@CosmicRami@aus.social
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CosmicRami

@CosmicRami@aus.social

Astronomer, driving The Dish📡 to study pulsars in my PhD. Also, founded SpaceAustralia.com. Also, love a bit of astrophotography. Also, do everything with my little mate, Max. Also, Ultra-Gay. Also, fuck Elon Musk. Header image credit: ESO/L. Calçada.

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CosmicRami, to Astro
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If you haven't noticed, radio astronomers worldwide are getting very shouty at radio frequency interference (RFI - akin to light pollution) increasing.

We create these multi-billion, grand-scale projects in specifically legislated radio quiet zones away from human populations to ensure we have the best capabilities to detect the faintest signals from the furthers reaches of the cosmos.

Then along comes the RFI from satellite constellations.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/square-kilometre-array-wa-to-face-satellite-noise-interference/103830954

#RFI #Satellites #RadioAstronomy #Astrodon

CosmicRami, to science
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The black hole that ate its own star. This is some neat science!

A new paper reports that VFTS 243, a massive binary system featuring an O-class star and a 10 solar-mass black hole companion, might have formed through the 'complete collapse scenario'.

My new article in

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/news/black-holes-eat-their-own-stars

📸: ESO / l. Calçada

CosmicRami, to Astronomy
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I taunt astronomers in other EM regimes because unlike us cool radio astro folks, they mostly can't do astronomy during the day (where we can).

Now, folks from our uni (Macquarie Uni) and fellow PhD'er Sarah Caddy, are building telescopes for daytime obs.

THIS IS BETELGEUSE IN THE DAY! 🤯

To get these results, we've built a telescope that has MANY eyes, and named it after the huge spider we have here called 'The Huntsman' (which of course, has many eyes).

Some nice work coming from this 'scope!

More: shorturl.at/D3IKL

Paper: shorturl.at/kp2Xj

#Telescopes #Astronomy #Astrodon

Woman standing next to a telescope that is made up of many smaller telescopes giving an appearance of many eyes looking upwards

CosmicRami, to Astro
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For the first time since Nov. 2023, two of the four instruments aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft (currently ~24,472,559,000 km away or about 22.5 light hours from us) have started re-transmitting science data!

These spacecraft are older than me and still going strong.

Go you good thing!

https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/05/22/voyager-1-resumes-sending-science-data-from-two-instruments/

#Astrodon

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Just catching up on this image of NGC 3783 captured by Hubble and oooooft, the more you look at it, the more is revealed.

First, that majestic grand spiral galaxy, but then, all the OTHER galaxies in the background.

So good!

📸 ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. C. Bentz, D. J. V. Rosario

CosmicRami, to random
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Friends! Today is International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) - where we remember that we still need to fight for global LGBTIQA+ rights, equality, support and celebrate our wonderfully diverse communities.

Feel free to use this image (+ alt-text) across your socials.

If you can spare some change on this IDAHOBIT, here are a few Aussie orgs that you could donate to, to keep up the good fight:

Minus18 - https://www.minus18.org.au/donate/

BLAQ - https://blaq.org.au/donate/

LGBTQ Domestic Violence Awareness Foundation - https://shoutforgood.com/embed/lightbox?client_token=fda092d0-472a-42f4-aac6-5a20ee0eea17

LGBTIQ+ Health Australia - https://www.lgbtiqhealth.org.au/donate

QLife - https://qlife.org.au/

Twenty10 - https://twenty10.org.au/donate/

+

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Coronal mass ejections entrap magnetic fields, along with producing the wonderful aurora we have seen all over the world for the last few days.

Well, we can also measure this magnetism by looking at pulsar signals (and in particular rotation measure effects) when a CME crosses in front!

This image is from Howard et al. (2021) which shows where pulsars are when a CME crossed the line of sight.

Happy to report people were observing pulsar signals during last few days where the big solar storms passed Earth!

So there is some really neat science going to come from the Sun burping and causing some nice aurora events, using pulsars!

CosmicRami, to Astro
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I forgot to post this a couple weeks back! It was the 20-year anniversary of one of the first exoplanets
ever found - and it was lurking around a pulsar!

Draugr (Norse for "undead creatures") is one of three planets that orbits the pulsar Lich (also an undead creature).

The official name of the system is PSR B1257+12 and it features the three planets in orbit around the nasty pulsar.

It's located about 1900 light-years away in the constellation Virgo and was discovered in 1994, two years after the first two exoplanets were found around Lich.

The EXTREMELY NEAT thing about Draugr is that, to date, it remains the least massive exoplanet ever discovered, even when compared to the planets in our Solar System - which tells us something!

Found through pulsar timing, its mass is only ~2 times the lunar mass.

Here's the discovery paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.264.5158.538

Pulsar planets really have had it rough.

Remember, to form a pulsar you need a supernova! So they can be second-gen planets from supernova debris!

Read more about pulsar planets in my article here: https://www.spaceaustralia.com/news/science-talk-what-are-pulsar-planets

📷 NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt

CosmicRami, to Astronomy
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Wooooaaahhhh!

The new JWST image of a small bit of the Horsehead Nebula is INCREDIBLE.

To give you a sense of scale here, here’s an image of the nebula from my backyard. That small white box … that’s the JWST field of view! 🤯🤯🤯

Look at ALL those galaxies, all in that tiny white box.

JWST image credit:

Dodgy image with white boxes is my own.

At the bottom of the image a small portion of the Horsehead Nebula is seen close-in, as a curved wall of thick, smoky gas and dust. Above the nebula various distant stars and galaxies can be seen up to the top of the image. One star is very bright and large, with six long diffraction spikes that cross the image. The background fades from a dark red colour above the nebula to black.

jpm, to random
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Hey @CosmicRami my daughter has a really good space-question: how did ice get into space?

CosmicRami,
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@jpm that is a great question, but I'm going to blow her mind and ask her to reverse it. How did the water we have on Earth get here in the first place?

Well, the molecules that exist in space, are all based on base-elements, like hydrogen, helium, carbon, oxygen, silicon, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.

These elements are formed through a number of ways. Hydrogen and some helium comes from the actual Big Bang event. Other elements is either churned out by stars or forms when compact massive stars like white dwarf and neutron stars merge. But effectively, these elements get there through these processes.

All of these elements exist in large clouds of molecules, or around stars in debris fields. And they can combine to form molecules. So when some of the hydrogen and oxygen is floating around, it can combine to form water. Other molecules like methane and ammonia can also form.

If these molecules are far enough from when a star turns on, they can remain as ice molecules and go on to build comets, planets, moons. If they are too close, they get melted away. That's why we see the inner planets of our system mostly made of rock (it didn't melt) but the outer planet made of gas and ice molecules.

These vast reserves of ice also live on comets and asteroids and eventually found their way to Earth. So a lot of planetary astronomers are trying to work out how the water got to Earth, instead of the other way around. Our water, comes from space, and that comes from the death of massive stars.

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Ohh, today's @APoD is like a scene from another world! Superb photography, and there's no need to look far off into space for it.

It features a beautiful crescent Moon hanging in the red dawn Sicilian sky, while Mt Etna blows vortex rings into the atmosphere.

Outstanding!

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

📸 D. Giannobile/APOD

CosmicRami, to astrophotography
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Here’s a second night of imaging using Seestar S50 from my backyard.

Got about 2 hours of data but then NGC 3621 crossed the meridian near the zenith and things started failing.

Still, pretty darn good for a 5cm aperture. Saturated the colours a bit to highlight blue-white hues of supernova!

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Happy 51st B'day to Deep Space Station 43 (DSS43)! 📡

One of my fav antennas, and at 70m diameter, the largest steerable antenna in the Southern Hemisphere, located at @canberradsn

DSS43 keeps in touch with super important missions like Voyager2, only acquirable from this station!

Read the piece I wrote about CDSCC in : https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/canberras-deep-space-network-ready-return-moon

CosmicRami, to astrophotography
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🚨 A STAR HAS DIED! ⭐💥

And I just happened to catch it from my city light-polluted backyard, using a 5cm aperture SeestarS50!

Check it out ... on the left is my image (only 25 mins of data). The cross hairs indicate a 'new star' appearing in galaxy NGC 3621. The right image is from Stellarium and I have annotated where the new star appears, and how it was not there before.

This is a type II supernova, so a massive star's core collapsed and triggered off an extremely violent explosion that we are seeing 22 million years later.

It likely formed a neutron star or pulsar!

It is incredibly bright and I encourage everyone to turn their telescopes towards it and get data / light curves!

high quality image of a galaxy showing its bright core region and swirling spiral arms, amongst a dense stellar field. A yellow circle is drawn on an outer region of the galaxy.

CosmicRami, to Astronomy
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*** SUPERNOVA ALERT ***
🔭📸🚨

Astrophotographers/astronomers with 'scopes capable of low-res spectrography:

Turn your telescopes to NGC 3621, a field galaxy only 7 MPC away! Supernova alert issued with progenitor data available. ⭐💥

NGC 3621 (aka the Frame Galaxy or Southern Cross Galaxy) is fairly bright and if you are around the same latitude as Sydney (many southern cities) it gets very near zenith around 9 - 10pm local time, so an easy and bright target.

More info:

https://www.wis-tns.org/astronotes/astronote/2024-100

https://www.wis-tns.org/astronotes/astronote/2024-102

Here's the galaxy shot prior by Joe DePasquale /ESO.

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Looking at eclipses with radio telescope also gives us insightful info into the active regions of the Sun (like sunspots) as well as helping study background sources twinkling in the Solar wind.

Some stills from Emil Lenc’s video of a partial solar eclipse (2023) seen by CSIRO’s ASKAP 📡📡📡📡📡

Radio image of the Sun, annotated with a yellow circle. The Sun has several bright features on it. The Moon, annotated with a grey circle is now touching bottom right part of the solar disc.
Radio image of the Sun, annotated with a yellow circle. The Sun has several bright features on it. The Moon, annotated with a grey circle is now covering most of the solar disc.
Radio image of the Sun, annotated with a yellow circle. The Sun has several bright features on it. The Moon, annotated with a grey circle is now touching top left part of the solar disc.

CosmicRami, to Astro
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The DES Galaxy Collection: No. 11!

Name: NGC 4302

Category: Captivating Couple

Distance: ~55 mly away

Constellation: Coma Berenices

Interesting: NGC4302's beautiful edge-on perspective gives excellent dark dust lane features, and interacts with NGC 4298.

NGC 4298 is also a lovely almost face-on spiral with some astronomers reporting it might harbour an intermediate-mass black hole estimated mass ranging from 20,000 - 500,000 Suns.

📸 DES Legacy

#Galaxies #DESLegacy #Astrodon

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Our Sun will eventually stop using nuclear fusion to produce energy and become a cooling white dwarf. It's what white dwarfs do.

A subpopulation of white dwarfs might have a way to generate heat, post-formation. The reported mechanism in this paper is the release of gravitational energy through internal dynamics.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07102-y

CosmicRami, to ska
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EXCITING NEWS!

The first SKA-low antennas are being installed today in Australia!

Here's a feature article I wrote (2021) that outlines the road that has led to the development of the world's largest radio telescope for #SpaceAustralia

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/index.php/feature/road-leads-square-kilometre-array

📸 M. Goh/ICRAR/Curtin

#RadioAstronomy #Telescopes #SKA #Astrophysics #Astrodon

CosmicRami, to Astro
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YYYYYYAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!

Today's @APoD was taken by our team mate, the excellent John Sarkissian! And look, it is off our beautiful dish Murriyang (Parkes radio telescope) grabbing signal and data from IM-1.

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Supermassive black hole binary pair, which have been resolved (!) and are separated by a mere 24 light-years (P_b = ~30,000 yrs) whilst suffering from the Final Parsec problem have had a new mass reported in this paper ... and the combined mass comes in at a whopping 28 billion Suns!

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad14fa

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Extra fun pre-print! 👀👀

Measuring acceleration in 26 pulsars, authors report:

Sun experiencing 1mm/s/yr acceleration away from Galactic centre, comparable to the gravitational force of a Jupiter-mass object 400 AU away (not Planet 9).

Mass enclosed within 8kpc of Galactic centre is ~2.3 times larger than accepted models.

I need to read (and understand this a bit better) but I think that the uncertainties in some of the distance and parallax measurements of the pulsars might introduce big enough overall uncertainties that could affect the outcomes reported here. Will be watching how this plays out!

Regardless, a fun science read!

https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.15808

#Pulsars #Galaxy #DarkMatter #Astrodon #Astrophysics #Astronomy

CosmicRami, to Astro
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In about an hour, Intuitive Machines’ first lunar mission, IM-1, is scheduled to touch down on the lunar surface.

Australian radio telescopes (Murriyang) and @canberradsn providing comms support.

https://spaceaustralia.com/news/parkes-radio-telescope-assist-commercial-lunar-missions (2021)

📸 A. Cherney/R. Mandow

A large radio telescope dish antenna, nestled behind some trees. The trees are hiding the base, but the large, white reflective dish is emerging above and reflecting lots of light, off its white surface. It is pointed slightly upwards and too the right.

CosmicRami, to Astro
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Ohhh, some exciting astro news!!! 👀👀👀

A new paper has found more evidence for a neutron star in the supernova 1987A remnant using JWST's MIRI/MRS and NIRSpec/IFU!

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj5796

However, a secondary paper from a few days back, which also used JWST MIRI, found no evidence of the compact remnant in their data: https://arxiv.org/html/2402.14014v1

Almost 2 years ago I wrote a feature article looking at the evidence for this, so these new papers and findings are exciting!

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/did-1987-supernova-produce-pulsar

📸 Fransson et al. / Bouchet et al.

four tile image showing the ring that forms the supernova remnant in four different filters of the JWST observation

CosmicRami, to random
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anyone else getting SPAM on here? And I mean that literally ... images of the SPAM meat can just over and over.

Annoying having to block them all!

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