More Peering at the Cosmos

The Center of Centaurus A and Its Embedded Black Hole, as seen by Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Day two of the AAS meeting is just as frenetic as day one. There are hundreds of talks and papers being given about every aspect of astronomy you can think of— and then some! In addition, there are dozens of exhibit booths featuring astronomy missions, telescopes, contractors, NASA institutes, observatories and publishers.

I made it about halfway through the exhibits hall on Monday; my mean free path went to nearly zero, what with stopping to talk to various and sundry colleagues and friends. I did manage to spend some time talking with the folks at the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), a project I worked with briefly a few years back. Also visited with friends at Gemini Observatory, Konica Minolta’s Planetarium division, and Cambridge Press. We’ll see how far I get the next couple of days.

We’re hitting our stride with news stories today—some rather breathless headlines about some breathtaking research. Two very fascinating results we heard about today were papers given on black holes. First, the existence of rogue black holes created in the centers of globular clusters has stirred some interest among black hole researchers. If the observations and models hold up, there could be a hundred of these rogues roaming the Milky Way Galaxy (although not near enough to affect us here on Earth).

The second is about two black holes and their interlocked orbits that have given astronomers a chance to confirm Einstein’s General Relativity theory.

Check out the other big stories for yourself while I head out to the University of Texas for a tour of their supercomputing site, and then on to what has been assured to be Texas’s best barbecue!!

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey announced its work studying a once-hidden population of powerful black holes tucked away behind clouds of gas and dust around the cores of galaxies where these strange beasts exist.
• At the same time, Vanderbilt University astronomers are doing simulations that seem to imply that the Milky Way Galaxy may have hundreds of rogue black holes.
• In other black hole news, a researcher from the University of Turku, Finland has discovered the most massive black hole ever, some 18 billion times more massive than the Sun. This discovery has implications for yet more confirmation of Einstein’s General Relativity theory. (Note: I’m still trying to track down an URL for this one.)
• Chandra X-Ray Observatory released a fantastic image of Centaurus A, a nearby galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its heart.
• Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics informs us that when worlds collide it could have resulted in a rather spectacular and mysterious-looking object that lies 170 light-years away. Another team at Harvard tells us that our home planet has been on the edge of habitability since it first formed.
• Our friends at the Joint Astronomy Centre announced results from an infrared sky mapping project called UKIDSS (UK Infrared Telescope Infrared Sky Survey). Their findings are expanding the infrared sky for astronomers.
• If high-resolution radio astronomy is your bag, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) announced the latest work they’re doing with very large baseline array interferometry and astrometry.
• Astronomers at Rutgers and Penn State universities have discovered galaxies in the distant universe that are ancestors of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
• Hot off the press at European Space Agency is the news that the Earth-orbiting Integral satellite (sensitive to gamma-ray wavelengths) has discovered that the antimatter cloud at the center of our galaxy is lopsided. (More information here.)
• For the folks at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, a study of galaxies from HST and Spitzer observations shows that the mad merger-driven rush of galaxy interactions slowed down once the universe hit middle age.
• The National Optical Astronomy Observatory announced the discovery of dark matter in accretion disks around a variety of astronomical objects.
• In planet-forming research circles, there’s news that a second wave of planet formation is orbiting two stars hundreds of millions of years after these stars first experienced their first wave of planet formation. (Note: the press release should appear on UCLA’s site within the day.)
• At the University of Arizona, astronomers point out that they are the first to successfully predict the existence of an extrasolar planet around a star about 200 light-years from Earth.
• Finally, from my friends at Gemini Observatory, a beautiful image of the dance of two supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic cloud.

Okay, more later! Stay tuned.