Live from AAS 2018: The Latest News from NASA Astrophysics
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Science Briefing
January 11, 2018
Dr. Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez (SOFIA Science Center)
Live from AAS 2018: Dr. Francisco Muller-Sanchez (CU-Boulder)
Dr. Geert Barentsen (NASA Ames)
The Latest News from
NASA Astrophysics Facilitators: Dr. Brandon Lawton (STScI)
James Manning (UoL)
Additional Resources
http://nasawavelength.org/list/2005
Exhibits/Multimedia:
ViewSpace – New Interactive Explorations of Multiwavelength Observations
Visualization: New Orion Visible/IR Fly-Through
Universe Unplugged: New Celebrity Videos
Immersive Experiences:
Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant – New Simulation and 360 Degree Video
360 Degree Video: New Visualization of the Galactic Center
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Black Hole Double Burp
new burp
old burp
Francisco Muller Sanchez
University of Colorado, Boulder
Additional authors:
Julie Comerford, Scott Barrows, Rebecca Nevin, Jenny Greene, 10
David Pooley, Daniel Stern, Fiona HarrisonWhen Black Holes Burp
When a supermassive black hole feeds, it also expels energy in
the form of a “burp”
Supermassive black hole = found at the center of a galaxy,
weighs a million to a billion times the Sun
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Black Hole Double BurpWhen Black Holes Burp
When a supermassive black hole feeds, it also expels energy in
the form of a “burp”
Supermassive black hole = found at the center of a galaxy,
weighs a million to a billion times the Sun
12
Black Hole Double BurpOur Discovery: A Double Burp
We discovered a black hole with two
burps in the galaxy SDSS J1354+1327, new burp:
extends
located 800 million lightyears away 3,000
lightyears
black hole
old burp:
This image shows data from the extends
30,000
Hubble Space Telescope and lightyears
Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink)
Black Hole Double Burp 13A Galactic Food Coma
The new burp is moving like a shock
wave, similar to a sonic boom new burp:
extends
3,000
lightyears
black hole
100,000 years between the two burps old burp:
extends
30,000
lightyears
This black hole feasted, burped, and
napped, then feasted and burped
again
Black Hole Double Burp 14Why Is This Important?
Theory predicts that black holes flicker on and off when they
eat separate meals
This galaxy is the strongest evidence that black holes do
flicker on timescales much shorter than the age of the
Universe (14 billion years)
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Black Hole Double BurpSimulations: Observations:
new burp
new burp
old burp
old burp
Gabor & Bournaud 2013, 2014
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Black Hole Double BurpWhy Are There Two Burps?
Because the black hole had two
separate feasts
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Black Hole Double BurpWhy Are There Two Burps?
Because the black hole had two
separate feasts
A collision between J1354 and
another galaxy (40,000 lightyears
away) caused material to swirl
towards J1354’s black hole
This material was eaten as two
separate snacks, leading to two
burps
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Black Hole Double BurpWhy Did We Find the Double Burp?
When we looked at the spectrum of light from J1354, we saw that
the velocity of gas associated with the black hole was 160,000
mph different than the velocity of everything else in the galaxy
Got more observations to find out why
The 160,000 mph gas was coming from the shock wave from the
new burp, and we were lucky to still see the old burp before it
fades away
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Black Hole Double BurpA Burp Closer to Home
Another team found that our
Milky Way’s supermassive
black hole had a single burp
millions of years ago
Right now our Galaxy’s black
hole is napping, but maybe it
will feast and burp again! see Su, Slatyer, & Finkbeiner 2010
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Black Hole Double BurpA Near-Resonant Chain of Five
Sub-Neptune Planets Found by
Citizen Scientists
Geert Barentsen • NASA Kepler/K2
Jessie Christiansen • Caltech/IPAC-NExScI
Geert.Barentsen@nasa.gov
@GeertHub 21Problem: The NASA K2 mission is too successful!
K2 uses the Kepler spacecraft to look for exoplanets
Every 3 months K2 releases ~100 million new
observations, which need to be calibrated, cleaned up,
and searched for signatures of planets
Then potential planet signals need to be examined to find
the best candidates
Then those candidates need to be confirmed or rejected
as real planets via extensive additional observations…
... astronomers are swamped!
22Solution: Citizen scientists!
is a public platform for hosting citizen science projects
We made exoplanetexplorers.org
to get help examining
candidates
(PI Ian Crossfield)
23Solution: Citizen scientists!
is a public platform for hosting citizen science projects
We made exoplanetexplorers.org to
get help examining candidates
The project was launched by
Stargazing Live (BBC/ABC) on
live, prime-time television
24Solution: Citizen scientists!
is a public platform for hosting citizen science projects
We made exoplanetexplorers.org to
get help examining candidates
The project was launched by Stargazing
Live (BBC/ABC) on live, prime-time
television
In 48 hours, … and found
10,000 volunteers
made 2 million over 180 new
classifications… planet
candidates! 25Solution: Citizen scientists!
is a public platform for hosting citizen science projects
We made exoplanetexplorers.org to
get help examining candidates
The project was launched by Stargazing
Live (BBC/ABC) on live, prime-time
television
In 48 hours, … and found
10,000 volunteers
made 2 million ✘✘✘✘ ✘✘✘✘ ✘✘✘✘ over 180 new
✘✘✘✘✘ ✘✘✘✘✘ ✘✘✘✘✘
classifications… ✘✘✘ ✘✘✘ ✘✘✘
planet
candidates! 26Introducing K2-138 A very compact system of (at least!) five sub-Neptune planets 27
Introducing K2-138
Each year = 12.5 days
Each year = 2.5 days
A very compact system of (at least!)
five sub-Neptune planets 28A Special Spacing…
3:2 (1.5)
29A Special Spacing…
3:2 (1.5) 1.513
30A Special Spacing…
3:2 (1.5) 1.513 1.518
31A Special Spacing…
3:2 (1.5) 1.513 1.518 1.528
32A Special Spacing…
3:2 (1.5) 1.513 1.518 1.528 1.544
33A Special Spacing…
K2-138 has the
longest chain
3:2 (1.5) 1.513 1.518 1.528 1.544
found close to
this type of
fundamental
resonance
These resonant
chains give us
important clues
as to how
planets form and
migrate
34The Music of the Spheres
3:2 (1.5) 1.513 1.518 1.528 1.544
35The Music of the Spheres
3:2 (1.5) 1.513 1.518 1.528 1.544
36“greater
The Music of the Spheres imperfect
fifth”
3:2 (1.5) 1.513 1.518 1.528 1.544
37Summary
Citizen scientists using exoplanetexplorers.org discover a
near-resonant chain of five sub-Neptunes
K2-138, like TRAPPIST-1, may represent a pristine chain
of resonances indicative of slow, inward disk migration
Kepler data will continue to yield discoveries for years to
come. We are uploading three new batches of potential
planet signals to exoplanetexplorers.org today!
38ViewSpace
https://viewspace.org/
New Interactive Features
39Visualization: New Orion Fly-through
http://hubblesite.org/video/1003/science
40Universe Unplugged: Celebrity Videos
https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/outreach/project/universe-unplugged
41Simulation: Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant
http://smithsonianeducation.org/interactives/cassiopeia/index.html
42Visualization: An Immersive Tour of the Galactic Center
https://youtu.be/YKzxmeABbkU
43Links to science press releases at:
aas.org/meetings/aas231/press-kit
Some Sloan Digital Sky Survey-based results:
• Robert Wilson – Iron-rich stars host short-period (“hot”) planets.
• Catherine Grier – Using “reverberation mapping” to measure masses of
supermassive black holes in AGNs.
• Karen Masters – Finding evidence of supermassive black holes even in
some dwarf galaxies.
Dennis Bodewits – Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak dramatically
slowed its rotation probably due to jets.
Jay Lockman – Hot, small hydrogen clouds detected in Fermi Bubbles.
Christopher Russell – Immersive visualization of galactic center from
perspective of Sgr A.
Renske Smit – “Whirpool” motion detected a two galaxies 800 M years
after Big Bang, suggesting some of the earliest galaxies “matured” quickly.
44Links to science press releases at:
aas.org/meetings/aas231/press-kit
Keith Gendreau – ISS-stationed NICER X-ray instrument
successfully demonstrated the concept of using millisecond
pulsars as deep space navigation beacons, triangulating its
position to within 10 km.
William Clarkson – Used HST archival data to chart proper
motions of Galactic Bulge sun-like stars – found metal-rich
populations moving differently (faster) than metal-poor stars.
Julie Comerford – Found a galaxy whose central black hole shows
a “double burp” of high-energy particles from separate episodes
of “feasting”—showing that black holes “flicker” on and off in this
way on relatively short times scales.
Brett Salmon – Used gravitational lensing to find a small,
“embryonic” galaxy formed just 500 million years after the Big
Bang.
45Fast Radio Burst 121102:
Betsy Adams, Andrew Seymour, Vishal Gajjar, Daniele Michilli, Jason
Hessels
• Presently unique FRB in that it repeats.
• Located 3 billion LY away, in star-forming region of a dwarf galaxy.
• Associated with a persistent radio source.
• Radio signal has structure.
• Emission region is less than
10 km across (neutron star?).
• Exists in an extreme magnetic
environment.
• Possible models: neutron star
near massive black hole, or in a
very bright nebula.
46Adam Reiss: Do new measurements of the expansion rate of
the universe suggest evidence for new physics?
arxiv.org/abs/1604.01424
• Refined parallax measurements of nearby Cepheid variables using
HST; used the results to refine the “distance ladder” to reduce the
error bars in the measurement of the “local” Hubble Constant to
2.4%. (73.2 km/sec/Mpc)
• Continued difference with the Planck-derived number from the
early universe. (66.9 km/sec/Mpc)
• Is this evidence for a difference in the physics of the early universe
compared to the later?
• Shooting for a 1% error level in the future to constrain the
cosmological model. 47To ensure we meet the needs of the education community (you!), NASA’s UoL is committed
to performing regular evaluations, to determine the effectiveness of Professional Learning
opportunities like the Science Briefings.
If you prefer not to participate in the evaluation process, you can opt out by contacting
Kay Ferrari .
This product is based upon work supported by NASA under award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute,
working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Sonoma State
University.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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