ALMA tagged posts

ATLASGAL Survey of Milky Way completed

This part image of the Milky Way has been released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL). The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimeter wavelengths -- between infrared light and radio waves -- and in finer detail than recent space-based surveys. The APEX data, at a wavelength of 0.87 millimeters, shows up in red and the background blue image was imaged at shorter infrared wavelengths by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope as part of the GLIMPSE survey. The fainter extended red structures come from complementary observations made by ESA's Planck satellite. The full-resolution image is available on the ESO web page: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1606a/ Credit: ESO/APEX/ATLASGAL consortium/NASA/GLIMPSE consortium/ESA/Planck

This part image of the Milky Way has been released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL). The APEX telescope in Chile has mapped the full area of the Galactic Plane visible from the southern hemisphere for the first time at submillimeter wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves — and in finer detail than recent space-based surveys. The APEX data, at a wavelength of 0.87 millimeters, shows up in red and the background blue image was imaged at shorter infrared wavelengths by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope as part of the GLIMPSE survey. The fainter extended red structures come from complementary observations made by ESA’s Planck satellite. The full-resolution image is available on the ESO web page: https://www.eso...

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The Frigid ‘Flying Saucer’: Unexpectedly Cold Grains in Planet-Forming Disc

The young star 2MASS J16281370-2431391 lies in the spectacular Rho Ophiuchi star formation region, about 400 light-years from Earth. It is surrounded by a disc of gas and dust -- such discs are called protoplanetary discs as they are the early stages in the creation of planetary systems. This particular disc is seen nearly edge-on, and its appearance in visible light pictures has led to its being nicknamed the Flying Saucer. The main image shows part of the Rho Ophiuchi region and a much enlarged close-up infrared view of the Flying Saucer from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is shown as an insert. Credit: Digitized Sky Survey 2/NASA/ESA

The young star 2MASS J16281370-2431391 lies in the spectacular Rho Ophiuchi star formation region, about 400 light-years from Earth. It is surrounded by a disc of gas and dust — such discs are called protoplanetary discs as they are the early stages in the creation of planetary systems. This particular disc is seen nearly edge-on, and its appearance in visible light pictures has led to its being nicknamed the Flying Saucer. The main image shows part of the Rho Ophiuchi region and a much enlarged close-up infrared view of the Flying Saucer from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is shown as an insert. Credit: Digitized Sky Survey 2/NASA/ESA

An international team measured the temperature of large dust grains around the young star 2MASS J16281370-2431391 in the spectacular Rho Ophiuchi star ...

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Extreme Turbulence Roiling ‘most Luminous Galaxy’ in the Universe

Artist impression of W2246-0526, a galaxy glowing in infrared light as intensely as 350 trillion suns. It is so violently turbulent that it may eventually jettison its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with ALMA. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; Dana Berry / SkyWorks; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Artist impression of W2246-0526, a galaxy glowing in infrared light as intensely as 350 trillion suns. It is so violently turbulent that it may eventually jettison its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with ALMA. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; Dana Berry / SkyWorks; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Obscured quasar 12.4 billion light-years away – is so violently turbulent that it may eventually jettison its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with ALMA. A team used ALMA to trace, for the first time, the actual motion of the galaxy’s interstellar medium – the gas and dust between the stars. What they found, according to Tanio Díaz-Santos of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, is a galaxy “so chaotic that it is ripping itself apart.”

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Radio Shadow Reveals Tenuous Cosmic Gas Cloud

Calibrator sources have flat radio spectra. Molecules in the intervening gas clouds absorb radio waves at specific frequencies determined by the type of molecules. Credit: R. Ando (The University of Tokyo), ESO/José Francisco Salgado

Calibrator sources have flat radio spectra. Molecules in the intervening gas clouds absorb radio waves at specific frequencies determined by the type of molecules. Credit: R. Ando (The University of Tokyo), ESO/José Francisco Salgado

Astronomers using ALMA have discovered the most tenuous molecular gas ever observed. They detected the absorption of radio waves by gas clouds in front of bright radio sources. This radio shadow revealed the composition and conditions of diffuse gas in the Milky Way galaxy.

To calibrate its systems, ALMA looks at objects emitting strong radio waves (radio ‘bright’ objects). On rare occasions, the signals from distant calibrator sources have specific radio frequencies absorbed out of them by foreground gas...

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