NRAO Newsletter
Volume Vol#, Issue Iss#
Day# Month# Year#
NRAO Newsletter
Volume Vol#, Issue Iss# • Day# Month# Year#
The VLA Transporter under the New Mexico night skies, responsible for doing the heavy lifting and moving the antennas into different configurations. Photo by Jeff Hellerman (NRAO/AUI/NSF).
Upcoming Events
IAU General Assembly XXXII
August 6 - 15, 2024 | Cape Town, South Africa
NRDZ Partnership and Workshop Series
Sept 9-11, 2024 | Green Bank, West Virginia
Follow the Monarchs: A Journey to Explore the Cosmos at (Sub)milliarcsecond Scales with the ngVLA
Nov 11-14, 2024 | Morelia, Mexico
NRAO Call for Proposals: Semester 2025A
Photo by Bettymaya Foott.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) invites scientists to participate in the Semester 2025A Call for Proposals for the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), High Sensitivity Array (HSA), and Global mm VLBI Array (GMVA).
The submission deadline for Semester 2025A proposals is Wednesday, 31 July 2024, at 17:00 EDT (21:00 UTC).
For the VLA, the D and C-configurations will be available. It is anticipated there will be around 2910 hours on the VLA and 570 hours on the VLBA available for science observing. Opportunities for Joint proposals will be available for ALMA, JWST, HST, Swift, Chandra, XMM-Newton, and NICER. Joint Proposals with ALMA or JWST need to be submitted to the facility requesting the larger amount of observing time. The array configurations available for joint ALMA/VLA will be: ALMA C-1 to C-10 and VLA D and C configurations. The NRAO 2025A Call for Proposals is for observations with the VLA and VLBA/HSA/GMVA; the corresponding call for the GBT can be found at the GBO Call for Proposals.
Visit the Call for Proposals website to learn more.
Girls Exploring the Universe
The Girls Exploring the Universe (GETU) camp has wrapped up a wonderful 2024 summer camp! The theme of this year's camp was light and information. Campers explored radio and optical observing processes and how light can be dissected to learn about distant objects in the universe. This year, the camp also included a visit to the Green Bank Observatory!
Since its start in 2016, GETU has engaged over 140 middle schoolers in hands-on astronomy activities to nurture an interest in STEM at a crucial age, to demonstrate how astronomers learn about the universe, and to highlight astronomy careers outside of traditional academia. It is able to provide a completely free program through funding provided by the Heidi Winter Fund (University of Virginia's Astronomy Department) and through a National Science Foundation grant. The program is co-led by Dr. Allison Costa (NRAO) and Dr. Ilse Cleeves (University of Virginia) and made possible by the many incredible volunteers. For more information about GETU and future camps, see the program website.
The ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) - News
Photo Credit: Pablo Carrillo (ALMA)
WSU Correlator and Correlator Room Preliminary Design Reviews Passed
A major milestone for the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) initiative was achieved in mid-June with successful Preliminary Design Reviews (PDRs) for the new correlator (ATAC) and OSF Correlator Room (OCRO).
The two PDRs were held back-to-back the week of June 10, 2024 in Charlottesville. The separate PDR panels were made up of external members of the community. PDRs are an important step in the lifecycle of development projects and examine whether requirements and external interfaces are identified, that the proposed baseline design meets these requirements, that risks are identified and mitigated, and that the project is ready to proceed to the detailed (critical) design phase. Both projects met these criteria with no significant issues identified and with a recommendation that they both proceed to the Critical Design phase.
The Advanced Technology ALMA Correlator (ATAC) is a collaboration between the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the NRAO. ATAC will initially be able to ingest 4x the current ALMA System bandwidth (32 GHz per polarization), and from user defined selection, further process up to 2x the current bandwidth (16 GHz per polarization). The processing hardware can be readily expanded to the full 4x bandwidth in a future upgrade. ATAC will provide:
- A spectral resolution of 0.1 km/s for at least 16 GHz per polarization of bandwidth at any ALMA frequency (requiring up to 1.2 million full polarization channels at 35 GHz)
- Up to 80 independent Spectral windows
- Flexible subarray capabilities to process concurrent independent observations with both the 7m- and 12m-arrays
- Increased digital sensitivity by a factor of 1.13 compared to the Baseline Correlator
- VLBI beam-forming capability with concurrent visibilities
- A stand-alone Hardware in the Loop Simulation Environment for integrated test purposes, the use of which can save significant science observing time during each Cycle.
ATAC will be located at the OSF Technical Building at 2,900m for reasons of power efficiency, ease of operations and maintenance, and to allow it to be commissioned without interference with the operation of the Baseline Correlator, located at the Array Operations (High) Site at 5,000m elevation.
The OSF Correlator Room (OCRO) is being built to house ATAC. It is designed to meet the power and cooling requirements (including direct-contact liquid cooling) for both ATAC and the Total Power GPU Spectrometer (TPGS), as well as the receiving end of the Data Transmission System (DTS), both to be provided by the East Asian Executive. OCRO infrastructure meets all specifications for the future 4x bandwidth version of ATAC, and includes fire suppression, cleanliness standards, and an uninterruptible power supply.
The successful conclusion of these two PDRs marks a major advance for the WSU program. As next steps for the WSU, a delta Systems Requirement and Initial Program Plan review for the overall WSU is scheduled for mid-July in Santiago. Several other subsystems also plan their PDRs later this year.
Ken Kellermann named 2024 Jansky Lecturer
The NRAO is pleased to award the 2024 Karl G. Jansky Lectureship to Dr. Kenneth Kellermann, Senior Scientist, Emeritus at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The Jansky Lectureship is an honor established by the trustees of AUI to recognize and celebrate outstanding contributions to the advancement of radio astronomy.
Ken earned his S.B. in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959 and his Ph.D. in physics and astronomy at the California Institute of Technology under John Bolton in 1963, studying the radio spectra of galactic and extragalactic radio sources. He joined the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in 1965. He has served as NRAO's Acting Assistant Director for Green Bank Operations, as Chief Scientist, and as head of its New Initiatives Office.
Ken's studies of radio galaxies, quasars, and cosmology cover more than a half-century of research. His collaborations with scientists and radio telescope facilities around the world in the development of Very Long Baseline Interferometry resulted in the construction of NRAO's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) in 1993. The unprecedented angular resolution, surpassing that of optical telescopes, has led to many discoveries in both galactic and extragalactic science as well as a variety of terrestrial phenomena. The fundamental text Galactic and Extragalactic Radio Astronomy, edited by Verschuur and Kellermann, has been used for decades by many researchers and students in the field.
Ken is the co-author of Open Skies: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Its Impact on US Radio Astronomy with Ellen Bouton and Sierra Brandt. This open access book on the history of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory covers the scientific discoveries and technical innovations of late 20th century radio astronomy with particular attention to the people and institutions involved.
More recently his book with Ellen Bouton, Star Noise: Discovering the Radio Universe, tells the fascinating story of the remarkable, mostly accidental, or serendipitous discoveries in radio astronomy that have transformed our view of the Universe. Star Noise is about the men and women who made the discoveries, the circumstances that enabled them, and the unanticipated ways that scientific research really works.
Ken won the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society in 1971, the Benjamin Apthorp Gould Prize of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 2014. He is a member of the AAS, IAU, URSI, the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The public lecture dates will be announced soon.
NRAO/GBO at AAS 244 in Madison, Wisconsin
Photos from the upper left, clockwise: (1) Juergen Ott talks about CARTA to the crowd at AAS; (2) NRAO Director Tony Beasley and Juergen Ott discuss NRAO with AAS Executive Officer Kevin Marvel; (3) Wisconsin graduate student Estephani Torresvillanueva shows her work with ALMA and the AGE-PRO Collaboration; (4) Valarie Bogan and Anja Fourie share the SuperKnova e-learning system with the AAS membership; (5,6) Jay Frothingham from Green Bank talks about opportunities to attendees.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatory took part in the exhibition of the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, June 9-13, 2024.
Attendees engaged with observatory staff about our facilities, scientific research, and opportunities for students. The membership learned about the next generation Very Large Array and ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU).
Sessions were held about about the CARTA software package with a talk and poster by Juergen Ott, and STEM E-Learning with SuperKnova with Valarie Bogan and Anja Fourie.
IEEE International Microwave Symposium 2024 in Washington, DC
Photos from the upper left, clockwise: (1,2) Matt Morgan discusses CDL and feed horn technology with graduate students and conference attendees; (3) Bill Shillue talks to undergraduate students about NRAO; (4) Priyanka Mondal and Jim Muehlberg show an orthomode transducer to vendors; (5) The annual IMS conference in the Washington, DC convention center; (6) Jeff Pixton talks about NRAO Technology Transfer; (7) Mathias Mereles discusses ALMA and ngVLA with meeting attendees; (8) Brian Kent talks to local Washington, DC high school students about radio astronomy and STEM.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory Central Development Laboratory took part in the exhibition of the 2024 IEEE International Microwave Symposium in Washington, DC, June 17-21, 2024.
7,800 attendees engaged with observatory staff about our facilities, engineering development, and opportunities for students. The membership learned about CDL research, instrumentation for ngVLA, and new microwave developments for radio telescopes. The NRAO-CDL exhibition was one of 550 vendors in the Convention Center.
NRAO Scientist Marian Pospieszalski was awarded the 2024 Microwave Pioneer Award at the conference (photo at left). The Microwave Pioneer Award recognizes an individual or team for outstanding and pioneering technical contributions that advanced microwave theory and techniques.
Observatory staff also talked with local Washington, DC high school students about STEM careers in science and engineering at a special session from IEEE.
ngVLA Project News
Progress at the NSF
In 2023 July the US National Science Foundation (NSF) entered the ngVLA project into the design process for Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC). The ngVLA project is continuing its preparations for the NSF-run Conceptual Design Review, scheduled for September 2024.
Follow the Monarchs: A Journey to Explore the Cosmos at (Sub)milliarcsecond Scales with the ngVLA
This ngVLA international science conference will be held November 11-14 in person in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Morelia, Mexico. The conference will highlight and explore the novel scientific opportunities that will unfold with the unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity capabilities offered by this new flagship facility. The conference will coincide with the Monarch butterflies completing their migration journey from Canada and the US to the mountains surrounding Morelia. Abstract submission for oral presentations closes July 8th, and early registration is available until September 1st. Both abstract submission and registration are now open.
ngVLA Science - Formation Channels of Neutron Star Subsets
Left: Cumulative fraction of the transverse velocities of 8 isolated magnetars, compared against that of young pulsars. Credit: Ding et al. (2024b)
So far, thousands of neutron stars (NSs) have been discovered in our galaxy. Given many associations between NSs and supernova remnants, at least a fraction of Galactic NSs are born in core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), where NSs are given large natal kicks at their birth due to asymmetric CCSNe. However, this is far from the whole story.
Due to distinct formation channels, different NS subsets tend to display divergent kinematic behaviours. This can sometimes be attributed to binary evolution. For example, recycled pulsars in binary systems, including partially recycled double neutron stars (DNSs) and fully recycled millisecond pulsars (MSPs), are known to have smaller peculiar velocities, as otherwise the binaries would be distorted or disbanded. On the other hand, the standard scenario of CCSNe+binary evolution is insufficient to explain overabundant MSPs found within globular clusters or at the Galactic Center, which expect near-zero natal kicks. In this regard, MSPs likely have alternative formation channels. Other NS sub-populations, like DNSs and the high-magnetic field objects known as magnetars, may also deviate from the dominant formation channels seen in the overall population.
By establishing the velocity distribution of a NS subset, the formation mechanism of the subset can be investigated. This prospect has been recently explored with VLBA astrometry of MSPs (Ding et al. 2023), DNSs (Ding et al. 2024a) and magnetars (Ding et al. 2024b).
Currently, the scientific prospect is mainly limited by the small astrometrically studied samples of MSPs, DNSs or magnetars, as is shown by the simulations in Ding et al. (2024a; 2024b, see figure). A major bottleneck of the research is that these NS subsets are relatively faint (usually sub-mJy), limiting the number of sources astrometrically measurable with VLBA or other interferometers. With immense sensitivity and optimal sky coverage, the ngVLA will significantly upscale the astrometry of MSPs, DNSs and magnetars, thus probing their formation channels with velocity distributions characterized to unprecedented details.
Since 2015 the acronym ngVLA has appeared in 1150+ publications indexed in the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System. This article continues a regular feature intended to showcase some of those publications. We are especially interested in showcasing work done by early-career researchers. The collection of showcase articles can be viewed online. Anyone wishing to volunteer to author a feature should contact Joan Wrobel.
ALMA Program News
Image Credit - Pablo Carrillo (ALMA)
ALMA Observing Status
The array continues Cycle 10 observations; ALMA moved to configuration C-6 which provides a ~0.15" beam at 1.3mm on 2500m baselines, before moving to more compact configurations to finish out Cycle 10. Although atmospheric water vapor varies, it is best during altiplanic winter months; daytime highs are generally below freezing during altiplanic winter and dry westerly winds prevail.
The June 20 deadline for Stage 2 submission of ranks and reviews for the ALMA Cycle 11 distributed peer review process has passed. For more information on Stage 2 of the ALMA Cycle 11 distributed peer review process please visit ALMA Distributed Peer Review. After the completion of Stage 2, the ranks of the individual reviewers are combined to form an overall ranked list of proposals. For a given proposal, the highest and lowest ranks from the assigned ranks will be dropped in order to remove possible outliers. The remaining ranks will be averaged. The average ranks for all proposals will then be sorted to determine the overall ranked list. Results are expected to be distributed to PIs in early August.
ALMA News
New science opportunities enabled by the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade (WSU) were discussed at the recent ISSTT Meeting in Charlottesville. The full program with slides and recordings will be opened to the public in June. A meeting on Spatio-spectral Modeling of Interferometric Data: Preparing for the Wideband Era was held in Charlottesville at the end of May. Both meetings were supported by the NAASC.
Upcoming Meetings
- September 24-27, 2024: Born in Fire: Eruptive Stars and Planet Formation, Santiago, Chile - NAASC sponsored
Recent Science Media Releases
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Supermassive Black Hole Appears to Grow Like a Baby Star
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Engineers Descend upon DC for International Microwave Symposium, NRAO Exhibits, and Scientist Receives Pioneer Award |
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It's Twins! Astronomers Discover Parallel Disks and Jets Erupting From a Pair of Young Stars |
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ALMA Observations Reveal New Insights into Planet Formation in Binary Star Systems |
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Invisible Realms Revealed: Radio Technology Expands Frontiers of Astronomy and Medicine |
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Contact the NRAO press office to share your new and exciting science results. |
From the Archives
Ellen Bouton
About this month's photo: The computer room at the VLA site in April 1977. Jim Torson is at the main console of the DEC-10, while Jon Spargo mounts a tape. Note the phone that came with the computer, built into the console so the operator could easily call for help. Barry Clark recalls that "Two or maybe three of the 36" wide racks held the main memory, I think at 1 M 36 bit words each (4.5 megabytes)." First fringes with the VLA as a 4-element interferometer were obtained on 18 October 1976, and in April 1977 data came from nine different programs of scientific observations, each using six antennas.
From the Archives is an ongoing series illustrating NRAO and U.S. radio astronomy history via images selected from our collections of individuals' and institutional papers. If readers have images they believe would be of interest to the Archives, please contact Ellen Bouton.
