1 BERKELEY ASTRONOMY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY WINTER 2017 Astronomy in the News For full versions of news articles, visit news.berkeley.edu BERKELEY ASTRONOMERS astronomy world is basically yesterday.” stars first began to shine across the cosmos, SELECTED TO TAKE NEW SPACE Letting astronomers rather than staff take the the so-called epoch of reionization. TELESCOPE FOR A SPIN telescope for a test drive is a new concept for De Pater admits that two years is a long time NASA, said de Pater. She and her team will to wait, but hopes to use the 28.9 allocated By Robert Sanders, Media relations focus on Jupiter, its moons Io and Ganymede hours of observing time to measure the November 21, 2017 and its faint rings, to see if they can capture wind speeds in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, Berkeley astronomers, Imke de Pater and fine detail against the bright background of Daniel Weisz, have been chosen to lead Jupiter, which is actually too bright for the two of the first 13 groups that will test telescope to look at without filters. the capabilities of NASA’s advanced new “We will see if we can image the rings and get successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, rid of the scattered light from Jupiter, which the James Webb Space Telescope. pushes the telescope’s limits and really tests From November 2019 until April 2020, these the capabilities of JWST,” she said. teams will scan objects near and far, ranging Weisz, who studies star systems, from globular from planets in our solar system to planets clusters with millions of stars to galaxies in the around nearby stars, and from star systems local Universe, will take the long view. He is in the Milky Way galaxy to galaxies at the particularly interested in systems near enough edge of the universe. that individual stars can be picked out and “The diversity of science represented by counted, which can tell astronomers about the these 13 teams is amazing,” said Weisz, “we history of the galaxy and ultimately the history are definitely excited about this opportunity.” of the universe. Images of Neptune taken during twilight observing The teams are hoping for new discoveries, The James Webb telescope will be ideal for revealed an extremely large bright storm system but they’ve also been selected because of this, because its mirrors will be two and a half near Neptune’s equator (labeled ‘cloud complex’ promises to provide baseline information times the size of the mirror in the Hubble in the upper figure), a region where astronomers space telescope, effectively cutting the time it have never seen a bright cloud. The center of the for future observers and computer software storm complex is ~9,000 km across, about 3/4 the tools that those astronomers will need to takes to collect data on a cluster or galaxy by a factor of 10. This allows detailed studies of the size of Earth, or 1/3 of Neptune’s radius. The storm make sense of their observations on the brightened considerably between June 26 and July telescope. very faintest stars, some of which first started 2, as noted in the logarithmic scale of the images “With the telescope’s five-year lifetime, we to glow when the universe was a baby more taken on July 2. (N. Molter/I. de Pater, UC Berkeley/ need to use it very efficiently than 10 billion years ago. C. Alvarez, W. M. Keck Observatory) to maximize the “For studies of very faint stars in the Milky return,” Weisz Way – our own galaxy – the JWST is going to said. “The early be phenomenal,” he said. “The telescope will CONTENTS release science do roughly in its five- to 10-year mission what Astronomy in the News ..............................1 program is Hubble has done in its 25-year mission for Astrophysics Roundtable ...........................4 supposed local galaxies.” Sackler Lecture ............................................4 to produce During the 20 hours of telescope time From the Chair’s Desk ................................ 5 science- allocated to his team, they will take images Faculty Awards and Highlights ................. 5 enabling in both optical and infrared for a globular Astro Night ....................................................6 results cluster in the Milky Way, a very faint, dark- Welcome Graduate Students ...................6 within five matter-dominated dwarf galaxy that orbits the Commencement 2018 ................................6 months Milky Way and a close neighbor and traveling Retirements ..................................................7 of the companion of the Milky Way, a galaxy at a In Memoriam ................................................7 observations, distance of about 3 million light years. Evening with the Stars................................7 which in the By counting and determining the age of each Upcoming Events .......................................8 James Webb star within within these galaxies, for example, Give to Astronomy ......................................8 Space Telescope, he hopes to shed light on what happened early courtesy of NASA. in the universe when WINTER 2017 BERKELEY ASTRONOMY 2 3 observe gases in the atmospheres of Io and Einstein postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa of this program. It’s just been an outrageous because neutron stars are much smaller to elements found in supernovae, but the idea of a kilonova had existed only in our Ganymede and see ripples left by comets in Barbara and Las Cumbres Observatory in success.” Molter is one of eight scholars than black holes and their mergers produce heavier atoms were more than a hundred times theoretical imagination and our computer the rings around the planet. Goleta, California. accepted into the program this year. His much weaker gravitational waves than do more opaque than what we’re used to seeing models,” he said. But as the data trickled “The idea is that for any solar system object, assignment during his six-week stay at the black hole mergers. According to Berkeley in astrophysical explosions,” said Barnes. “If in, one night after the next, the images you have to assemble a mosaic of the planet GRADUATE STUDENT’S Observatory was to develop a more efficient professor of astronomy and physics Eliot heavy elements are present in the debris from began to assemble into a surprisingly or moon from multiple observations when TWILIGHT OBSERVATIONS method for twilight observing, making use Quataert, “We were anticipating LIGO the merger, their high opacity should give familiar picture. On the first couple nights everything is moving and rotating and REVEAL HUGE STORM ON of time that otherwise might not be used. finding a neutron star merger in the kilonovae a reddish hue.” “I think we bummed of observations, the color of the merger changing. How do you do that?” de Pater NEPTUNE Most observers in the Keck Observatory coming years but to see it so nearby – for out the entire astrophysics community when event was relatively blue with a brightness said. “We have to develop the software so community peer deep into the night sky astronomers – and so bright in normal light we first announced that,” Kasen said. “We were that matched the predictions of kilonova that astronomers can put their little postage By Robert Sanders, Media relations and cannot observe their targets during has exceeded all of our wildest expectations. predicting that a kilonova should be relatively models strikingly well if the outer layers stamps together into a map.” August 3, 2017 twilight. “Ned had never observed before, And, even more amazingly, it turns out that faint and redder than red, meaning it would be of the merger debris are made of light and he’s very bright, so when Anne told me UC Berkeley research astronomer Michael Spectacular sunsets and sunrises are enough most of our predictions of what neutron star an incredibly difficult thing to find. On the plus precious elements such as silver. However, about the program, I knew he would be the Wong is one of the co-investigators on de to dazzle most of us, but to astronomers, mergers would look like as seen by normal side, we had defined a smoking-gun – you can over the ensuing days the emission became perfect student for it,” said de Pater. “Now Pater’s team. dusk and dawn are a waste of good telescopes were right!” tell that you are seeing freshly produced heavy increasingly red, a signature that the inner observing time. They want a truly dark sky. that we’ve discovered this interesting cloud elements by their distinctive red color.” That is layers of the debris cloud also contain complex in Neptune, Ned has a running GENESIS OF THE ELEMENTS PUZZLING NEW SUPERNOVA Not Ned Molter, a UC Berkeley astronomy just what astronomers observed. the heaviest elements, such as platinum, graduate student. He set out to show start on a nice paper for his Ph.D. thesis.” While hydrogen and helium were formed in gold and uranium. “Perhaps the biggest MAY BE FROM STAR the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, heavier A ‘TREACHEROUS PREDICTION’ surprise was how well-behaved the visual PRODUCING ANTIMATTER that some bright objects can be studied just as well during twilight, when other ASTRONOMERS STRIKE elements like carbon and oxygen were The August LIGO/Virgo discovery of a signal acted compared to our theoretical astronomers are twiddling their thumbs, COSMIC GOLD formed later in the cores of stars through neutron star merger meant that “judgment expectations,” Metzger noted. “No one By Robert Sanders, Media relations nuclear fusion of hydrogen and helium. But day for the theorists would come sooner November 9, 2017 and quickly discovered a new feature on had ever seen a neutron star merger up Robert Sanders, Media Relations this process can only build elements up than expected,” Kasen said. “For years the close before. Putting together the complete An exploding star that continued to shine for Neptune: A storm system nearly the size of Earth.