Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Space for US: Together for a Better Earth | NASA

Space for US: Together for a Better Earth

"Space for U.S." highlights some of the many ways that NASA's Earth observations help people strengthen communities across the United States and make informed decisions about public health, disaster response and recovery, and environmental protection. 

For six decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to better understand our home planet and improve lives. By highlighting advanced technology from a global perspective, our data helps provide people achieve groundbreaking insights. "Space for U.S." features 56 stories illustrating how our science has made an impact in every state in the nation as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and regions along the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes.

NASA freely and openly provides its Earth-observing data to those seeking answers to important global issues. The Applied Sciences Program in NASA’s Earth Science Division funds projects that enable innovative uses of NASA Earth science data, resulting in informed decision making to strengthen America's economy and improve the quality of life worldwide.

For more information about NASA Earth science activities, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/earth/

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthObservation #Environment #ClimateChange #Climate #Weather #ISS #Satellites #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #NOAA #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA Earth Data Helps Scientists to Understand Our Home Planet

NASA Earth Data Helps Scientists Understand Our Home Planet 
In September 2017, the Atlantic Ocean was brewing with several large hurricanes. This view of the hurricanes, and our home planet, was created by assembling images acquired throughout Sept. 6, 2017 by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on the joint NASA/NOAA Suomi-NPP.

For six decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to better understand our home planet and improve lives. A new interactive website called Space for U.S. highlights some of the many ways that NASA's Earth observations help people strengthen communities across the United States and make informed decisions about public health, disaster response and recovery, and environmental protection.

Image Credit: NASA/Joshua Stevens
Caption Credit: Kathryn Hansen
Release Date: April 19, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthDay #EarthDay2019 #PictureEarth #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #NOAA #Satellite #SuomiNPP #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Monday, April 22, 2019

NASA Scientists Share Why They Like Earth

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2019!
NASA Scientists Share Why They Like Earth
April 22, 2019: The Earth is a unique planet. In celebration of Earth Day, NASA scientists shared their favorite thing about our home planet.

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Duration: 1 minute, 24 seconds
Release Date: April 22, 2019


#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthDay #EarthDay2019 #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA Sees Earth, Our Unique Home

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2019!
NASA Sees Earth, Our Unique Home
April 22, 2019: Of all the planets NASA has explored, none have matched the dynamic complexity of our own. Earth is a very special place. From the vantage point of space, the perspective of sky and sea, and all across the land, we study our planet not only to learn about it, but also to protect it.

Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Duration: 55 seconds
Release Date: April 22, 2019


#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Earth #EarthDay #EarthDay2019 #Planet #SolarSystem #ISS #OverviewEffect #OrbitalPerspective #International #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Monday, April 15, 2019

Lakes at Saturn's Moon Titan: NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Reveals Surprises

NASA's Cassini Probe Reveals Surprises with Titan's Lakes 
April 15, 2019: This near-infrared, color view from the Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of Titan's north polar seas. On its final flyby of Saturn's largest moon in 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft gathered radar data revealing that the small liquid lakes in Titan's northern hemisphere are surprisingly deep, perched atop hills and filled with methane. 

The new findings, published April 15 in Nature Astronomy, are the first confirmation of just how deep some of Titan's lakes are (more than 300 feet, or 100 meters) and of their composition. They provide new information about the way liquid methane rains on, evaporates from and seeps into Titan—the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface. 

Scientists have known that Titan's hydrologic cycle works similarly to Earth's—with one major difference. Instead of water evaporating from seas, forming clouds and rain, Titan does it all with methane and ethane. We tend to think of these hydrocarbons as a gas on Earth, unless they're pressurized in a tank. But Titan is so cold that they behave as liquids, like gasoline at room temperature on our planet. 

Scientists have known that the much larger northern seas are filled with methane, but finding the smaller northern lakes filled mostly with methane was a surprise. Previously, Cassini data measured Ontario Lacus, the only major lake in Titan's southern hemisphere. There they found a roughly equal mix of methane and ethane. Ethane is slightly heavier than methane, with more carbon and hydrogen atoms in its makeup. 

"Every time we make discoveries on Titan, Titan becomes more and more mysterious," said lead author Marco Mastrogiuseppe, Cassini radar scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, California. "But these new measurements help give an answer to a few key questions. We can actually now better understand the hydrology of Titan." 

Adding to the oddities of Titan, with its Earth-like features carved by exotic materials, is the fact that the hydrology on one side of the northern hemisphere is completely different than the that of the other side, said Cassini scientist and co-author Jonathan Lunine of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

"It is as if you looked down on the Earth's North Pole and could see that North America had completely different geologic setting for bodies of liquid than Asia does," Lunine said.

On the eastern side of Titan, there are big seas with low elevation, canyons and islands. On the western side: small lakes. And the new measurements show the lakes perched atop big hills and plateaus. The new radar measurements confirm earlier findings that the lakes are far above sea level, but they conjure a new image of landforms—like mesas or buttes—sticking hundreds of feet above the surrounding landscape, with deep liquid lakes on top. 

The fact that these western lakes are small—just tens of miles acrossbut very deep also tells scientists something new about their geology: It's the best evidence yet that they likely formed when the surrounding bedrock of ice and solid organics chemically dissolved and collapsed. On Earth, similar water lakes are known as karstic lakes. Occurring in in areas like Germany, Croatia and the United States, they form when water dissolves limestone bedrock. 

Alongside the investigation of deep lakes, a second paper in Nature Astronomy helps unravel more of the mystery of Titan's hydrologic cycle. Researchers used Cassini data to reveal what they call transient lakes. Different sets of observations—from radar and infrared data—seem to show liquid levels significantly changed. 

The best explanation is that there was some seasonally driven change in the surface liquids, said lead author Shannon MacKenzie, planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. "One possibility is that these transient features could have been shallower bodies of liquid that over the course of the season evaporated and infiltrated into the subsurface," she said. 

These results and the findings from the Nature Astronomy paper on Titan's deep lakes support the idea that hydrocarbon rain feeds the lakes, which then can evaporate back into the atmosphere or drain into the subsurface, leaving reservoirs of liquid stored below. 

Cassini, which arrived in the Saturn system in 2004 and ended its mission in 2017 by deliberately plunging into Saturn's atmosphere, mapped more than 620,000 square miles (1.6 million square kilometers) of liquid lakes and seas on Titan's surface. It did the work with the radar instrument, which sent out radio waves and collected a return signal (or echo) that provided information about the terrain and the liquid bodies' depth and composition, along with two imaging systems that could penetrate the moon's thick atmospheric haze.

The crucial data for the new research were gathered on Cassini's final close flyby of Titan, on April 22, 2017. It was the mission's last look at the moon's smaller lakes, and the team made the most of it. Collecting echoes from the surfaces of small lakes while Cassini zipped by Titan was a unique challenge. 

"This was Cassini's last hurrah at Titan, and it really was a feat," Lunine said

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the U.S. and several European countries.

More information about Cassini can be found here:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/cassini

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho
Caption Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech
Release Date: April 15, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Saturn #Planet #Moon #Titan #Lakes #Methane #SolarSystem #Cassini #Spacecraft #ESA #ISA #Huygens #JPL #Caltech #California #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA's NEOWISE Celebrates Five Years of Asteroid Data | JPL

NASA's NEOWISE Celebrates 5 Years of Asteroid Data | JPL
Comet C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto: Infrared Images
April 15, 2019: Comet C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto as imaged in multiple exposures of infrared light by the NEOWISE space telescope. The infrared images were taken on Feb. 25, 2019, when the comet was about 56 million miles, or 90 million kilometers, from Earth. C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto is a long-period comet originally from the Oort Cloud and coming in near the Sun for the first time in over 1,000 years. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission released its fifth year of survey data on April 11, 2019. The five years of NEOWISE data have significantly advanced scientists' knowledge of asteroids and comets in the solar system, as well as the stars and galaxies beyond.

The data from all five years of the survey are available at:
http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/neowise/.

"NEOWISE recently surpassed 95 billion recorded measurements of asteroids, comets, stars and galaxies—a remarkable accomplishment for a recycled spacecraft," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer and head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This asteroid hunter has measured the sizes of more than 1,000 near-Earth asteroids and is still producing great data, making it a unique asset in our portfolio of asteroid-hunting telescopes and an important prototype for an upcoming space-based NEO survey mission."

In addition to providing critical data on asteroids and comets in our own solar system, NEOWISE has provided data that have enabled the worldwide scientific community to track bursting stars, characterize distant quasars from the first billion years of the universe's history, conduct a census of millions of merging galaxies and take multi-wavelength measurements of hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies.

"The data from NEOWISE effectively give us a movie of the universe as it changes over time at infrared wavelengths, which is now being used in over 1,000 different astronomical publications," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

From WISE to NEOWISE

Originally called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the spacecraft was launched in December 2009 to study galaxies, stars and solar system bodies by imaging the the infrared light in the entire sky. It was placed in hibernation in 2011 after completing its primary astrophysics mission. In September 2013, the spacecraft was reactivated, renamed NEOWISE and assigned a new mission: to assist NASA's efforts to identify and characterize the population of near-Earth objects. NEOWISE is also characterizing more distant populations of asteroids and comets to provide information about their sizes and compositions.

The NEOWISE survey will end when its changing orbit eventually prevents it from obtaining high-quality data. But until that time, NEOWISE will continue to contribute valuable data both to humanity's record of the universe around us and to the search for asteroids that pose a hazard to Earth.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages and operates the NEOWISE mission for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office within the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Science data processing takes place at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about NEOWISE, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/neowise
and
http://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/

For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

Credit: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/Caltech
Release Date: April 15, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Comet #Iwamoto #Asteroids #Earth #Planet #Defense #SolarSystem #NEOWISE #Infrared #Telescope #Satellite #Anniversary #JPL #Caltech #California #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Key Concepts in Interferometry

Key Concepts in Interferometry | ESO
 Responsible for First Image of a Black Hole
This poster from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) explains some of the key concepts in interferometry, the breakthrough that made the Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87’s black hole possible.

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; S. Dagnello
Acknowledgment: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Release Date: April 10, 2019


#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Astrophysics #Interferometry #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #Telescopes #Infographic #Poster #STEM #Education

Locations of Event Horizon Telescopes Responsible for 1st Image of Black Hole

Event Horizon Telescope Locations
Responsible for First Image of a Black Hole
This diagram shows the location of the telescopes used in the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of elliptical galaxy Messier 87.

April 10, 2019: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)—a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration—was designed to capture images of a black hole.

Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

This breakthrough was announced in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.

Image Credit: National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)
Release Date: April 10, 2019

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #Telescopes #Infographic #Diagram #STEM #Education

Black Hole at the heart of M87: Artist’s impression

Black Hole at the heart of M87: Artist’s impression
This artist’s impression depicts the black hole at the heart of the enormous elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87). This black hole was chosen as the object of paradigm-shifting observations by the Event Horizon Telescope. The superheated material surrounding the black hole is shown, as is the relativistic jet launched by M87’s black hole.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/M. Kornmesser
Release Date: April 10, 2019


#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #VLT #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #Art #Illustration #STEM #Education

First Image of a Black Hole Captured Here: Galaxy Messier 87

First Image of a Black Hole Captured Here
Galaxy Messier 87 | ESO’s Very Large Telescope
Messier 87 (M87) is an enormous elliptical galaxy located about 55 million light years from Earth, visible in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781, but not identified as a galaxy until the 20th Century. At double the mass of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and containing as many as ten times more stars, it is amongst the largest galaxies in the local universe. Besides its raw size, M87 has some very unique characteristics. For example, it contains an unusually high number of globular clusters: while our Milky Way contains under 200, M87 has about 12,000, which some scientists theorize it collected from its smaller neighbors.

Just as with all other large galaxies, M87 has a supermassive black hole at its center. The mass of the black hole at the center of a galaxy is related to the mass of the galaxy overall, so it shouldn’t be surprising that M87’s black hole is one of the most massive known. The black hole also may explain one of the galaxy’s most energetic features: a relativistic jet of matter being ejected at nearly the speed of light.

The black hole was the object of paradigm-shifting observations by the Event Horizon Telescope. The EHT chose the object as the target of its observations for two reasons. While the EHT’s resolution is incredible, even it has its limits. As more massive black holes are also larger in diameter, M87's central black hole presented an unusually large target—meaning that it could be imaged more easily than smaller black holes closer by. The other reason for choosing it, however, was decidedly more Earthly. M87 appears fairly close to the celestial equator when viewed from our planet, making it visible in most of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This maximized the number of telescopes in the EHT that could observe it, increasing the resolution of the final image.

This image was captured by FORS2 on ESO’s Very Large Telescope as part of the Cosmic Gems program, an outreach initiative that uses ESO telescopes to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects for the purposes of education and public outreach. The program makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations, and  produces breathtaking images of some of the most striking objects in the night sky. In case the data collected could be useful for future scientific purposes, these observations are saved and made available to astronomers through the ESO Science Archive.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Release Date: April 10, 2019

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #VLT #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #STEM #Education

In the Shadow of the Black Hole

In the Shadow of the Black Hole
April 10, 2019: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)—a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration—was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

This 17-minute film explores the efforts that led to this historic image, from the science of Einstein and Schwarzschild to the struggles and successes of the EHT collaboration.

Credit: EHT Collaboration/European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Duration: 17 minutes
Release Date: April 10, 2019


#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #STEM #Education

Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole: ESOcast 199 Light

Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole: ESOcast 199 Light
April 10, 2019: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaborationwas designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

This video is available in 4K UHD.

The ESOcast Light is a series of short videos bringing you the wonders of the Universe in bite-sized pieces.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Duration: 1 minute, 42 seconds
Release Date: April 10, 2019


#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #Europe #International #STEM #Education

Capturing the First image of a Black Hole Event Horizon: A Quick Look

Capturing the First image of a Black Hole Event Horizon: 
A Quick Look
April 10, 2019: The Event Horizon Telescope, a network of radio antennae around the globe, has captured the first image of a black hole event horizon.

This black hole is located in Messier 87, or M87, which is about 55 million light years from Earth.

The event horizon is the boundary between what can and cannot escape a black hole's gravitational grasp.

Astronomers were also using other telescopes while the Event Horizon Telescope was getting its data including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Chandra has studied M87 many times over its 20-year mission and sees a much wider field-of-view that the EHT.

By combining Chandra data with the EHT image, scientists can learn more about the giant black hole and its behavior.

For example, was material actively falling onto the black hole while the EHT was getting its revolutionary image? 

What was happening to energetic particles near and far from the event horizon during this time?

Scientists will use these data to learn as much as they can about the exotic and fascinating objects known as black holes.

For additional information and resources, please visit: NSF Exploring Black Holes: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/

Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
Duration: 1 minute, 8 seconds
Release Date: April 10, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #UnitedStates #International #STEM #Education

First Ever Picture of a Black Hole: Animation Explained

First Ever Picture of a Black Hole: Animation Explained
If you could fly next to the supermassive black hole M87*, this is what you would see. 

April 10, 2019: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)—a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration—was designed to capture images of a black hole.

Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

This breakthrough was announced in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.


For additional information and resources, please visit: NSF Exploring Black Holes: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/

Credit: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Release Date: April 10, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #RealBlackHole #EHTBlackHole #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #UnitedStates #International #STEM #Education

Astronomers capture first image of a black hole

Astronomers capture first image of a black hole
National Science Foundation and Event Horizon Telescope contribute to paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of distant galaxy Messier 87

Using the Event Horizon Telescope, scientists obtain the first image of a black hole.

April 10, 2019: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)—a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration—was designed to capture images of a black hole.

Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

This breakthrough was announced in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.

"This is a huge day in astrophysics," said NSF Director France Córdova. "We're seeing the unseeable. Black holes have sparked imaginations for decades. They have exotic properties and are mysterious to us. Yet with more observations like this one they are yielding their secrets. This is why NSF exists. We enable scientists and engineers to illuminate the unknown, to reveal the subtle and complex majesty of our universe."

The EHT links telescopes around the globe to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. The EHT is the result of years of international collaboration and offers scientists a new way to study the most extreme objects in the Universe predicted by Einstein's general relativity during the centennial year of the historic experiment that first confirmed the theory.

"We have taken the first picture of a black hole," said EHT project director Sheperd S. Doeleman of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. "This is an extraordinary scientific feat accomplished by a team of more than 200 researchers."

The National Science Foundation (NSF) played a pivotal role in this discovery by funding individual investigators, interdisciplinary scientific teams and radio astronomy research facilities since the inception of EHT. Over the last two decades, NSF has directly funded more than $28 million in EHT research, the largest commitment of resources for the project.

Black holes are extraordinary cosmic objects with enormous masses but extremely compact sizes. The presence of these objects affects their environment in extreme ways, warping spacetime and super-heating any surrounding material.

"If immersed in a bright region, like a disc of glowing gas, we expect a black hole to create a dark region similar to a shadow -- something predicted by Einstein's general relativity that we've never seen before," explained chair of the EHT Science Council Heino Falcke of Radboud University, the Netherlands. "This shadow, caused by the gravitational bending and capture of light by the event horizon, reveals a lot about the nature of these fascinating objects and allowed us to measure the enormous mass of M87's black hole."

Multiple calibration and imaging methods have revealed a ring-like structure with a dark central region—the black hole's shadow—that persisted over multiple independent EHT observations.

"Once we were sure we had imaged the shadow, we could compare our observations to extensive computer models that include the physics of warped space, superheated matter and strong magnetic fields. Many of the features of the observed image match our theoretical understanding surprisingly well," remarks Paul T.P. Ho, EHT Board member and Director of the East Asian Observatory. "This makes us confident about the interpretation of our observations, including our estimation of the black hole's mass."

Creating the EHT was a formidable challenge that required upgrading and connecting a worldwide network of eight pre-existing telescopes deployed at a variety of challenging high-altitude sites. These locations included volcanoes in Hawai`i and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, the Chilean Atacama Desert, and Antarctica.

The EHT observations use a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI). which synchronizes telescope facilities around the world and exploits the rotation of our planet to form one huge, Earth-size telescope observing at a wavelength of 1.3mm. VLBI allows the EHT to achieve an angular resolution of 20 micro-arcseconds -- enough to read a newspaper in New York from a sidewalk café in Paris.

The telescopes contributing to this result were ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter telescope, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano, the Submillimeter Array, the Submillimeter Telescope, and the South Pole Telescope. Petabytes of raw data from the telescopes were combined by highly specialized supercomputers hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory.

The construction of the EHT and the observations announced today represent the culmination of decades of observational, technical, and theoretical work. This example of global teamwork required close collaboration by researchers from around the world. Thirteen partner institutions worked together to create the EHT, using both pre-existing infrastructure and support from a variety of agencies. Key funding was provided by the US National Science Foundation, the EU's European Research Council (ERC), and funding agencies in East Asia.

"We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago," concluded Doeleman. "Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes and the event horizon."

For additional information and resources, please visit: NSF Exploring Black Holes: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/blackholes/

Credit: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Release Date: April 10, 2019

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #BlackHoles #EventHorizon #Discovery #Exploration #History #EHT #Telescope #Galaxy #Messier87 #NSF #Earth #UnitedStates #International #STEM #Education

Friday, November 16, 2018

Russia Launches Cargo Ship to International Space Station

Roscosmos Progress 71 Launch in Kazakhstan | NASA TV
Nov. 16, 2018: The unpiloted Russian ISS Progress 71 cargo ship launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz booster rocket Nov. 16 (Nov. 17, Kazakhstan time), carrying almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies for the residents of the International Space Station. The Progress is scheduled to execute an automated docking to the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module Nov. 18 to begin a four-month stay at the complex.