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On March 13th, 2023, astronomers around the world will mark the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the world’s largest radio telescope. Over the past decade, the international ALMA collaboration— led by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)— has revolutionized our understanding of the Universe and unveiled its secrets, from the formation of planets, stars, and galaxies to deciphering the chemistry of the cosmos, and even taking part in capturing the first images of black holes. 

ALMA’s decade of success was preceded by Early Science Observations in 2011, nearly a full two years before the telescope was inaugurated. This test period for ALMA yielded complex and beautiful images which revealed star formation and violent galaxy mergers in the Antennae Galaxies at a level of detail no other telescopes on Earth had ever attained. These pre-inaugural observations allowed ALMA to grow into what it is today. 

“Since its first light, ALMA has not only changed our understanding of the Universe, but also the way in which we look at it,” said Tony Beasley, Director of NRAO and AUI Vice President for radio astronomy. “In order to look deeper into the Universe and to see things that no other telescopes can see with such clarity, like water hiding out in the disks of young stars, and the supermassive black hole in the heart of the Milky Way, we have continuously developed cutting-edge technology, including some of the fastest supercomputing processors in the world.” 

ALMA consists of 66 antennas, spread over up to 16 kilometers— nearly 10 miles— on the Chajnantor Plateau of the Chilean Andes at 5,000 meters— or 16,404 feet— above sea level. The technology that makes the telescope special is borne of an international collaboration of 21 countries from across North America, Europe, and East Asia. NRAO’s Central Development Laboratory (CDL) is responsible for the development of the Band 6 receiver, ALMA’s most scientifically productive receiver, which was approved for upgrades in 2021. ALMA was also approved earlier this year for the development of a new central correlator and digital transmission system, upgrades that will eventually increase the system bandwidth by a factor of four, and that will be carried out by NRAO and several other partners. This technology, and other innovations like it, have supported ALMA-user scientists to produce more than 3,000 scientific publications to date. That’s nearly one publication per day for a decade.

“ALMA has captured the world’s imagination since it unveiled its first images more than a decade ago, and it has opened new windows on the Universe that could not have been opened otherwise,” said Karen Marrongelle, U.S. National Science Foundation Chief Operating Officer. “Our commitment to ALMA now and for the future is the same as it was then: to develop the technology that unlocks and expands our knowledge of the Milky Way and every other galaxy in our Universe.”

Among ALMA’s most notable contributions are the first clear pictures of planet formation, observed around the young star HL Tau by scientists from ALMA’s partner regions and led by NRAO in 2014, and supermassive black holes M87* and SgrA*, observed by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration in 2019 and 2022, respectively. 

“ALMA has transformed our understanding of the Universe and opened new research frontiers,” said Sean Dougherty, Director of ALMA. “We are very proud of the accomplishments of the past decade and excited about the discoveries over the next ten years.”

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

About ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

Media Contacts:

Amy C. Oliver
Public Information Officer, ALMA
Public Information & News Manager, NRAO
+1 434 242 9584
aoliver@nrao.edu

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Coordinator
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago – Chile
+56 2 2467 6519
nicolas.lira@alma.cl

The post A Decade of Unveiling the Hidden Universe: ALMA at 10 appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Scientists studying a nearby protostar have detected the presence of water in its circumstellar disk. The new observations made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) mark the first detection of water being inherited into a protoplanetary disk without significant changes to its composition. These results further suggest that the water in our Solar System formed billions of years before the Sun. The new observations are published today in Nature.

V883 Orionis is a protostar located roughly 1,305 light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion. The new observations of this protostar have helped scientists to find a probable link between the water in the interstellar medium and the water in our Solar System by confirming they have similar composition.

“We can think of the path of water through the Universe as a trail. We know what the endpoints look like, which are water on planets and in comets, but we wanted to trace that trail back to the origins of water,” said John Tobin, an astronomer at the National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the lead author on the new paper. “Before now, we could link the Earth to comets, and protostars to the interstellar medium, but we couldn’t link protostars to comets. V883 Ori has changed that, and proven the water molecules in that system and in our Solar System have a similar ratio of deuterium and hydrogen.” 

Observing water in the circumstellar disks around protostars is difficult because in most systems water is present in the form of ice. When scientists observe protostars they’re looking for the water snow line or ice line, which is the place where water transitions from predominantly ice to gas, which radio astronomy can observe in detail. “If the snow line is located too close to the star, there isn’t enough gaseous water to be easily detectable and the dusty disk may block out a lot of the water emission. But if the snow line is located further from the star, there is sufficient gaseous water to be detectable, and that’s the case with V883 Ori,” said Tobin, who added that the unique state of the protostar is what made this project possible.

V883 Ori’s disk is quite massive and is just hot enough that the water in it has turned from ice to gas. That makes this protostar an ideal target for studying the growth and evolution of solar systems at radio wavelengths.

“This observation highlights the superb capabilities of the ALMA instrument in helping astronomers study something vitally important for life on Earth: water,” said Joe Pesce, NSF Program Officer for ALMA.  “An understanding of the underlying processes important for us on Earth, seen in more distant regions of the galaxy, also benefits our knowledge of how nature works in general, and the processes that had to occur for our Solar System to develop into what we know today.”

To connect the water in V883 Ori’s protoplanetary disk to that in our own Solar System, the team measured its composition using ALMA’s highly sensitive Band 5 (1.6mm) and Band 6 (1.3mm) receivers and found that it remains relatively unchanged between each stage of solar system formation: protostar, protoplanetary disk, and comets. “This means that the water in our Solar System was formed long before the Sun, planets, and comets formed. We already knew that there is plenty of water ice in the interstellar medium. Our results show that this water got directly incorporated into the Solar System during its formation,” said Merel van ‘t ’Hoff, an astronomer at the University of Michigan and a co-author of the paper. “This is exciting as it suggests that other planetary systems should have received large amounts of water too.”

Clarifying the role of water in the development of comets and planetesimals is critical to building an understanding of how our own Solar System developed. Although the Sun is believed to have formed in a dense cluster of stars and V883 Ori is relatively isolated with no nearby stars, the two share one critical thing in common: they were both formed in giant molecular clouds. 

“It is known that the bulk of the water in the interstellar medium forms as ice on the surfaces of tiny dust grains in the clouds. When these clouds collapse under their own gravity and form young stars, the water ends up in the disks around them. Eventually, the disks evolve and the icy dust grains coagulate to form a new solar system with planets and comets,” said Margot Leemker, an astronomer at Leiden University and a co-author of the paper. “We have shown that water that is produced in the clouds follows this trail virtually unchanged. So, by looking at the water in the V883 Ori disk, we essentially look back in time and see how our own Solar System looked when it was much younger.”

Tobin added, “Until now, the chain of water in the development of our Solar System was broken. V883 Ori is the missing link in this case, and we now have an unbroken chain in the lineage of water from comets and protostars to the interstellar medium.”

Resource

“Deuterium-enriched water ties planet-forming disks to comets and protostars,” J. Tobin et al, 8 March 2023, Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05676-z

About NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

About ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

Media Contact:

Amy C. Oliver
Public Information Officer, ALMA
Public Information & News Manager, NRAO
+1 434 242 9584
aoliver@nrao.edu

The post ALMA Traces History of Water in Planet Formation Back to the Interstellar Medium appeared first on National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Jesse Alexander is the Ham Radio Project Lead on Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS), a two-year project to engage BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students in learning about the electromagnetic spectrum and the excitement of amateur— also called ham— radio. Following a generous grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) launched its first student-facing training for EMS in January 2023.

When asked how amateur radio relates to radio astronomy, Alexander says there’s overlap between the field and the hobby. “Ham radio is a gateway to radio astronomy. Quite a few people within NRAO are hams and they’ve been helping with this project. Usually, anything involving antennas is going to also attract hams.”

Alexander has been an amateur radio operator for more than 40 years. He has a Bachelors and Masters in Electrical Engineering from Howard University, specializing in microwave systems, and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Alexander worked for Bell Labs for 17 years, a highlight of which he says was developing Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS)— the predecessor to our modern cell phone service.

“I have been fascinated by electronics, science, and engineering since I was 8 and I was first licensed as a ham in 1975,” says Alexander, who discovered amateur radio by “being a library geek.” He found a copy of QST magazine— the longest-running amateur radio magazine, produced by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL)—at his local public library in Montclair, NJ, and fell in love. “At first, I started listening to radio signals, then after getting my novice ham license (at 15) I used Morse code (CW) to communicate on the air. We didn’t have cell phones yet so it was really exciting to communicate wirelessly with people far away.”

Alexander’s enthusiasm is contagious. It’s impossible to leave a conversation with him not knowing more about ham radio than when you started. The radio spectrum is a vital natural resource—and Alexander wants to introduce young people, especially underserved young people, to all that it can do.

When asked how he feels about being the Ham Radio Project Lead for EMS, he says, “I had help when I was young, so now I want to help young people.” The program targets young adults aged 18-20—especially BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ youth—which is an underrepresented demographic in amateur radio. But Alexander is optimistic. “My hope is that this project creates a feeder population for mechanics, electricians, engineers, and scientists.”

“This is legacy-building stuff,” he says. “This project is for young people who love to build, hack, and play around with STEM projects. It’s to bring a new cohort of ham operators into the hobby. More experienced hams mentored me and I’m happy to support the next generation. I can’t wait to see all the crazy stuff these young people are going to invent.”

For anyone who is interested in amateur radio and doesn’t quite know where to start, Alexander recommends the ARRL’s guide at arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio.

To learn more about NRAO’s project Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS), visit superknova.org/ham-radio-project.

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Never-Before-Seen Spacecraft Collision Yields Unexpected Surprises

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Mysterious Features Were First Seen Decades Ago by Voyager Spacecraft