Month: October 2019

This past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Derek Fox, an associate professor here the in astronomy and astrophysics department. The interview was part of a project for my astronomy seminar class, and I learned a lot about Dr. Fox’s work and research. My partners and I had to read a paper to prepare for the interview, and the one my group read was about his work on using the detection of neutrinos to trace their sources, which happened to be a blazar. According to Astronomy.com, a blazar is a quasar that is oriented directly at earth. At the center of most galaxies, there are black holes driving the force of the galaxy. In some galaxies, this black hole will collect interstellar debris that swirl around it, and sometimes they shoot these debris out at speeds near the speed of light. Scientists call this phenomenon a quasar. When these quasars are oriented at earth, the colossal jets of material shoot towards earth. This is called a blazar.

Derek Fox and his team at Penn State were studying neutrinos that were crashing into earth, and they discovered that the neutrinos actually came from a blazar called TXS 0506+056. To being the story, we must go to the IceCube neutrino observatory in Antarctica, which was able to sift out higher energy cosmic neutrinos from regular background radiation from their lower energy counterparts. The neutrinos with high energy are proof that they originated from far away. When IceCube detected a neutrino, it alerted telescopes around the world to scan the region of space that the neutrino was detected from. The interesting neutrino that was discovered, and the source of Dr. Fox’s research was called IceCube-170922A. They traced the neutrino to a blazar located 3.7 billion light years away.

One of the biggest challenges in detecting such high energy neutrinos is that they interact very weakly with matter. However, IceCube has gotten over this challenge by putting its sensors more than a kilometer below the ice, and watching the ice very closely with highly sensitive detectors.

The implications of the research are also huge. This is a relatively new topic of study, as IceCube has only really been active in the last decade or so. According to the paper, “it’s premature to extrapolate our findings from the modeling of the TXS 0506+056 flare to other blazars.” Essentially, there’s not enough evidence out there to draw parallels between this studied blazar and other blazars.

Space research is growing, and we are learning new things about the universe every day. It’s an exciting field, and every day, month, and year answers more questions about the wonderful universe in which we live. Of course, some of those answers lead to more questions, but that’s part of the fun of science, isn’t it?

As curious as we are, it’s hard for humans to truly explore the vast space around us. We can’t literally go into space, so we have to send drones for us. These space missions take time, and sometimes things go wrong and interfere with the drones. One of the most famous spacecraft sent to space (or two, I guess) were the Voyager missions. As cited from the NASA website mission overview, “The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before.” These spacecraft have been send from Earth, and are now farther away from Earth and the Sun than Pluto. They were launched in 1977, and have been in space for over 40 years. Both have now entered interstellar space, which is defined by scientists as where the Sun’s constant flow of material and magnetic field stop affecting its surroundings. The fact that both of these infamous spacecraft are so far away from Earth is a monumental achievement and one that we should be proud of. Some of our best pictures of Saturn have also been taken as a result of the Voyager missions. Take a look at this stunning picture:

If you look closely, you can see three of Saturn’s moons on the left. Saturn has 82 confirmed moons, according to a new published article by National Geographic, and the three pictured here are: Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. There’s also a shadow of Tethys that appears on Saturn’s body, evident by the black dot.

Another extremely famous item that was placed on the Voyager missions were the Golden records, which were selected for NASA by Carl Sagan. As quoted by Dr. Sagan, “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space.” The record contains a plethora of information, including diagrams and instructions leading potential ancient civilizations on the origin of the spacecraft. There are musical pieces, spoken greetings, and messages from President Carter. It’ll take these spacecraft forty thousand years before they even begin to approach other planetary systems, which is truly a long time. By that time, humanity will either have mastered interplanetary colonization or died out, but no matter what happens we can take solace in fact that a piece of our civilization is out there, floating peacefully. There is a small chance that an alien race technologically advanced enough to understand the meaning of the Golden Record exists, and that is a thought that is truly exciting.

Let’s talk about one of my favorite movies of all time, Interstellar. This masterpiece was directed by legendary director Christopher Nolan, who also directed other award winning films such as The Dark Knight and Inception. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, and Bill Irwin. Interstellar is set in the future, where living conditions seem bleak. A group of brave astronauts travel through a wormhole near the planet Saturn in an effort to search for a new home for humanity. Interstellar’s brilliant visuals and gripping storytelling keeps the audience on the edge of their seats the entire time, waiting in anticipation for what will happen in the future.

Another thing about Interstellar is that they tried to stay on the track of realistic physics, especially regarding the black hole. Kip Thorne, an astrophysicist professor at Caltech, helped simulate the black hole using mathematical equations. The black hole, named Gargantua, is a part of what makes Interstellar such a gorgeous piece of visual stimulation. And to be completely honest, the black hole isn’t too far from reality. In a stunning reveal, astronomers and astrophysicists revealed the first image of a supermassive black hole, seen in the form of radio waves. After years of collaboration from many scientists from around the globe, the public can now get their first taste of what black holes truly look like.

On April 10, 2019, a coordinated press conference revealed the image of M87, a galaxy with containing a supermassive black hole at its center. M87 is a galaxy 55-million light years from earth, and the black hole is 6.5 million times the mass of our Sun. Of course, black holes are so dense and powerful that light cannot escape its gravitational pull, but the materials around it shine brightly against the dark backdrop. What we are seeing is the “shadow” of the black hole, and required the cumulative efforts of eight telescopes around the globe. When these eight telescopes come together, it’s effectively one telescope the size of Earth. According to Paul Hertz, director of the astrophysics division at NASA in Washington, this stunning feat achieved was “decades ahead of time”.

As you can see, the simulated Gargantua and the actual picture of the black hole are actually quite similar, Of course, they aren’t exactly the same, but it is an incredibly close representation. The fact that we were able to capture an object literally strong enough to prevent light from escaping is very promising for the future. As the years go by, more and more scientific boundaries shall be broken, and with each one the library of human knowledge expands. It’s very doubtful that we’ll know all there is the know, but part of the fun in science is knowing that we don’t know everything, isn’t it?