National Science Foundation

Arecibo Observatory will keep scanning the skies

16 November 2017 Stephen Clark

Two months after escaping the destruction brought to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, the famed Arecibo Observatory will get a new lease on life as the National Science Foundation seeks funding partners to keep the radio telescope aimed at the cosmos.

VLBA measurement promises complete picture of the Milky Way

12 October 2017 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array have directly measured the distance to a star-forming region on the opposite side of our Milky Way Galaxy from the Sun. Their achievement nearly doubles the previous record for distance measurement within our galaxy.

Gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger observed by LIGO and Virgo

27 September 2017 Astronomy Now

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo collaboration report the first joint detection of gravitational waves with both the LIGO and Virgo detectors. This is the fourth announced detection of a binary black hole system and the first significant gravitational-wave signal recorded by the Virgo detector, and highlights the scientific potential of a three-detector network of gravitational-wave detectors.

Arecibo radar telescope battered by Hurricane Maria

22 September 2017 Stephen Clark

Initial reports from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico indicate powerful winds from Hurricane Maria destroyed an antenna and damaged the radio telescope’s huge 300-metre (1,000-foot) dish reflector, but the bulk of the facility remains intact and workers sheltered there were unharmed.

Officials await damage report from Puerto Rico’s famed Arecibo Observatory

21 September 2017 Stephen Clark

Powerful Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on Wednesday, wrecking buildings and disrupting power and communications across the island, home of the iconic Arecibo Observatory used for radio astronomy research.

Astronomers investigate distant galaxy’s magnetic field

30 August 2017 Astronomy Now

With the help of a gigantic cosmic lens, astronomers have measured the magnetic field of a galaxy nearly five billion light-years away. The achievement is giving them important new clues about a problem at the frontiers of cosmology — the nature and origin of the magnetic fields that play an important role in how galaxies develop over time.

Survey reveals most accurate measurement of dark matter structure in the Universe

5 August 2017 Astronomy Now

Scientists have unveiled the most accurate measurement ever made of the present large-scale structure of the Universe by studying the mysterious forces of dark matter and dark energy.

Astronomers team up to give first look at birthplaces of most current stars

27 December 2016 Stephen Clark

Astronomers have gotten their first look at exactly where most of today’s stars were born. To do so, they used telescope arrays in New Mexico and Chile to look at distant galaxies seen as they were some 10 billion years ago.

Are all stars created equal?

14 November 2016 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found the strongest evidence yet that the formation of massive stars follows a path similar to their lower-mass brethren — but on steroids! The new findings show that the episodic explosive outbursts within what are called accretion discs, known to occur during the formation of average mass stars like our Sun, also happen in the formation of much more massive stars.

Galactic merger exposes supermassive black hole

4 November 2016 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using the super-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have found the shredded remains of a galaxy that passed through a larger galaxy, leaving only the smaller galaxy’s nearly-naked supermassive black hole to emerge and speed away at more than 2,000 miles per second.