the 4.1-m Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in Chile with its novel electron-multiplication CCD detector, the team is able to measure the angular separation of stars down to 25 milli arcseconds: this is equivalent to measuring the size of a quarter atop the Empire State building in New York - from Washington, DC.

This is over 2000 times better than the human eye can resolve. As Dr. Andrei Tokovinin, the lead author on the paper, said: "This camera surpasses adaptive-optics instruments at the 8-m telescopes, which work in the infrared and can only resolve binaries wider than 50 milli arcseconds."

The team, which includes astronomers from SOAR and from the USNO, has not only been observing previously known binary systems for which older data are very poor, but is also finding new double and multiple systems.

The attached animation shows the system HIP 83716, known to be double for over a century but until the SOAR camera examined it, nobody realized that the companion star was also a binary, making this a triple system.

The wide pair A,B orbit each other in about 520 years, while the newly discovered pair Ba, Bb orbit each other in just 6.5 years.

Over the past seven years, the speckle camera on SOAR has observed almost 2000 objects, both previously known and newly discovered binaries.

This is a unique dataset in terms of quantity and quality: prior to this project such measurements of southern binaries were made only occasionally by the team from the USNO.

More information: "Speckle Interferometry at SOAR in 2012 and 2013." Andrei Tokovinin, Brian D. Mason, and William I. Hartkopf, Andrei Tokovinin et al. 2014 The Astronomical Journal 147 123. DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/147/5/123

WHOI NEREUS: Scientists use ROV to explore Kermadec Trench‎

Researchers will use the deep-submergence vehicle Nereus in their explorations. 

Credit: WHOI

What lives in the deepest part of the ocean, the abyss?

A team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) will use the world's only full-ocean-depth, hybrid, remotely-operated vehicle, Nereus, and other advanced technology to find out.

They will explore the Kermadec Trench at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The trench, located off New Zealand, is the fifth deepest trench in the world. Its maximum depth is 32,963 feet or 6.24 miles (10,047 meters).

It's also one of the coldest trenches due to the inflow of deep waters from Antarctica.

The 40-day expedition to the Kermadec Trench, which begins on April 12, 2014, kicks off a three-year collaborative effort.

The project, known as the Hadal Ecosystem Studies Project (HADES), will conduct the first systematic study of life in ocean trenches, comparing it to the neighbouring abyssal plains, flat areas of the seafloor usually found at depths between 9,843 and 19,685 feet (3,000 and 6,000 meters).

David Garrison

"The proposal to study the deep-sea environment as part of HADES was high-risk, but, we hope, also high-reward," says David Garrison, program director in NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences, which funds HADES.

"Through this exciting project, we will shine a light into the darkness of Earth's deep-ocean trenches, discovering surprising results all along the way."

Among least-explored environments on Earth
A result of extreme pressures in these deep-sea environments and the technical challenges involved in reaching them, ocean trenches remain among the least-explored environments on the planet.

Tim Shank

"We know relatively little about life in ocean trenches, the deepest marine habitats on Earth," says Tim Shank, a biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the participating organizations.

"We didn't have the technology to do these kinds of detailed studies before. This will be a first-order look at community structure, adaptation and evolution: how life exists in the trenches."

NSF HADES principal investigators are Tim Shank, Jeff Drazen of the University of Hawaii and Paul Yancey of Whitman College.

Telepresence technology aboard the NOAA research vessel Thomas G. Thompson will allow the public to share in the discoveries.

Live-streaming Web events from the seafloor will include narration from the science team.

The researchers' work will also be chronicled in video, still images and blog updates on the expedition website.

Heavy Metal in the Early Cosmos - Simulation

This simulation shows heavy-element-bearing sheets of an exploding star's debris streaming into the center of a cosmic dark matter halo. 

Upon arriving in the center, the streams will enable the formation of the first low-mass stars, when the universe was still only about 200 million years old. 

Image courtesy Jeremy Ritter, Milos Milosavljevic, and Volker Bromm, The University of Texas at Austin.

Ab initio: "From the beginning." It's a term used in science to describe calculations that rely on established mathematical laws of nature, or "first principles," without additional assumptions or special models.

Milos Milosavljevic

But when it comes to the phenomena that Milos Milosavljevic is interested in calculating, we're talking really ab initio, as in from the beginning of time onward.

Things were different in the early eons of the universe.

The cosmos experienced rapid inflation; electrons and protons floated free from each other; the universe transitioned from complete darkness to light; and enormous stars formed and exploded to start a cascade of events leading to our present-day universe.

Working with Chalence Safranek-Shrader and Volker Bromm at the University of Texas at Austin, Milosavljevic recently reported the results of several massive numerical simulations charting the forces of the universe in its first hundreds of millions of years using some of the world's most powerful supercomputers, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) -supported Stampede, Lonestar and Ranger (now retired) systems at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.

The results, described in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in January 2014, refine how the first galaxies formed, and in particular, how metals in the stellar nurseries influenced the characteristics of the stars in the first galaxies.

"The universe formed at first with just hydrogen and helium," Milosavljevic said. "But then the very first stars cooked metals and after those stars exploded, the metals were dispersed into ambient space."

This simulation shows hydrodynamic instability triggered by rapid cooling in a heavy-element-enriched cosmic dark matter halo when the universe was only 300 million years old.

The instability drives turbulence which breaks the flow into fragments. 

Some fragments undergo gravitational collapse and set to fragment into progressively smaller units. 

From left to right and top to bottom, the six panels show projections of gas density, and the horizontal bar has length 1 pc = 3.26 light years.

Credit: Chalence Safranek-Shrader, Milos Milosavljevic, and Volker Bromm, the University of Texas at Austin

More Information: 'Heavy metal in the early cosmos' Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in January 2014 - Milos Milosavljevic, Chalence Safranek-Shrader and Volker Bromm

Green Bank Telescope (GBT): River of Hydrogen flowing through space

This composite image contains three distinct features: the bright star-filled central region of galaxy NGC 6946 in optical light (blue), the dense hydrogen tracing out the galaxy's sweeping spiral arms and galactic halo (orange), and the extremely diffuse and extended field of hydrogen engulfing NGC 6946 and its companions (red). 

The new GBT data show the faintly glowing hydrogen bridging the gulf between the larger galaxy and its smaller companions. 

This faint structure is precisely what astronomers expect to appear as hydrogen flows from the intergalactic medium into galaxies or from a past encounter between galaxies. 

Credit: D.J. Pisano (WVU); B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); Palomar Observatory -- Space Telescope Science Institute 2nd Digital Sky Survey (Caltech); Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT)

D.J. Pisano

Using the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), astronomer D.J. Pisano from West Virginia University has discovered what could be a never-before-seen river of hydrogen flowing through space.

This very faint, very tenuous filament of gas is streaming into the nearby galaxy NGC 6946 and may help explain how certain spiral galaxies keep up their steady pace of star formation.

"We knew that the fuel for star formation had to come from somewhere. So far, however, we've detected only about 10 percent of what would be necessary to explain what we observe in many galaxies," said Pisano.

"A leading theory is that rivers of hydrogen – known as cold flows – may be ferrying hydrogen through intergalactic space, clandestinely fueling star formation. But this tenuous hydrogen has been simply too diffuse to detect, until now."

Spiral galaxy NGC 6946

Spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, typically maintain a rather tranquil but steady pace of star formation.

Others, like NGC 6946, which is located approximately 22 million light-years from Earth on the border of the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus, are much more active, though less-so than more extreme starburst galaxies.

This raises the question of what is fueling the sustained star formation in this and similar spiral galaxies.

Earlier studies of the galactic neighborhood around NGC 6946 with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) in the Netherlands have revealed an extended halo of hydrogen (a feature commonly seen in spiral galaxies, which may be formed by hydrogen ejected from the disk of the galaxy by intense star formation and supernova explosions).

A cold flow, however, would be hydrogen from a completely different source: gas from intergalactic space that has never been heated to extreme temperatures by a galaxy's star birth or supernova processes.

Using the GBT, Pisano was able to detect the glow emitted by neutral hydrogen gas connecting NGC 6946 with its cosmic neighbours. This signal was simply below the detection threshold of other telescopes.

The GBT's unique capabilities, including its immense single dish, unblocked aperture, and location in the National Radio Quiet Zone, enabled it to detect this tenuous radio light.

Astronomers have long theorized that larger galaxies could receive a constant influx of cold hydrogen by syphoning it off other less-massive companions.

In looking at NGC 6946, the GBT detected just the sort of filamentary structure that would be present in a cold flow, though there is another probable explanation for what has been observed.

It's also possible that sometime in the past this galaxy had a close encounter and passed by its neighbours, leaving a ribbon of neutral atomic hydrogen in its wake.

If that were the case, however, there should be a small but observable population of stars in the filaments.

Further studies will help to confirm the nature of this observation and could shine light on the possible role that cold flows play in the evolution of galaxies.

Journal Reference: D. J. Pisano. GREEN BANK TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF LOW COLUMN DENSITY H I AROUND NGC 2997 AND NGC 6946. The Astronomical Journal, 2014; 147 (3): 48 DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/147/3/48

WHOI Alvin: Deep-diving sub cleared to return to service

Artist's rendition of the newly upgraded Alvin, showing its improved interior layout. 

Credit: E. Paul Oberlander, WHOI

After a three-year overhaul and major upgrade, the United States' deepest-diving research submersible, Alvin, has been cleared to return to work exploring the ocean's depths.

The sub has been out of service since December 2010, undergoing a major upgrade, including the replacement of its personnel sphere with a newly fabricated, larger, more capable hull.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) operates the U.S. Navy-owned sub for the National Deep Submergence Facility on behalf of a consortium of universities and research organizations conducting deep ocean research.

Steven Schulze

On Jan. 8, 2014, the Naval Sea Systems Command's (NAVSEA) Executive Director of Undersea Warfare for the Department of the Navy Steven Schulze certified that the sub could safely operate to depths of 3,800 meters, with the expectation that a certification dive to 4,500 meters will be completed later this year.

"There has been tremendous coordination between the Navy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to ensure Alvin's safety and integrity," said the Navy's Director of Advanced Undersea Integration Don Hoffer.

Don Hoffer

"Alvin is a national asset and the Navy is pleased to be a part of the team that returned the vehicle to service."

"Achieving Navy certification is a major milestone in the Alvin upgrade project, enabling the vehicle to get back to its critical mission of taking scientists to the deep sea," said WHOI Vice President for Marine Facilities and Operations Rob Munier.

Rob Munier

"This significant accomplishment is a testament to the rigorous engineering collaboration between WHOI and NAVSEA and the unwavering support of NSF.

Certification helps ensure that Alvin's excellent record of safety will continue for many decades to come."

Alvin carries a pilot and two science observers on missions that last approximately eight hours.

Certification was the final step in Stage I of the Alvin upgrade project, funded by NSF and WHOI.

The upgrade project included; 

• upgrades to major components for an increased depth rating of 6,500 meters,
•  including installation of a new, larger personnel sphere with improved interior ergonomics; 
• five viewports (instead of the previous three) to improve visibility and provide overlapping fields of view; 
• new lighting and high-definition imaging systems; new syntactic foam for buoyancy and an improved command-and-control system.; 

Upgrades also included improvements to Alvin's launch system and storage hangar onboard its support vessel, the R/V Atlantis.

The Navy certified Alvin using its Deep Submergence Scope of Certification process, reviewing the design, construction and materials used to ensure the vehicle performs as expected.

The Navy uses the same process to certify manned undersea systems for submarine rescue and submarine-based Special Operation Forces delivery systems.

Read the full article here

Green Bank Telescope: Hidden details revealed in nearby starburst galaxy

This composite image of starburst galaxy M82 shows the distribution of dense molecular gas as seen by the GBT (yellow and red) and the background stars and dust as seen by the Hubble Space telescope (blue).

The yellow areas correspond to regions of intense star formation.

The red areas trace outflows of gas from the disk of the galaxy. 

Credit: Bill Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); Hubble/NASA

Using the new, high-frequency capabilities of the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), astronomers have captured never-before-seen details of the nearby starburst galaxy M82.

These new data highlight streamers of material fleeing the disk of the galaxy as well as concentrations of dense molecular gas surrounding pockets of intense star formation.

M82, which is located approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, is a classic example of a starburst galaxy—one that is producing new stars tens- to hundreds-of-times faster than our own Milky Way.

Its relatively nearby location made it an ideal target for the GBT's newly equipped "W-Band" receiver, which is capable of detecting the millimeter wavelength light that is emitted by molecular gas.

This new capability makes the GBT the world's largest single-dish, millimeter-wave telescope.

Amanda Kepley

"With this new vision, we were able to look at M82 to explore how the distribution of molecular gas in the galaxy corresponded to areas of intense star formation," said Amanda Kepley, a post-doctoral fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia, and lead author on a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Having this new capability may help us understand why stars form where they do."

Astronomers recognize that dense molecular gas goes hand-in-hand with areas of star formation, but the connection is poorly understood and this relationship may be different in different types of galaxies.

By creating wide-angle maps of the gas in galaxies, astronomers hope to better understand this complex interplay.

To date, however, these kinds of observations have not been easy since molecules that are used to map the distribution of dense gas, like HCN (hydrogen cyanide) and HCO+ (formylium), shine feebly in millimeter light.

With its new W-Band receiver, the GBT was able to make highly sensitive, wide-angle images of these gases in and around M82.

"The GBT data clearly show billowing concentrations of dense molecular gas huddled around areas that are undergoing bursts of intense star formation," said Kepley.

"They also reveal giant outflows of ionized gas fleeing the disk of the galaxy. These outflows are driven by star formation deep within the galaxy."

This capability will enable astronomers to quickly survey entire galaxies and different parts within galaxies.

Such surveys would complement higher resolution observations with new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile.

The 100-meter GBT is located in the National Radio Quiet Zone and the West Virginia Radio Astronomy Zone, which protect the incredibly sensitive telescope from unwanted radio interference.

Scientists launch 'CubeSats' into radiation belts

The twin FIREBIRD CubeSats. 

Credit: MSU Space Science and Engineering Laboratory.

Twin, pintsized satellites built in part at the University of New Hampshire's Space Science Center by UNH graduate student Alex Crew were launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California just before midnight on December 5, 2013.

The two 4x4x6-inch Focused Investigations of Relativistic Electron Burst Intensity, Range, and Dynamics (FIREBIRD) satellites will now brave a region of space 400 miles above Earth, where they have begun probing a mysterious physical process within our planet's dangerous radiation belts.

That process, known as microbursts, involves electrons moving at nearly the speed of light during short-duration (100 milliseconds) events.

Microbursts are thought to be one of the primary mechanisms by which the outer radiation belt loses energetic particles to Earth's atmosphere after the occurrence of powerful solar storms.

Such storms can dramatically change the intensity of the radiation belts.

Alex Crew holds FIREBIRD's full-size engineering unit, which contains twin particle detectors. 

The boxy structure to Crew's left is a copy of the miniscule FIREBIRD spacecraft.

Photo by David Sims, UNH-EOS.

"We care about this because the belts' high-energy particles, particularly the electrons, pose a real risk to spacecraft," says Crew, who worked on FIREBIRD for over three years to recently earn his Ph.D.

"So if we understand these physical processes better, we'll be able to predict how the radiation belts will behave and both protect the satellites we depend upon for telecommunications, weather monitoring and prediction, etcetera, and design them to withstand this high-energy radiation," Crew adds.

FIREBIRD was among ten other CubeSats that shared a ride into space on a rocket dedicated to a larger mission - in this case, an Atlas 5 rocket launching a payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Such ridesharing is standard operating procedure for a program designed to put small, low-cost satellites into space much more quickly than typical satellite missions.

The little satellites are placed into a compartment known as a Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer, P-POD for short, and jettisoned from the rocket at the proper orbital height above Earth.

FIREBIRD was the first to be deployed and is the first CubeSat mission UNH scientists have been involved with.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the CubeSat program is launching a new generation of tiny satellites outfitted with modern, smart-phone-like electronics and miniaturized scientific instruments to study highly focused science questions and go where bigger, more costly and complex satellite missions cannot.



"The tiny Firebird CubeSats are poised for big science discoveries, providing first-of-a-kind, multi-point observations of microbursts that will help answer crucial questions about radiation belt dynamics and processes," says Therese Moretto Jorgensen, program director in the NSF Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Science.

California Polytechnic State and Stanford universities first developed the CubeSat specifications in an effort to help universities worldwide perform space science and exploration, and NSF's program is providing students and young professionals with the opportunity to participate as never before in satellite missions end-to-end.

Crew's advisor and UNH mission lead scientist for FIREBIRD is astrophysicist Harlan Spence, director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space.

Says Spence, "In contrast to typical satellite missions, which can take over a decade from conception to launch, the CubeSat program provides invaluable opportunities for scholars like Alex to experience a complete spacecraft mission and to conduct high-quality scientific research as a graduate student."

UNH and collaborators have already been funded for the follow-up FIREBIRD II mission slated for launch in October 2014.

More information: For more information on the FIREBIRD mission, visit: firebird.unh.edu

Powerful jets discovered blowing material out of galaxy

Radio-Telescope Image of the galaxy 4C12.50, nearly 1.5 billion light-years from Earth. 

Inset shows detail of location at end of superfast jet of particles, where a massive gas cloud (yellow-orange) is being pushed by the jet. 

Credit: Morganti et al., NRAO /AUI /NSF

Astronomers using a worldwide network of radio telescopes have found strong evidence that a powerful jet of material propelled to nearly light speed by a galaxy's central black hole is blowing massive amounts of gas out of the galaxy.

This process, they said, is limiting the growth of the black hole and the rate of star formation in the galaxy, and thus is a key to understanding how galaxies develop.

Astronomers have theorized that many galaxies should be more massive and have more stars than is actually the case.

Scientists proposed two major mechanisms that would slow or halt the process of mass growth and star formation -- violent stellar winds from bursts of star formation and pushback from the jets powered by the galaxy's central, supermassive black hole.

Raffaella Morganti

"With the finely-detailed images provided by an intercontinental combination of radio telescopes, we have been able to see massive clumps of cold gas being pushed away from the galaxy's center by the black-hole-powered jets," said Raffaella Morganti, of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Groningen.

The scientists studied a galaxy called 4C12.50, nearly 1.5 billion light-years from Earth. They chose this galaxy because it is at a stage where the black-hole "engine" that produces the jets is just turning on.

As the black hole, a concentration of mass so dense that not even light can escape, pulls material toward it, the material forms a swirling disk surrounding the black hole.

Processes in the disk tap the tremendous gravitational energy of the black hole to propel material outward from the poles of the disk.

At the ends of both jets, the researchers found clumps of hydrogen gas moving outward from the galaxy at 1,000 kilometers per second.

One of the clouds has much as 16,000 times the mass of the Sun, while the other contains 140,000 times the mass of the Sun. The larger cloud, the scientists said, is roughly 160 by 190 light-years in size.

"This is the most definitive evidence yet for an interaction between the swift-moving jet of such a galaxy and a dense interstellar gas cloud," Morganti said.

"We believe we are seeing in action the process by which an active, central engine can remove gas -- the raw material for star formation -- from a young galaxy," she added.

The scientists also said their observations indicate that the jets from the galaxy's core can stretch and deform clouds of interstellar gas to expand their "pushing" effect beyond the narrow width of the jets themselves.

In addition, they reported that, at 4C12.50's stage of development, the jets may turn on and off and so periodically repeat the process of removing gas from the galaxy.

In July, another team of scientists, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), announced they had found gas being blown from a more-nearby galaxy, called NGC 253, by an intense burst of star formation.

"Both processes are thought to be at work, often simultaneously, in young galaxies to regulate the growth of their central black holes as well as the rate at which they can form new stars," Morganti said.

Morganti and her team used radio telescopes in Europe and the U.S., combining their signals to make one giant, intercontinental telescope.

Journal Reference:
R. Morganti, J. Fogasy, Z. Paragi, T. Oosterloo, M. Orienti. Radio Jets Clearing the Way Through a Galaxy: Watching Feedback in Action. Science, 2013; 341 (6150): 1082 DOI: 10.1126/science.1240436

NSF VLA Image: Microquasar Makes a Giant Manatee Nebula

W50 supernova remnant in radio (green) against the infrared background of stars and dust (red). Credits: NRAO/AUI/NSF, K. Golap, M. Goss; NASA's Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE).

A new view of a 20,000-year old supernova remnant demonstrates the upgraded imaging power of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and provides more clues to the history of this giant cloud that resembles a beloved endangered species, the Florida Manatee.

W50 is one of the largest supernova remnants ever viewed by the VLA. At nearly 700 light years across, it covers two degrees on the sky - that's the span of four full Moons!

Aquila, exploded as a supernova around twenty thousand years ago, sending its outer gases flying outward in an expanding bubble.

The remaining, gravitationally-crushed relic of that giant star, most likely a black hole, feeds on gas from a very close, companion star. The cannibalized gas collects in a disk around the black hole.

The disk and black hole's network of powerful magnetic field lines acts like an enormous railroad system to snag charged particles out of the disk and channel them outward in powerful jets traveling at nearly the speed of light.

This system of a black hole and its feeder star shines brightly in both radio waves and X-rays and is known collectively as the SS433 microquasar.

Over time, the micro quasar's jets have forced their way through the expanding gases of the W50 bubble, eventually punching bulges outward on either side.

The jets also wobble, like an unstable spinning top, and blaze vivid corkscrew patterns across the inflating bulges.