Posts tagged Chile
CU joins Sloan Digital Sky Survey to map stars, galaxies and quasars in 3D
Jun 26th
The survey, known as SDSS-IV, is the fourth stage of an effort that began with SDSS-I in 2000 to create the largest digital color image of the northern sky, said CU-Boulder Professor Michael Shull of the astrophysical and planetary sciences department, lead scientist in the effort by CU-Boulder to join the survey. Since 2000, astronomers have mapped about one-half of the visible northern sky in three dimensions as part of the three prior Sloan sky surveys, discovering nearly half a billion astronomical objects ranging from asteroids and stars to galaxies and distant quasars in the process.
“We got into this because we think it is going to be a great recruitment tool for new students, and we have one of the best undergraduate majors in the country,” Shull said. “We also want to recruit high-caliber graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.”
The SDSS 2.5-meter telescope is located at the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, N.M., and is owned by the Astrophysical Research Consortium, or ARC, an organization of eight research institutions including CU-Boulder. The Sloan telescope sky-mapping project is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the participating institutions, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Apache Point also hosts several other telescopes, including a 3.5-meter optical telescope owned and operated by ARC and routinely used by CU-Boulder.
ARC was formed in 1984 to create a national observatory that could provide telescope time to each member university based on its investment. Current ARC members in addition to CU-Boulder are the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., the University of Washington, the University of Virginia and New Mexico State University. CU-Boulder owns a one-eighth share of each of the two telescopes.
The costs to build new instruments, make observations and analyze data from the SDSS-IV from 2014 to 2020 is estimated to be between $50 million and $60 million, said Shull. The Sloan Foundation is contributing roughly $10 million, while additional funds are coming from more than 10 full institutional members, including CU, and from scientists with individual and small group memberships from various institutions.
Full institutional partners like CU-Boulder are paying roughly $1 million to join part four of the Sloan sky survey effort. CU-Boulder’s member fee was supported by university grants, awards, donations, general funds and indirect cost recovery savings. As an early institutional partner joining the Sloan IV survey before the end of the current fiscal year, CU received a $350,000 discount from ARC, said Shull.
Light from the Sloan telescope is directed to two powerful new instruments — a dual-channel visible light, or optical spectrograph, and a near-infrared spectrograph. Astronomical spectrographs break light into telltale colors much like a prism, revealing information about the size, temperature, composition and motion of celestial objects, said Shull.
The Sloan spectrographs will carry out a massive survey of galaxies and quasars in the distant universe, as well as stars in the Milky Way and thousands of nearby galaxies, said Shull, who also is a member of CU-Boulder’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy.
The new optical spectrograph on the Sloan telescope can take data from up to 1,000 galaxies or quasars simultaneously, he said. The instrument includes a circular aluminum plate roughly the size of a large pizza pan with 1,000 small perforations precisely drilled to match up with known astronomical objects in the sky. Each hole is plugged with an optical fiber attached to the spectrograph.
“I think this is going to be a perfect way for undergraduates to get their hands dirty working with ‘big data,’ said Shull. “A lot of undergraduates are better at computers than we are, so hiring a freshman or a sophomore who really wants to get into computing and big data sets in the field of astronomy is one of our goals.”
One of the biggest discoveries by SDSS-III astronomers came in 2012 when they detected the predicted signature of the first sound waves from matter and radiation in the early universe, said Shull. Sloan researchers used a multi-fiber spectrograph as part of the Baryon Oscillation Sky Survey, or BOSS, to detect the large-scale structures of ancient galaxies — similar in some ways to ripples on a pond — that were preserved after the Big Bang.
Shull, who plans to use the multi-fiber spectrograph to hunt for distant quasars in the early universe going back 13 million years, said the BOSS effort also is expected to reveal new information about so-called “dark energy.” A hypothetical form of energy that makes up the majority of the universe and produces a force that opposes gravity, dark energy is thought to be the cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Another SDSS-IV effort will be a sky survey in the infrared to probe the distribution, dynamics and chemistry of stars and to explore the formation of our Milky Way Galaxy and its two companion galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, said Shull. Since the two Magellanic Clouds are best viewed from the southern hemisphere, SDSS scientists plan to collaborate with astronomers who are using the 2.5 meter du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas, Chile, on the effort.
SDSS-IV astronomers also will be using the BOSS instrument to study the internal structure of 10,000 nearby galaxies. The data will include precise velocities of stellar motions and chemical abundances for a large range of galaxy masses, types and environments. The data will complement observations of two newly completed American telescopes: the ALMA millimeter and submillimeter array radio telescope in Chile and the Expanded-Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico.
SDSS-IV also has had a significant citizen science component since 2007, when a data set of a million galaxies was released to the public, who were asked to classify them in three categories: Elliptical galaxies, merging galaxies and spiral galaxies, including the direction of the spiral arms. An astounding 70,000 classifications were received by SDSS scientists from the public within an hour of the data release, and during the first year more than 150,000 people made more than 50 million galaxy classifications.
CU has a legacy in space dating back nearly 70 years, said CU-Boulder Vice Chancellor for Research Stein Sture. It is the top funded public university by NASA, has a $70 million instrument now flying on the Hubble Space Telescope, is leading a $485 million mission to Mars and controls four NASA satellites from campus.
A video news story on the project is available at http://youtu.be/1Rke59L5cAo.
-CU-
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CU wins solar observatory HQ
Sep 30th
SOLAR OBSERVATORY HEADQUARTERS
The University of Colorado Boulder was selected today to host the headquarters for the National Solar Observatory, the nation’s leading scientific research program in ground-based solar astronomy.
The National Solar Observatory, or NSO, provides scientists access to the world’s largest collection of optical and infrared solar telescopes and auxiliary instruments to observe the sun in detail. NSO scientists conduct theoretical and observational research focused on understanding the underlying causes of solar variability and its impact on the Earth and the Earth’s space environment.
NSO is operated under the auspices of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, or AURA, on behalf of the National Science Foundation, with key observing facilities in New Mexico and Arizona, and is currently leading the effort to build the 4-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, a technological innovation scheduled to begin observations from Haleakala on Hawaii’s Maui island in 2016.
In April 2011, CU-Boulder was selected as one of two finalists along with the University of Alabama in Huntsville. CU-Boulder partnered with the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the University of Hawaii on the winning bid and will implement a collaborative graduate education program that will enhance the role of NSO in research and education on a national level.
“We are delighted to be named host of the National Solar Observatory, which is of great importance to the nation and world in terms of better understanding solar physics and space weather,” said CU-Boulder Provost Russell Moore, who submitted the proposal on behalf of the university. “Landing this vital research center is a testimony to the strength of CU-Boulder’s world-class faculty in space science and solar research, the support of the city of Boulder’s leadership, and the vital assistance and support of Congressmen Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis and U.S. Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennett.”
Stein Sture, vice chancellor for research at CU-Boulder, echoed Moore, saying that the NSO’s presence will benefit CU’s research and teaching mission in dynamic ways.
“As one of the world’s leading institutions in solar research, we now will have even greater access to ground-based observing facilities and will be able to continue to provide unrivaled opportunities for our students and research scientists alike,” said Sture.
The NSO’s mission is to advance knowledge of the sun both as an astronomical object and as the dominant external influence on Earth by providing forefront observational opportunities to the research community. The mission includes the operation of cutting-edge facilities and the continued development of advanced instrumentation both in-house and through partnerships, as well as conducting solar research and educational and public outreach, said Moore.
NSO currently has offices and ground-based observing facilities at Kitt Peak, Ariz., and Sacramento Peak, N.M., which will cease operations when the new Advanced Technology Solar Telescope is completed. The new CU-Boulder headquarters for NSO will be the primary science, instrument development and data analysis site for the new solar telescope.
“The educational and collaborative opportunities that will be enabled by the relocation of the NSO headquarters in Boulder are exceptional,” said Associate Professor Mark Rast of CU-Boulder’s Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences and leader of the team that wrote the proposal to AURA. “The sun is the only star close enough to allow detailed observations of magnetic and dynamical processes central to many phenomena in the universe. The NSO’s unique capabilities will add to and augment ongoing efforts in Boulder, ranging from stellar astrophysics and the space environments of extra-solar planets to space weather prediction here at Earth. We are very excited by the possibilities, and thrilled that Boulder was chosen as host.”
Several CU-Boulder departments were involved in the NSO headquarters bid: the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, the Department of Physics and the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. The quality of students in these departments was likely a significant consideration in the decision to bring the NSO headquarters to Boulder, and major research opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students will accompany the NSO move, particularly once the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope comes on line, Rast said.
“Students will have the opportunity to participate in discovery science using a telescope with about 10 times better spatial resolution than the best current space-borne solar imagers,” Rast said.
In addition to the university, Colorado and Boulder offer a host of national laboratories as potential collaborators with the NSO. Other laboratories and centers in Colorado expected to participate and benefit include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Institute for Standards and Technology.
“This is extremely exciting for the university, the state of Colorado and solar scientists around the world,” said LASP Director Dan Baker, an internationally known expert in space physics and space weather. “CU-Boulder researchers have been studying the sun for more than 50 years. Our continued leadership in this area is a tremendous asset for our students. Solar research represents a branch of science that is crucial for our nation’s future. The sun is a driver of Earth’s weather and climate and its extreme behavior can have immense economic and societal consequences through its impact on the space environment.”
The consolidation of NSO into a single site located on CU-Boulder’s East Campus is expected to result in jobs for up to 70 scientists, engineers and staff with an annual payroll of roughly $20 million. The new facility will bolster an already formidable high-tech and aerospace industry in the state. Colorado is third behind California and Washington, D.C., in aerospace industry presence.
“The NSO is an excellent addition to the dynamic research and entrepreneurial activity in Boulder,” said Boulder City Manager Jane Brautigam. “The federal labs and nationally recognized CU-Boulder, combined with an aggressive environment for financing high-tech startups, have made Boulder a hot spot nationally for its intellectual capital and business environment. We are delighted to welcome the NSO to our vibrant community.”
FACT SHEET
NATIONAL SOLAR OBSERVATORY
• The National Solar Observatory is the primary provider of key ground-based facilities to the United States solar science community to probe all aspects of the sun. The NSO is operated by the Associated Universities for Research in Astronomy, or AURA, under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation for the benefit of the astronomical community.
• NSO’s mission is to advance the understanding of the sun both as an astronomical object and the dominant external influence on Earth. The mission includes the operation of cutting-edge facilities and the continued development of advanced instrumentation to conduct solar research, education and outreach.
• NSO goals include understanding the mechanisms generating solar cycles, the relationships between the sun’s interior, surface and outer envelope, and events like coronal heating, solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
• NSO currently has offices and observatories in Sunspot and at Sacramento Peak (the Dunn Solar Telescope) in New Mexico and in Tucson and at Kitt Peak (the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope) in Arizona.
• NSO also oversees a community-based research effort called the Global Oscillation Network Group, or GONG, a six-station network that uses helioseismology to continuously observe the sun’s five-minute oscillations from California, Hawaii, Chile, the Canary Islands, India and Australia.
• NSO has begun work on the 4-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope that will be placed on the summit of Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii, taking the place of the two primary observing facilities in New Mexico and Arizona. The summit of Haleakala is 10,000 feet in altitude — which is above one-third of Earth’s atmosphere — providing great clarity, dryness and air stillness for precise solar observations.
• AURA is a consortium of universities and other research institutions that operates world-class astronomical observatories. There are 38 U.S. institutions and seven international affiliates. In addition to NSO, AURA manages three other centers – the National Optical Astronomy Observatory at Kitt Peak, Ariz., and Cerra Tololo, Chile; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and the AURA Observatory, a complex of Chilean observing facilities.
• The relocation of the NSO headquarters from New Mexico and Arizona to CU-Boulder is not expected to begin until 2016.
-CU-