VLBA – Astronomy Now

Radio astronomers measure star’s wobble, find Saturn-size exoplanet

4 August 2020 Astronomy Now

Radio telescope finds Saturn-class exoplanet orbiting nearby dwarf star after measuring slight changes in the star’s position.

Black hole sports warped accretion disc, fast-moving jets

7 May 2019 Astronomy Now

Detailed studies of outbursts from a black hole binary reveal a warped accretion disc that triggers skewed polar jets.

$2 million earmarked to repair hurricane-damaged radio telescope

8 August 2018 Astronomy Now

Hurricane damage to the St. Croix dish in the continent-spanning Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope network will be repaired with $2 million in disaster-relief funding.

Astronomers ‘see’ aftermath of black hole lunching on doomed star

15 June 2018 Astronomy Now

For the first time, astronomers have directly witnessed the aftermath of a black hole consuming a nearby star, imaging the formation and expansion of a high-speed jet of material ejected in the maelstrom.

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.

Supermassive black hole fed by cold intergalactic downpour

9 June 2016 Astronomy Now

An international team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) has witnessed a cosmic weather event that has never been seen before — a cluster of towering intergalactic gas clouds raining in on the supermassive black hole at the centre of a huge galaxy one billion light-years from Earth.

Space-Earth system produces highest-resolution astronomical image

27 January 2016 Astronomy Now

Using an orbiting radio-astronomy satellite combined with 15 ground-based radio telescopes, astronomers have made the most-detailed astronomical image yet, revealing new insights about a gorging black hole in a galaxy 900 million light-years away. The image has the resolving power of a telescope about 62,500 miles wide, or almost eight times the diameter of the Earth.

Scientists pinpoint Saturn with exquisite accuracy

9 January 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers have paired the continent-wide Very Large Baseline Array radio telescope system with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to determine the position of Saturn and its moons to within two miles — at a range of nearly a billion miles.