TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
June 29, 2023
A Message from the Gravitational Universe
Monitoring 68 pulsars with very large radio telescopes, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has uncovered evidence for the gravitational wave (GW) background by carefully measuring slight shifts in the arrival times of pulses. These shifts are correlated between different pulsars in a way that indicates that they are caused by GWs. This GW background is likely due to hundreds of thousands or even millions of supermassive black hole binaries. Teams in Europe, Asia and Australia have also independently reported their results today. Previously, the LIGO and Virgo detectors have detected higher-frequency GWs from the merging of individual pairs of massive orbiting objects, such as stellar-mass black holes. The featured illustration highlights this spacetime-shaking result by depicting two orbiting supermassive black holes and several of the pulsars that would appear to have slight timing shifts. The imprint these GWs make on spacetime itself is illustrated by a distorted grid.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Virgin Galactic - Galactic 01 Spaceflight
On June 29, Virgin Galactic is entering a new space age, propelled by curiosity. Witness what's in store for the #Galactic01 spaceflight, crewed by researchers from the Italian Air Force & National Research Council of Italy. Don't miss the livestream at www.virgingalactic.com
Welcome to Virgin Galactic - The Spaceline for Earth.
https://www.virgingalactic.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-bnaq9BKio
NASA Names Dr. Jane Rigby New Webb Telescope Senior Project Scientist
Jun 28, 2023
NASA has chosen Dr. Jane Rigby as the new senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope mission. Rigby is an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, and has worked on the mission for many years.
Rigby was one of the three commissioning scientists for Webb. She also led the characterization of Webb’s science performance. She is an active researcher studying how galaxies form stars, and leads one of Webb's Early Release Science programs. She steps in after John Mather, who held the position for almost 28 years since 1995. Mather is moving on to senior project scientist emeritus for Webb at NASA.
“Dr. Rigby brings a strong passion for the Webb telescope to this job and is committed to ensuring that our science community can undertake groundbreaking science with this unique observatory,” said Mark Clampin, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"This mission is seeing the universe in a whole new way. I'm so excited to lead this amazing team, as we maximize the science return from the most powerful telescope humanity has ever built," Rigby said.
The Webb senior project scientist provides the scientific leadership necessary for the success of the mission by ensuring that it meets its science requirements.
About Dr. Jane Rigby
Rigby earned degrees in both physics and astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University and her Ph.D. in astronomy from University of Arizona. Rigby develops new techniques to study galaxy evolution, star-forming galaxies, and active galactic nuclei.
Rigby and her team at NASA, with international collaborators, have led many successful research campaigns, collecting data from the Keck and Magellan Observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope. She has published more than 140 peer-reviewed publications. She also has given numerous professional and public presentations on her research and on the James Webb Space Telescope. Rigby has been recognized for her research, mentorship, and diversity-related work with awards such as NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and served on a panel for the 2020 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics for the National Academies. Rigby also serves as a trustee of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).
In 2022, she was awarded the 2022 LGBTQ+ Scientist of the Year by Out to Innovate. This year, she was awarded the Explorers Club Citation of Merit jointly with John Mather, and the Fred Kavli Prize Plenary Lecturer, from the AAS.
Dr. John Mather, the First Webb Senior Project Scientist
Dr. John Mather played a key role in the Webb project from the earliest days. In his work leading the Webb telescope science team beginning in 1995, Mather represented scientific interests to project management and helped see each step forward, no matter how small. His work included setting up international science contests to find the best talent to invent the right instruments and technologies for the telescope, and to bring the same inventions to life. Mather is known for speaking passionately about the telescope’s promise to observe events and objects at sufficient distances to reveal the universe when it was less than a billion years old.
Mather said of his new emeritus status, “I’ll be enjoying every minute of the team’s amazing results and cheering for our successes. I’ll be traveling and telling the world what we are doing. And I’ll be working on what’s next for NASA – I’m not retiring a bit.”
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-names-dr-jane-rigby-new-webb-telescope-senior-project-scientist
NASA’s DC-8 to Fly Low-Altitude Flight Over Urban Los Angeles Area
Jun 29, 2023
PALMDALE, Calif.- NASA’s DC-8 will be flying from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California over the urban Los Angeles area.
The DC-8 will fly over the local area between Palmdale and Los Angeles as part of a scientific research mission called AEROMMA. The project measures Atmospheric Emissions and Reactions Observed from Megacities to Marine Areas. Residents in the area will see and hear the aircraft as it collects data on air quality and pollution sources.
These flights will occur over the urban Los Angeles and surrounding areas between Wednesday, June 28 and Friday, June 30, 2023 between mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
All flyovers are conducted at a safe altitude without harm to public, wildlife, or infrastructure. Jet aircraft are very loud and those with sensitivity to loud noises should be aware of the flyover window.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-dc-8-to-fly-low-altitude-flight-over-urban-los-angeles-area
https://csl.noaa.gov/projects/aeromma/
Saturn looks incredible in these raw James Webb Space Telescope images
June 28, 2023
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first incredible images of the gas giant Saturn, but they aren't quite ready for the public yet.
The raw images of Saturn were revealed on the unofficial website JWST feed, which contains every piece of data collected by the powerful space telescope since it began operations in mid-2023.
Currently, the images of the ringed gas giant taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) between June 24 and June 25 exist as raw unprocessed black-and-white data. But even in this "unbaked" state, they hold the promise of stunning new views of the planet and its famous ring system. The raw images act as a tantalizing tease of what should be an incredible unprecedented look as Saturn after they are fully processed.
"Like any modern telescope, the JWST does not take color images like a film camera would," the European Space Agency (ESA), which operates the telescope with NASA, said in an unrelated statement about how its images are produced. "The images that are beamed back to Earth are in black and white, and much more work is done on them after they are received to create the spectacular vistas we are familiar with. This processing is not just necessary to make them look good but also to highlight a variety of useful scientific information."
The ESA explained that the black-and-white exposures, or 'frames,' reflect the number of particles of light or photons that have fallen on the detector of one of its instruments, such as the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
A pixel collecting more light during the results is an efficient way of measuring the light collected with high accuracy, something the ESA said is critical for deriving scientific results from JWST data.
In these raw images of Saturn, which were captured by JWST's NIRCam, the second largest planet in the solar system is both seen as a glowing and fairly indistinct shape and as a clearer dark disk representing the planet with a bright band representing its ring system. The images were taken on behalf of a project led by University of Leicester astronomer Leigh Fletcher that aims to observe the entire Saturn system  —  its atmosphere, rings and numerous moons.
The JWST views the universe in infrared due to the fact that as light travels to it from distant and therefore early galaxies, its wavelength is "stretched," moving it down the electromagnetic spectrum  —  a phenomenon known as "redshift." This makes it the ideal instrument to allow astronomers to see deeper into the universe than ever before and also further back in time than previous instruments could.
Yet, as these raw images of Saturn illustrate, the space telescope has also been surprisingly effective at seeing objects within the solar system in unprecedented levels of detail.
This has included impressive views of the ice giant Uranus including its icy ring system and moons, images of Saturn's fellow gas giant Jupiter and its glowing aurora, and even a glimpse of a tiny dwarf planet at the edge of the solar system with its own strange ring system.
https://www.space.com/saturn-james-webb-space-telescope-images-1st-observation
https://jwstfeed.com/Home/ShowFeed?searchTerm=saturn-centre
New York's iconic Fifth Avenue Tiffany&Co building - made famous in the Audrey Hepburn film Breakfast at Tiffany's - is ravaged by electrical fire after $500m refurbishment.
June 29, 2023
A fire torched through parts of the newly-refurbished Tiffany & Co. building on Manhattan's iconic Fifth Avenue on Thursday morning.
Photos from the store, which is directly adjacent to Trump Tower, show crews of FDNY firefighters tackling the blaze which began as an underground street fire, according to a spokesman for the fire department.
The source is believed to be an electrical vault.
Store floor staff and chefs from the sixth floor Blue Box Café were among those on the street watching the smoke billowing through windows.
The building was recently reopened following a lengthy and expensive refurbishment. Stars like Katy Perry, Hailey Bieber and Blake Lively attended its grand reopening in April.
The store is on a highly-prized corner of Manhattan shopping real estate - it shares the block with Trump Tower.
LVMH, the European luxury brand power house, bought Tiffany in 2021 for $16billion.
The renovations were estimated by some experts to have cost $500million.
Bernard Arnault, LVMH's chairman and owner, would not confirm the figure earlier this year when interviewed about the opening.
He described renovating the entire building - first opened in 1940 - to make each floor different.
'We got lost in the building. Here is a guy getting lost in his own shop. I said, "We have some work to do on this."'
Part of the renovation was the addition of The Blue Box Café on the sixth floor.
The first floor is occupied with an expansive showroom and store. There are ten floors total - half of which are open to the public.
Tiffany is yet to comment on the fire.
The flagship store opened in 1940 but was made famous around the world 21 years later in Breakfast At Tiffany's.
Its iconic windows are where Audrey Hepburn, playing the penniless Holly Golightly, gazed at diamonds and pearls while nibbling croissants after a night on the town.
In January 2020, the store - pending the LVMH deal - closed for refurbishments that were due to only take a year.
The deal faltered during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic and renovations took longer than expected. It finally reopened in April.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12247301/Fire-tears-newly-refurbished-Tiffany-building-Manhattans-Fifth-Avenue.html