ALMA's extreme makeover: the Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade - YouTube - astrophysics

The Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade is expected to be a gamechanger for astronomy.Operating partners for ALMA includes the National Radio Astronomy Observatory based at the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville,Virginia.It is operated by the US National Science Foundation.The third operating partner is the Japanese Astronomical Observatory.Additional partners include the USNSF;NINS Japan;NRC (Canada);NSTC and ASIAA (Taiwan);and KASI (Republic of Korea).ALMA is located in the Chajnantor Plateau of the Chilean Andes Mountains.

Close Up Images Show Something Weird is Happening on Betelgeuse - YouTube - The Secrets of the Universe - astrophysics

Betelgeuse is only 550 light years from Earth.When it goes supernova,we will be able to see it in the daytime for a few months.It isn't close enough,though,to pose any danger to Earth.It's been ascertained that the rapid rotation of the star is an optical illusion caused by the star's boiling surface.

Intuitive Machines lunar lander captures amazing views of Earth after SpaceX launch

The Odysseus lunar lander is slated for a lunar landing attempt on 22 February 2024.It will carry six payloads for NASA,including the first ever radio telescope on the Moon.In the photos,the Moon is the brightest object.

Milky Way's black hole may be spinning 'football-shaped' spacetime warp - astrophysics

Studies of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way,Sgr A*,were made using the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Very Large Array,an array of radio telescopes in New Mexico. The singularity of a black hole was predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity,yet was never confirmed by observation in his lifetime.A singularity has zero volume yet infinite density,hence it bends spacetime to an infinite extent.As you approach a singularity,time slows down from an observer's point of view,but not from the one being observed's point of view (relativity).It slows down so much it virtually stops,with one minute being approximately 1,700,000 years long.This is experienced by astronauts in low Earth orbit to a minor extent because the Earth's large mass causes ripples in spacetime.Even light,which has no mass,must follow the curvature of space in the presence of a black hole.Hence astronomers detected X-ray flashes on the opposite side of a black hole,confirming Einstein's theory yet again.

Gravitational waves create a 'cosmic symphony' that scientists are tuning into - National Science Foundation

Based on his Theory of General Relativity,in 1915 Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves,which are ripples in spacetime caused by massive cosmic events.Their existence wasn't verified until 2016 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).Additionally,a network of two radio telescopes at Arecibo,Puerto Rico and Green Bank,West Virginia monitoring pulsars,which are highly magnetized,rapidly rotating neutron stars,were successfully enlisted in the search for gravitational waves.It is the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) sponsored by the National Science Foundation,and reported the first results of the project in 2023,the detection of background gravitational waves based on more than 15 years of radio telescope data.

AI is helping us search for intelligent extraterrestrial life - Astronomy magazine - radio astronomy

AI is helping us search for intelligent extraterrestrial life: AI’s ability to identify ‘technosignatures’ missed by classical algorithms is an exciting step forward for radio astronomers.