VLA tagged posts

Observers Investigate a Nearby Galaxy Cluster Merger

Observations investigate a nearby galaxy cluster merger
Spectral separation image produced using a technique related to that of spectral tomography in order to highlight the flatter and steeper components in CIZA0107. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2412.15015

Using the Very Large Array (VLA), an international team of astronomers have observed a nearby galaxy merger known as CIZA J0107.7+5408. Results of the observational campaign, presented December 20 on the preprint server arXiv, could help us better understand the merging processes that take place between galaxy clusters.

Galaxy clusters contain up to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. They generally form as a result of mergers and grow by accreting subclusters...

Read More

VLA and ALMA study Jupiter and Io

VLA and ALMA study Jupiter and Io
Detail from a VLA image of Jupiter made in conjunction with observations by the Juno spacecraft in orbit around that planet. Credit: Moeckel, et al., Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

VLA teams up with Juno spacecraft to study Jupiter’s atmosphere, and ALMA reveals new details about Io’s volcanoes. While the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) frequently reveal important new facts about objects far beyond our own Milky Way Galaxy — at distances of many millions or billions of light-years — they also are vital tools for unraveling much closer mysteries, right here in our own Solar System...

Read More

Stellar Collision Trggers Supernova Explosion

Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

Astronomers have found dramatic evidence that a black hole or neutron star spiraled its way into the core of a companion star and caused that companion to explode as a supernova. The astronomers were tipped off by data from the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS), a multi-year project using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).

“Theorists had predicted that this could happen, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen such an event,” said Dillon Dong, a graduate student at Caltech and lead author on a paper reporting the discovery in the journal Science.

The first clue came when the scientists examined images from VLASS, which began observations in 2017, and found an object brightly emitting radio waves but ...

Read More

Astronomers find Elusive Target Hiding behind Dust

Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

Discovery resolves longstanding question.
Some young, still-forming stars are surrounded by regions of complex organic molecules called ”hot corinos.” In some pairs of young stars forming together as binary pairs, astronomers found a hot corino around one, but not the other. Guessing that the unseen one might be obscured by dust, researchers studied such a pair with the VLA at radio wavelengths that readily pass through dust, and found the other one.

Astronomers acting on a hunch have likely resolved a mystery about young, still-forming stars and regions rich in organic molecules closely surrounding some of them. They used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G...

Read More