Latest news with #Hubble
Mint
3 days ago
- Science
- Mint
A cosmic mystery: Is China building the world's biggest telescope?
Astronomer Robert Kirshner investigates some of the universe's biggest questions: What happens when a star explodes? Is the universe still expanding? He recently added a new mystery to the list: Is China quietly building the world's biggest telescope? He would like to know, because he leads a rival telescope project in the U.S. There are clues. In January, state-owned Nanjing Astronomical Instruments said on social media that it won a $22 million bid for a dome to surround a 48-foot telescope. In an April social-media post, students visiting a science institute mentioned researchers showing them mirror arrangements for such a telescope. And a top Chinese astronomer told state media he wanted to finish the telescope before he retires. Yet Chinese officials haven't directly acknowledged the observatory, which would threaten American technological leadership and potentially give Beijing a military advantage. 'You would expect, normally, some kind of chest thumping," said Kirshner, a Harvard emeritus professor. The leading Chinese astronomer and his institute, a national research organization that appears to be in charge of the telescope, didn't return requests for comment for this article. If China is building the big scope, that raises another question. 'Why the hell are they doing that?" said Matt Mountain, head of the nonprofit organization that manages observatories, as well as the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Mountain has two hypotheses. First, astronomical advances benefit both scientific and military purposes, as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson highlighted in his book 'Accessory to War." Huge telescopes can look at military satellites, not just stars and planets. The second hypothesis: Beijing is investing in astronomy to inspire children to enter the sciences—so it can surpass the U.S. in a couple of decades. 'Astronomy is an entry-level drug for science, technology, engineering and math," said Mountain. American institutes are the New York Yankees of modern astronomy. By Kirshner's count, 18 of the 23 astrophysics-focused Nobel Prize winners in the last half-century worked in the U.S. While space telescopes such as the James Webb get more attention these days, those on the ground still matter. They are easier to service and much bigger, offsetting disadvantages such as light pollution and atmospheric distortions. Bigger telescopes mean sharper images, making it easier to determine the distance between faraway objects, Kirshner said. Astronomers can then discover more planets orbiting stars in the Goldilocks temperature range that could support life. The Hubble and Webb space telescopes have mirrors with diameters of about 8 feet and 21 feet, respectively. The four biggest ones currently on Earth—one in Spain and three in the U.S.—are all roughly 33 feet in diameter. If China completes a 48-foot telescope soon, it would be the world's biggest, unless a delayed 128-foot European telescope in Chile is finished first. Kirshner's Thirty Meter Telescope group, an international project with U.S., Canadian, Indian and Japanese institutions, proposes a 98-foot telescope on Hawaii's Big Island. Instead of making one massive mirror, which would require mountain transport and the construction of an unfeasibly huge furnace, it would use 492 hexagonal segments, each 4.7 feet wide. These giant telescopes cost roughly $1 billion to $2 billion, Mountain said, and costs rise with size. They also take years to build. Drawing on political rather than scientific wisdom, Kirshner realized it would help make the case in Washington for big-telescope funding if he could show China was building one too. Kirshner's best sources have been Chinese-speaking peers who informally confirmed the development of a telescope site in the Tibetan Plateau, in China's southwest. Mountain says Chilean astronomers told him China was also exploring a Southern Hemisphere observatory in Chile. Armed with the information, Kirshner met congressional staffers and National Science Foundation officials. He ran into a roadblock in May, when President Trump proposed to Congress that the NSF's annual budget be cut to $4 billion from $9 billion. Trump's science and technology adviser said then that scientific progress had stalled in some fields and more federal money wouldn't necessarily mean more scientific impact. In its budget request, the NSF proposed advancing only the Giant Magellan Telescope, which is backed by a California-headquartered consortium. At 83 feet wide, the Magellan would be bigger than China's but smaller than Kirshner's proposed telescope. Like the European telescope, this observatory would be in Chile. The Magellan's location would leave China with the Northern Hemisphere's biggest telescope. Earth's curvature means each hemisphere offers different views. Kirshner got a reprieve in mid-July. A Senate spending committee recommended minimal cuts to the NSF, and said it supported both the Magellan project and Kirshner's Thirty Meter Telescope. Kirshner called on Congress to endorse what he called a 'vigorous response to China's efforts." Write to Stu Woo at
Axios
5 days ago
- Science
- Axios
Bat found at UT returns home to West Texas
Hubble, a big free-tailed bat that made a rare visit to Austin, is going back to West Texas after being rehabilitated. Why it matters: Hubble became the first big free-tailed bat documented in Travis County when he accidentally hitched a ride from the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis to the University of Texas, according to the Austin Bat Refuge. Flashback: UT called Dianne Odegard, executive director of Austin Bat Refuge, and her co-founder Lee Mackenzie after discovering Hubble inside the physics, math, and astronomy building. Hubble had rubbed his thumb claws completely off while trying to escape, and struggled to climb during his recovery. "It makes us pretty happy," Odegard says of Hubble's rehabilitation. "There was no guarantee that he was going to be able to grow those thumb claws back." Zoom in:" Mexican free tailed-bats that are common around Central Texas are about one-third of the size of the species that Hubble belongs to," Odegard tells Axios. Austin Bat Refuge handled over 400 bats in need of rehabilitation last year, with a vast majority of those being Mexican free-tailed bats. "We were really surprised to see him," Odegard adds.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
UVU-led team finds evidence challenging universe expansion rate models
In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. (Courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team) A new Utah Valley University study is providing new evidence in a debate astronomers across the world haven't been able to agree on — how fast the universe is expanding. The findings may add more fuel to what has been known as the Hubble Tension, a disagreement between scientists on how to best calculate the expansion rate of the universe. According to a study led by UVU astrophysicist Joseph Jensen in collaboration with other astronomers from Arizona, Maryland, Hawaii and Italy, the universe is expanding faster than current theories predict. The researchers used ultra-precise data from NASA's Hubble and James Webb telescopes, and the agency's Dark Energy Camera, which is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation's Víctor M. Blanco Telescope, to calculate galactic distances through an independent measuring method. According to a UVU news release, 'this allowed them to bypass traditional distance measurement methods.' 'This is a major step forward,' Jensen said in a statement. 'By using a completely independent method with the power of [the James Webb Space Telescope], we've confirmed that the universe is expanding faster than our best theories say it should. That means there's likely something fundamental that we're still missing in our understanding of the cosmos.' Astrophysicists have debated the growing discrepancy between the predicted and observed expansion rates, aiming to determine whether the inconsistencies are because of measurement errors, or theoretical flaws. The new study calculated the current universe expansion rate, or Hubble constant, to be 73.8 kilometers per second per megaparsec, a number significantly higher than the 67.5 value predicted by widely accepted models, according to the release. 'We're not saying the standard model is wrong,' Jensen said. 'But it's clearly incomplete. These results help us move closer to understanding what might be missing.' Essentially, this new data gives clues on how old the universe is, what it is made of, and how it was created, the university says. Researchers hope to reach more precise answers in the next few years through the telescopes' observations. In recognition of the team's approach NASA awarded them three additional James Webb Space Telescope observing programs to expand measurements to more than 100 elliptical galaxies, bringing about $220,000 in research funding to Utah Valley University. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Solve the daily Crossword
India Today
22-07-2025
- Science
- India Today
Hubble clicks first pictures of interstellar comet invading our Solar System
Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the first detailed images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passes through our solar system, offering scientists a rare glimpse at a visitor from another star photos, taken just five hours ago, reveal a bright and well-developed coma, the cloud of gas and dust surrounding the comet's nucleus, with striking worldwide have been eagerly awaiting these images. Designated '3I' to signify the third known interstellar object detected in our solar system, Comet ATLAS is now being watched closely as it completes its journey across the Sun's neighbourhood. The new Hubble images show the comet with a distinct puffiness around its nucleus, indicating significant outgassing activity as it responds to the Sun's heat. Astronomers worldwide have been eagerly awaiting these images. (Photo: Nasa) advertisement Despite a few streaks caused by cosmic rays, high-energy particles that frequently strike Hubble's instruments, the overall quality of the images is high. Scientists say these minor interferences do not obscure the details of the comet's spectacular earlier this year by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), 3I/ATLAS is believed to have originated from a distant planetary system beyond our own. Its hyperbolic trajectory confirms it is not gravitationally bound to the Sun, making its current passage a fleeting but crucial opportunity for hope that ongoing observations will shed light on the composition, structure, and behavior of interstellar objects — and perhaps reveal clues about planetary systems beyond our Space Telescope images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS are out! These were taken 5 hours ago. Plenty of cosmic rays peppering the images, but the comet's coma looks very nice and puffy. Best of luck to the researchers trying to write up papers for this... or embed]— astrafoxen (@ July 22, 2025 at 2:58 AMScientists operating the high-altitude observatories of Hanle, Ladakh, had recently successfully photographed the interstellar comet C/2025 N1 (ATLAS), also known as 3I/ATLAS, as it races through the Solar note that the comet's hyperbolic orbit, with an eccentricity of approximately 6.2, and its initial high speed are clear signatures of its interstellar parameters confirm that it entered the Solar System with much more energy than could be accounted for by the Sun's gravity alone.- Ends
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's new Roman Space Telescope aims to discover 100,000 cosmic explosions
While the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes continue to offer astronomers revolutionary glimpses of our universe, their upcoming sibling may very well upstage them. Scheduled to launch in 2027, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed with a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, with the potential to document light from over a billion galaxies over its career. Combined with timelapse recording capabilities, Roman will help researchers to better understand exoplanets, infrared astrophysics, and the nature of dark matter. But it doesn't stop there. According to a study published on July 15 in The Astrophysics Journal, Roman is poised to eventually capture an estimated 100,000 celestial explosions over its lifetime. These could include everything from supernovae to hungry black holes, but astrophysicists theorize Roman may potentially even find evidence of the very first stars to ever form in the universe. Galactic 'gold mine' 'Whether you want to explore dark energy, dying stars, galactic powerhouses, or probably even entirely new things we've never seen before, this survey will be a gold mine,' Benjamin Rose, a physicist at Baylor University and the study's lead author, said in a statement. Rose and colleagues reached their estimate after running a simulation of the Roman's High-Latitude Time-Domain Core Community Survey. Once in place, the space telescope's survey is designed to scan a single, vast portion of the universe every five days for two years. Astronomers will compile all of those snapshots into what amounts to cosmic movies, then document every kind of energy blast they find. 'By seeing the way an object's light changes over time and splitting it into spectra—individual colors with patterns that reveal information about the object that emitted the light—we can distinguish between all the different types of flashes Roman will see,' explained Rebekah Hounsell, a study co-author and assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Peering back in time The majority of events will likely be various types of exploding stars, or novae. The telescope's survey itself is particularly oriented to detect a rarer class of stellar bursts known as Type Ia supernovae. These cosmic mileage posts help researchers measure cosmic distances and analyze the universe's expansion rate. As NASA explains, understanding the speed of expansion amid various epochs can key astronomers into dark matter's behavior. Based on this study's simulation, Roman's handlers can expect to find about 27,000 Type Ia supernovae. That's more than 10 times the number collected by all previous surveys. Peering further into the depths of space also means Roman will glimpse further back into time than any telescope before it. Most supernovae detected so far by astronomers have occurred within the last 8 billion years. Roman is expected to push that timeline back to over 10 billion years ago— and possibly even as far as 11.5 billion years. 'Filling these data gaps could also fill in gaps in our understanding of dark energy,' said Rose. 'Evidence is mounting that dark energy has changed over time, and Roman will help us understand that change by exploring cosmic history in ways other telescopes can't.' The simulation dataset created by Rose's team isn't limited to their own study. According to Hounsell, other experts can use it to develop their own machine-learning algorithms to comb through Roman's gigantic troves of data for their own subjects. 'While searching for type Ia supernovae, Roman is going to collect a lot of cosmic 'bycatch'—other phenomena that aren't useful to some scientists, but will be invaluable to others,' explained Hounsell. One such phenomena may be multiple kilonovae—gargantuan explosions that result when a neutron star (a leftover supernova core) slams into another neutron star. Astronomers theorize that kilonovae may also occur when a neutron star collides with a black hole. Researchers have only officially ever documented a single such event, but the study's authors believe the Roman telescope could pinpoint another five of them. These anticipated discoveries only scratch the surface of what Roman could achieve. However, engineers must first finish the telescope and successfully launch it into orbit. The launch is currently scheduled no earlier than May 2027. NASA's multibillion dollar budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration may jeopardize the Roman project, despite its potential completion ahead of time and cheaper than expected. 'This is nuts,' former co-chair of Roman's science team David Spergel told Scientific American earlier this year. 'You've built it, and you're not going to do the final step to finish it? That is such a waste of taxpayers' money.'However, It's by no means a death sentence for Roman just yet. As of July 15, Congress was in talks to reject the majority of the White House's proposed NASA cuts. Solve the daily Crossword
