The Washburn Observer Volume 1, No. 1 • Spring 2011 • www.astro.wisc.edu It’s All Happening for Ryan Keenan Inside This Issue From fellowships and a postdoctoral position lectures and stargazing shows in area state to awards for research and teaching, the parks as part of the Universe in the Park Letter from the Chair 2 past year has been an exciting one for recent summer program; made presentations Please Keep in Touch 2 Astronomy Department PhD Ryan Keenan. and hosted astronomy exhibits at area elementary schools; brought telescopes to UW Spectrograph Keenan received the UW-Madison Jalisco, Mexico, in collaboration with the Commissioned on SALT 3 Exceptional Service Award for going above UW-Madison Center for Global Health; and and beyond the expectations for a teaching Science on a Shoestring 4 mentored a high school student. “It is rare to assistant in the classroom, in this case, with Shocking News about a find a scientist with both linguistic skills and astronomy outreach programs. “I have a Neutron Star 5 an interest in public outreach, but Ryan is passion for education and public outreach such a rare find,” says Jim Lattis, director of New Face of Sterling Hall 6 in astronomy,” says Keenan. “I believe the UW Space Place. it is our duty as scientists to convey our Barger Named Vilas Associate 7 knowledge to the public in words anyone Keenan was also awarded the Astronomy Bramson Works and Plays Hard 7 can understand.” Department’s inaugural Stebbins Award. The award is for an exceptional His weekly research result in the prior year, such as five-minute a big discovery or particularly important English and findings. Keenan’s research statement for Spanish “Radio the Stebbins Award begins, “Dark energy, Astronomy” if it exists, makes up roughly 75 percent of program on Madison’s community “I believe it is our duty as radio station scientists to convey our WORT informs listeners about knowledge to the public in astronomical words anyone can understand.” events and ­ ­ ­ —­Ryan­Keenan news. Keenan also regularly the total energy in the known Universe and hosts public could be considered the biggest ‘problem’ stargazing nights in astrophysics today.” He goes on to say at UW-Madison’s that while leading models of the universe Washburn invoke a large dark-energy component, some Observatory. groups have developed alternative models He has also that attribute the mysterious accelerating Ryan Keenan rock climbing at Zion National Park in Utah. presented expansion of the universe to gravitational astronomy effects due to our location relative to programs to Spanish-only audiences at the large-scale structures of galaxies. These UW Space Place as part of their Spanish- alternative models suggest that if we reside language outreach programs; done public in a relatively under-dense region of the Continued on page 2 The Washburn Observer Letter from the Chair without boundaries, friendships across our undergraduate majors and NSF- career stages, and yes, lots of parties. funded summer students from around Alas, it is the nature of academia that the country are a particular pleasure as our friends become scattered across the they discover research with us and grow universe and too often lose touch with us into young scientists. here in Madison. We very much look forward to recon- Wonderfully, things keep changing here. necting with all of you, perhaps only We are now part of three consortia oper- through this newsletter, but even better, ating optical/infrared telescopes in both with a visit the next time you are in hemispheres, and also part of a consor- Madison, or on Kitt Peak! tium planning the largest radio interfer- ometer ever built. A major instrumenta- tion group is building spectrographs for Bob Mathieu, Astronomy Department chair our telescopes. Space instrumentation continues to be a Wisconsin forté, cur- Last week a UW undergraduate and I rently most notable for our Star Tracker Bob Mathieu were at Kitt Peak and happened to run 5000 that is guiding more and more into Ron Oliverson (BA’75, Astronomy- NASA rockets and balloons. Six theoreti- Physics; MS’77, PhD’83, Physics). Ron cal faculty and senior scientists explain and I had never met, but I had a feeling all that the 12 observational faculty and “Keenan” continued from page 1 that this fellow had a connection to UW. senior scientists are seeing…until we find universe, we could witness what looks It had something to do with his Rose things that don’t fit their explanations. like an accelerating expansion of the Bowl cap, UW jacket, denim shirt with And, of course, all of us have to run to universe even when no dark energy is UW logo, and red T-shirt with Bucky keep up with the 32 graduate students present. Keenan’s dissertation work has Badger front and center. and postdocs. shown that the observed local universe We enjoyed connecting and sharing Education continues to be a cherished may, in fact, be under-dense on the scales stories of UW astronomy past, present passion—from the French majors in our required by these alternative theories. and future. And that is the best reason classrooms to the UW Space Place in After receiving his PhD in February, for our new newsletter. Around the South Madison, from the Universe in the Keenan took a Fulbright Fellowship to world, our department is known among Park program sending astronomers to spend the coming year doing research astronomers for our close community— state parks throughout Wisconsin to the and outreach at the Cerro Tololo Inter- with open doors, scientific connections high school teachers on Kitt Peak. And American Observatory (CTIO) in La Serena, Chile. The year will be spent collaborating with Dr. Roberto De Propris on studies of galaxy evolution The Washburn Observer is the alumni and work with CTIO’s outreach division newsletter of the Department of Astronomy Please Keep in Touch on Spanish-language outreach and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. education projects. 475 N. Charter St. • Madison, WI 53706 We’d like to hear from you. After Chile, Keenan has accepted a Email: [email protected] Website: www.astro.wisc.edu Please send us any news postdoctoral position at the Academia Chair of the Department of Astronomy: we can include in future Sinica Institute for Astronomy and Professor Robert Mathieu newsletters or any changes in Astrophysics in Taipei, Taiwan, starting Editor: Barbara Sanford your contact information to: in spring 2012 to do further work in Contact for gifts information: [email protected] observational cosmology. These research Robert Mathieu or UW-Madison Department collaborations in Taiwan will build [email protected] • (608) 262-8689 of Astronomy, 475 N. Charter on work that began in the summer of Christopher Glueck, UW Foundation St., Madison, WI 53706, 2010 when Keenan spent two months [email protected] • (608) 265-9952 Attn: Barb Sanford. in Taipei through the National Science Design: Wisconsin Alumni Association Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program. 2 UW Spectrograph to Be Commissioned on SALT performs, we’ll come to of magnetic fields and for three- totally understand it. Other dimensional views of things. There is scientists will benefit from also interest in high-speed, high-time knowing its strengths and resolution modes so that, for instance, how to use them, as well during an eclipse we can watch the as its quirks and how to magnetic field change a hundred times account for them.” faster than ever before and see the details of black holes and white dwarfs. UW-Madison is a principal partner in the international “The combined operating modes consortium that runs of the spectrograph are like a Swiss SALT, one of the world’s army knife with new tools that largest single optical nobody ever came up with before,” telescopes and the largest Nordsieck explains. “We will look in the Earth’s southern at things in a new way and see how hemisphere. It is located the modes interact. I’m expecting the The SALT Observatory in winter in the South African Great unexpected—something spectacular.” Karoo, an exquisitely dark Telescopes like SALT are large enough It’s an exciting time for Astronomy and dry site south of the Kalahari to peer back in time and study galaxies Department scientists Eric Hooper, desert. Using a revolutionary mounting so distant that they formed shortly Ken Nordsieck and Marsha Wolf. and guiding system, the telescope after the Big Bang. Because of its They’re working in South Africa this remains largely stationary, while the southern site, SALT also has one of the spring to place the new Robert Stobie instrument platform above the mirror best views into the closest galaxies to Spectrograph back on the Southern moves in order to track celestial objects our Milky Way, the Large and Small African Large Telescope (SALT) and across the sky. Magellanic Clouds. It is able to record commission the instrument. distant stars, galaxies and quasars a The spectrograph first went on the “I’m expecting the unexpected billion times too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, as faint as a candle telescope five years ago. However, — something spectacular.”­ more development work was needed flame at the distance of the moon. ­ ­ ­­­­­­­—­Ken­Nordsieck for both the telescope and the The construction of SALT was funded instrument. At long last, everything is by a consortium of 13 international “SALT scientists are working together coming together, including soon, light partners: National Research to look at colors of light in new ways,” from the most distant galaxies. Foundation (South Africa); University Hooper explains. “Using a part of of Wisconsin-Madison; American “This is big news for the Astronomy the instrument called a Fabry-Perot Museum of Natural History; Carnegie Department, the people and tunable narrow band filter to finely Mellon University; Dartmouth College; government of South Africa, and the sub-divide the rainbow of the incoming Rutgers University; University consortium of 13 U.S.