Latest Submillimetre astronomy Stories

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) astronomical project will not only enlarge our knowledge of the vast Universe beyond the imaginable. It will also help scientists learn more about the human body. Located 5000m above sea level, in the Chilean Atacama desert, ALMA is the highest site for ground-based astronomy. This property will be put to good use for academic institutions in Chile and in Europe in order to study the human response to extreme altitude conditions. During...

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international telescope project, reached a major milestone on 2 March, when two 12-m ALMA prototype antennas were first linked together as an integrated system to observe an astronomical object. "This achievement results from the integration of many state-of-the-art components from Europe and North America and bodes well for the success of ALMA in Chile", said Catherine Cesarsky, ESO's Director General. The milestone...

Cambridge, MA - Long predicted by theory, the Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array has found the first conclusive evidence of an hourglass-shaped magnetic field in a star formation region. Measurements indicate that material in the interstellar cloud is dense enough to allow it to gravitationally collapse, warping the magnetic field in the process. Astronomers Josep Girart (Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia, Spanish National Research Council), Ramprasad Rao (Institute of Astronomy and...

Impressive set of APEX Results to be published in Special Issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) 12-m sub-millimetre telescope lives up to the ambitions of the scientists by providing access to the "Cold Universe" with unprecedented sensitivity and image quality. As a demonstration, no less than 26 articles based on early science with APEX are published this week in the research journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Among the many new...

Northwestern -- In the most comprehensive study of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the enigmatic supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, astronomers -- using nine ground and space-based telescopes including the Hubble Space Telescope and the XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory -- have discovered that Sgr A* produces rapid flares close to the innermost region of the black hole in many different wavelengths and that these emissions go up and down together. This insight into the...

Cambridge, MA -- In an exercise that demonstrates the power of a multiwavelength investigation using diverse facilities, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have deciphered the true nature of a mysterious object hiding inside a dark cosmic cloud. They found that the cloud, once thought to be featureless, contains a baby star, or possibly a failed star known as a "brown dwarf," that is still forming within its dusty cocoon. Observations indicate that...

Cambridge, MA -- Smithsonian astronomers watched as the "Impactor" probe from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft hit Comet Tempel 1 earlier this week. They monitored the impact using the ground-based Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawaii and NASA's orbiting Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS).Results are still coming in, but so far the scientists report seeing only weak emission from water vapor and a host of other gases that were expected to erupt from the impact site. The most...

Cambridge, MA -- The Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) has been asleep on orbit for the past 11 months. SWAS operators placed it into hibernation after a highly successful 5.5-year mission highlighted by the discovery of a swarm of comets evaporating around an aging red giant star. Now, they have awakened SWAS again for the first-ever opportunity to study a comet on a collision course with a U.S. space probe. "We knew there was life left in SWAS," said SWAS Principal...

PORT COQUITLAM, British Columbia (AP) -- To examine data on the universe's earliest stars and galaxies from a balloon-launched telescope, scientists had to fend off earthly creatures in the Canadian Arctic. The telescope landed there by parachute Saturday and was quickly surrounded by wildlife. "The secret of our universe's beginnings was being protected by caribou and polar bears," said John Kageorge, communications manager for AMEC Dynamic Structures Ltd. in this Vancouver suburb....

Cambridge, MA -- The Submillimeter Array (SMA) will be ready and watching when NASA's Deep Impact probe strikes the nucleus of Comet Tempel 1 on July 4th. The impact is expected to excavate material from the comet's interior - material left over from the earliest days of our solar system. "The SMA will be the only operational millimeter or submillimeter array observing Tempel 1 at the time of the impact" said astronomer Charlie Qi of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics...