Courtesy APOD

News 16/10/2009

Stephan's Quintet: Building galaxy groups through cosmic collisions

Most galaxies reside in small groups, typically consisting of a handful of spirals, each containing cold gas which over time forms stars. However, in more massive groups and galaxy clusters, we observe more evolved elliptical and lenticular galaxies which contain little cold gas but which are embedded in extensive haloes of ten-million degree hot gas. While it is widely accepted that both galaxies and groups grow through mergers, it is unclear what happens to the cold gas in galaxies and how the hot gas halo is formed as groups evolve.

The combined Chandra X-ray/CFHT optical image above shows Stephan's Quintet, a galaxy group in the process of developing a hot halo. Four of the group member galaxies are visible in the image (three spiral and one elliptical) as well as the foreground spiral galaxy NGC 7317, on the lower left. The curved light blue ridge running down the centre of the image is X-ray emission from a filament of gas that has been tidally stripped out of the galaxies and heated by a shock wave driven by the spiral galaxy NGC 7318b, which has collided with the filament at a velocity of over three million kilometers per hour. The group also contains a larger halo of hot X-ray emitting gas (not visible in this image) whose mass matches estimates of the mass of cold gas missing from the galaxies. This suggests that most or all of the hot gas may have been produced through heating of cold gas during galaxy collisions and interactions, something of a departure from the current theories of group evolution.

Dr. Ewan O'Sullivan, who has recently joined the Astrophysics and Space Research group, will be working with Dr. Somak Raychaudhury to follow up this discovery with X-ray and radio observations of other evolving groups. For further information see this Chandra article or the published paper.

News 11/09/2009

Travel through space with Lucy Hawking

The next talk in the Tea, Talk and Telescope series will take place on Wednesday 7th October at 6.30pm (with coffee and tea at 6pm) in the Large Lecture Theatre of the Poynting Physics building of the University of Birmingham. The talk is "Travel through space with Lucy Hawking - George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt" and is rescheduled from the May event.

This event is FREE for all.

"Explore the wonders of the Universe with author Lucy Hawking as she presents a young person's guide through the galaxy! Lucy will be talking about her latest book, `George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt,' the follow-up to the brilliant 'George's secret key to the universe'. Discover the mysteries of physics, science and the universe with George, his new friends next door - the scientist Eric and his daughter, Annie - and a super-intelligent computer known as Cosmos, which can take them to the edge of a black hole and back again."

For information and directions please see our talks page

News 04/08/2009

University of Birmingham Observatory 25th Anniversary

This year the University of Birmingham Observatory is celebrating its 25th year of full operation. The facility opened in 1984 by the then Astronomer Royal Prof. F.G. Smith and has been used by over 300 undergraduate students for research projects. It has been very succesful in enagaging astronomy with the general public. The Observatory was upgraded in 2006, to add a Meade LX200R 14 with an SBIG STL-1001E CCD (1024x1024 pixel) for direct imaging. The main instrument is a computer controlled 0.4m Cassegrain, which is now used exclusively for CCD spectroscopy. The observatory is scheduled every weekday night in term time. The observatory is used by third year students from October to February. Here students work in groups of four and undertake an observing project designed by themselves. Students have access to the observatory for second year project work in February to April. The telescope has also been used to take images of the fantastic objects in the night sky and a selection of these can be found in the observatory image gallery.

News 14/07/2009

Bumper crop of Astrophysics PhD graduates

At this year's degree ceremony in the Great Hall on July 13th, no fewer than four of our talented postgraduate students were awarded their doctorate degrees by the vice-chancellor Prof. David Eastwood. Seen here (from left to right) in their Birmingham PhD robes are Dr. Samuel George, Dr. Aliakbar Dariush, Prof. Trevor Ponman (Head of the Astrophysics and Space Research Group - also a Birmingham PhD), Dr. Ria Johnson and Dr. Emma Robinson. Between them their research ranges from exoplanets to galaxy groups and gravitational wave detection. Ali and Emma are now doing postdoctoral research at Cardiff and Potsdam, whilst Sam is about to move to Calgary, and Ria is taking up a staff position at the Office for National Statistics.

News 26/06/2009

First light for WiFeS!

What physical processes cause actively star-forming spiral galaxies to lose their gas supply, stop forming new stars and transform into red, dead elliptical galaxies when they encounter the dense environments of massive galaxy clusters ?

Does the "wind" infalling galaxies feel as they pass through the hot, dense intra-cluster medium at >1000km/s strip away all the gas required for forming new stars ?

The University of Birmingham, in collaboration with the University of Durham, the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy, and the Australian National University have recently started a new long-term EU-funded programme called ACCESS, to obtain integral-field unit spectroscopy of >100 galaxies within the Shapley supercluster, the most massive and dynamically-active structure in the local Universe. We are using WiFeS, a new state-of-the-art instrument on the ANU 2.3-m telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, which is able to split the light from a galaxy into ~1000 1"x1" sized "pixels", and obtain the spectrum of each "pixel" over the full optical waverange. This allows us to map to great precision the internal kinematics of the galaxy, or to map the formation of new stars, the ages and chemical abundances of existing stellar populations, or the levels of dust extinction across the full extent of the galaxy.

The image (courtesy of Gianni Busarello of OAC-Naples) shows the velocity map of one of the first galaxies observed in April, as measured through the H-alpha emission-line, which traces new star-formation. Red colours indicate regions of the galaxy moving away from us, and blue colours indicate regions moving towards us, showing clearly the overall coherent rotation of the galaxy as would be expected from its spiral morphology.

The level of detail is exquisite, and in future these images will allow us to identify if galaxies have been disturbed by tidal interactions with other galaxies, or are undergoing ram-pressure stripping, which acts to strip gas and quench star-formation, starting from the outer edge of the galaxy and working inwards to a certain point at which the galaxy is sufficiently dense to retain its gas. By observing a large sample of galaxies in various stages of transformation, we will be able to distinguish among the possible pathways of evolution from gas-rich infalling spiral to gas-poor cluster elliptical.

News 22/05/2009

Journeying towards the Centre of Gravity

Professor Clive Speake (Professor of Experimental Physics) will give his inaugural lecture onThursday, 28th May 2009

All are welcome to attend.

Starts: 28 May 2009
Start Time: 5.15pm
Venue: Poynting Physics Large Lecture Theatre
Contact: RSVP to Karen Wright Email: k.r.wright [at] bham.ac.uk

Since the time of Newton physics has enjoyed steady progress towards a deepening understanding of the forces that are known to be at work in the Universe. However this progress is now being threatened by the problem of finding and experimentally verifying a fundamental theory of gravity at very small distance scales.

In my lecture I will briefly review the problem of unifying gravitation with the other known forces and I will describe some experiments that can be performed that may help us to address this problem.

I will describe the experimental work underway in Birmingham and the technological developments that very much carry on the tradition started by J.H.Poynting in the 19th century.

News 31/03/2009

AIGO, GEO600, LIGO, TAMA and Virgo participate in ESO’s "Around the World in 80 Telescopes"

"Around the World in 80 Telescopes" is a live 24-hour webcast organized by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) as part of "100 hours of Astronomy" celebrations to mark the International Year of Astronomy 2009. This unique webcast will visit, by night and by day, some of the most advanced astronomical observatories around the globe - including the worldwide network of gravitational wave observatories and AIGO the Australian prototype gravitational wave detector. With these giant laser interferometers, researchers monitor the universe in the unique spectrum of gravitational waves - for the first time, they are "listening" to the universe and will discover unknown and distant regions. By observing gravitational waves (tiny ripples in space-time) we will gain unique insights into black holes, neutron stars and the Big Bang.

During the webcast on-site researchers at each gravitational wave observatory will explain how they are listening to the universe and introduce you to the very sophisticated technology that is needed to measure tiny gravitational wave signals: vacuum tubes, high powered lasers, mirror suspensions, absorption free optics, laser stabilization, noise reduction etc.

The webcast : 3 April 2009, 9:00 UT (Universal Time/GMT) to 4 April 2009, 09:00 UT

Stations of the tour through gravitational wave observatories and further information:

• GEO600: April 3rd, 12:20 UT, British-German project near Hanover, Germany.
• Virgo: April 3rd, 16:20 UT, Dutch-French-Italian Virgo project near Pisa, Italy.
• LIGO: April 3rd, 20:00 UT, US project in Hanford/Washington and Livingston/Louisiana.
• AIGO: April 4, 01:20 UT, Australian project in Gingin.
• TAMA: April 4, 06:00 UT, Japanese project in Tokyo.

News 10/03/2009

University of Birmingham Π Day: Understanding the Mathematics of the Universe

Pi Day is currently planned to run from 10:00 am to 5:15 pm on Saturday 14th of March 2009. Entrance and all activities are free, but due to limits on numbers certain workshops will be on a first-come-first served basis. We hope to see you there!

This event is part of the National Science and Engineering Week events at the University of Birmingham.

Space, the Final Frontier as many would say, is a spectacular place. The Universe is teeming with objects so awe inspiring in nature that perhaps one can not help but feel a little dwarfed by them. Yet this does not daunt many of those who study the Universe, trying to understand its many facets: from where it came from, to how it will die and everything in between. One of the most eminent figures from the twentieth century in this quest was Albert Einstein, who's work on gravity laid the foundations for much of what would follow in the following decades and beyond.

Given that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, the University of Birmingham's Astronomical Society feel that it is important to understand the role that mathematics plays in the Universe and there is no better day than on Pi Day to do this. Pi Day is the celebration of the irrational number which represents the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space. The symbol for pi was first used in 1706 by William Jones, but was popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737.

This event will feature many activities hands on activities such as rocket launching, Mars Rover building and how to build your own sextant. There will be a number of mathematics sessions, including code breaking and the shape of the Universe. The will be a chance to explore the night sky in a mobile planetarium. There are also a number of talks planned for the day. In the morning we will explore the Universe with Samuel George talking about the hunt for extraterrestrial life in "Is Anybody Out There?" and Ria Johnson looking at galaxies, far, far away in "How to build a Universe". In the afternoon we will explore the mathematics of the Universe with Dr Chris Sangwin who will be giving the afternoon talk on Pi, in "How Round is your Circle?". There will be a raffle and a number of exhibitions stands which will includes local societies and retail stalls giving you the opportunity to follow-up your interest.

For more information see the Pi Day webpages

News 06/03/2009

Poetry of the Night: A marvellous union between science and literature - 13th Patrick Moore Lecture

On October 2, 1605, Londoners were treated to an almost total eclipse of the Sun at around the same time that Shakespeare's King Lear was exploring humanity's relation to the cosmos. "These Late Eclipses in the Sun and Moon" (a passage from the play) begins a sophisticated discussion of that relation, based on real events in the night sky. This is just one example of the richness of astronomical allusions in English Literature that will be explored in this presentation.

The 13th "Patrick Moore" lecture is to take place on the 9th March at 7:30pm. The talk will be by David H. Levy, American comet discoverer (remember Shoemaker-Levy-9 that crashed into Jupiter a few years ago?) and author. David Levy is the host of a very popular radio show on Arizona Public radio. The talk starts at 7:30pm in the Poynting Physics Large Lecture Theatre (S02). Snacks and tea in the Study lounge from 7pm before the talk.

For more information and directions please see our talks page.

News 05/02/2009

The GEO600 gravitational wave detector tests holographic Universe

Can GEO600 hear the quantum noise of spacetime? Are we living in a holographic Universe? Are space and time grainy? Is there quantum noise in spacetime? American physicist Craig Hogan is convinced that he has found proof in the data of the German-British gravitational wave detector GEO600 and that his ideas could explain mysterious noise in the detector data that has not been explained so far. New experiments in the coming months will yield more evidence about Craig Hogan's assumptions.

To test the Theory of holographic noise , scientists from Hannover and Birmingham will shift the frequency of GEO600's maximum sensitivity towars higher frequencies. The frequency of maximum sensitivity is the tone that the detector can hear best. It is normally adjusted to offer the best chance for hearing exploding stars or merging black holes. If Craig Hogan is right the sensitivity of GEO600 would be limited at all frequencies by the same level of holographic noise. Even if it turns out that the mysterious noise is the same at high frequencies as at the lower ones, this will not constitute proof for Hogan's hypothesis. It would, however, provide a strong motivation for further study. Over the next year the sensitivity of GEO600 will be significantly improved by using 'squeezed vacuum' and by the installation of a mode filter in a new vacuum chamber.

News 30/01/2009

The University of Birmingham has joined the LOFAR-UK consortium

The University of Birmingham has joined the consortium for LOFAR-UK, which is a 'next generation' radio telescope under construction in Europe, operating in the 30-240 MHz frequency range. This radio array, with its headquarters in the Netherlands, but with antennae spread all over Western Europe, including the UK, will have an unprecedented field of view and multiple beams, and will open up a completely new phase of radioastronomy. It is the only fully-funded pathfinder for the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array. Initially, LOFAR will work on five keys projects:

• Deep Extragalactic Surveys
• Transient Sources
• Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays
• Pulsars
• The Epoch of Reionisation

Birmingham astrophysicists will be involved in the first two key projects.

News 14/11/2008

Mirror images, antimatter and time reversal - 12th Patrick Moore Lecture

In our next public talk we take a step away from the large scale astrophysics and take a detailed look at how the Universe is put together. We explore, without mathematics, the three symmetries implied in the title. These are important in science, particularly in particle physics. At the microscopic level, the laws of mechanics and electromagnetism appear to be perfectly symmetrical, but the symmetry is broken by the weak interaction, the force that allows the Sun to shine. We explain how symmetry breaking could help us to avoid being annihilated by a science-fiction antimatter alien from another world. Again at the microscopic level there is a small asymmetry between the forward and backward directions of time. On larger scales however the direction of time is crucial, and time-reversed systems generally lead to absurd situations.

The 12th "Patrick Moore" lecture is to take place on the 4th Dec at 7:30pm. The talk will be by Prof Peter Kalmus OBE (QMUL), who was one of the key scientists involved in the discovery of the W and Z particles, which provided the experimental evidence that electromagnetism and the weak interaction were aspects of the same force. The talk starts at 7:30pm in the Poynting Physics Large Lecture Theatre (S02). Snacks and tea in the Study lounge from 7pm before the talk. If clear, sky viewing with with telescopes with the help of Astrosoc members after the talk.

For more information and directions please see our talks page.

News 31/10/2008

Einstein Telescope: Gravitational Wave Observatory

The Gravitational Physics Group have received a grant of £150,000 to design a new telescope that will aid them in their quest to discover more about the dark side of the universe.

The team are part of a worldwide collaboration that is looking for gravitational waves - tiny distortions of space-time that were predicted by Albert Einstein in the early 20th Century, but have never been directly detected. This is one of the most fundamental research areas in modern science as the direct observation of these waves will allow totally new insights into physics of black holes and may provide a direct view at what happened just after the Big Bang.

Two first generation interferometric detectors, GEO 600 and Virgo, are active already in Europe - in collaboration with the three LIGO detectors in America. The University of Birmingham is already making strong contributions to the instrument development and science exploitation of these five instruments. The new Einstein Telescope will be designed by physicists over the next three years, and will be an important step towards the third generation of gravitational wave observatories. They will be a hundred times more powerful than the current detectors, increasing the volume of the universe that can be observed by a factor of a million.

Further details can be found on the Einstein Telescope webpage

News 10/10/2008

Einstein in focus: Gravitational wave astronomy and gravitational lensing

The above RAS/IOP Specialist Discussion one-day meeting will take place in London on Friday 17th October, 2008 at the Geological Society Lecture Theatre, Burlington House, Piccadilly.

This meeting will bring together the gravitational wave and gravitational lensing communities to discuss issues at the interface of these two fields of study. The main focus of the meeting is on how both strong and weak gravitational lensing will complicate the interpretation of gravitational waves detected with ground-based laser interferometers with ground-based laser interferometers (such as LIGO, Virgo and GEO-600) and LISA. In particular, the aims are:

• To discuss the challenges to the interpretation of gravitational wave data that result from strong and weak gravitational lensing;
• To consider the possible strategies that should be pursued to address these challenges;
• To identify potential synergies between gravitational wave research and gravitational lensing research.

Further details on the meeting can be found here

News 22/08/2008

Birmingham Space Day

Forty two. That was the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything proposed by Deep Thought in Douglas Adams' book the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But how much of the ultimate answer does the Universe actually contribute? Whilst astronomers at the University of Birmingham are likely unable to find the answer to that question, at their upcoming event, Space Day, they hope to be able to answer many other more day-to-day questions, such as how does a telescope work? What can I look at in the sky tonight? How did NASA get their rovers on Mars safely?

This event, aimed at all ages of the general public, will feature talks by researchers from the School of Physics and Astronomy, including Dr William Chaplin on the "Music of the Sun" and Dr Somak Raychaudhury on "Einstein's Outrageous Legacy - Black Holes, Cosmic Illusions and Dark Energy", as well as interactive workshops which tackle telescope making, air rocket creation and launching, and even making Mars rovers out of little more than cardboard and sellotape! Other activities such as a tour of the night sky in a mobile planetarium, a tour of the department's astronomical and space laboratory facilities, a chance to see how many cosmic rays pass through you every second and a raffle are planned for the day.

Space Day is currently planned to run from 10:00 am to 5:15 pm on Saturday 4th of October 2008. Entrance and all activities are free, but due to limits on numbers certain workshops will be on a first-come-first served basis. We hope to see you there! For more information see the space day site.

News 01/07/2008

"Can you hear black holes collide?" at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2008

A team of gravitational-wave researchers has been selected to exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. Researchers from the Universities of Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and Southampton are joining forces with colleagues from the Albert Einstein Institute in Potsdam, Germany, and designers from Milde Science Communication to showcase the exciting science associated with Einstein’s general theory of relativity, black holes and gravitational waves.

The exhibit, entitled "Can you hear black holes collide?", introduces the main ideas behind Einstein’s relativistic theory of gravity. Through a number of hand-on exhibits visitors get an understanding of how space and time are flexible, and why this leads to gravity. Black holes are explained. A table-top laser-interferometer is used to demonstrate the technology used to search for the tiny ripples in space and time that bathe the Earth, the gravitational waves. State-of-the-art supercomputer simulations of colliding black holes are demonstrated. The challenging task of digging weak gravitational-wave signals out of noisy detector data is introduced via a fun game where visitors can test their skill at listening for actual black hole signals.

Running from 30th June to 3rd July 2008, the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition is a premier annual showcase for scientific excellence in the UK. Research teams are invited to bid to provide an exhibit on their work, and after a stiff competition the best are selected for display to scientists, the media and the general public.

The research is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK and the Max Planck Gesellschaft in Germany.

News 26/06/2008

Scientists running the two most sensitive Gravitational Wave Detectors in Europe meet at the University in Birmingham

The physicists from the GEO600 detector (constructed and operated by a German-British Collaboration) and the VIRGO detector (constructed and operated by an Italian-French Collaboration) meet regularly to exchange their knowledge and experience. Over the last years a very fruitful collaboration between the commissioners of both Laser interferometers was establish. Within the European ILIAS framework

The Gravitational Wave experts will meet in Birmingham at the 10th and 11th of July. The meeting will focus on improvements and future upgrades of the GEO600 and VIRGO interferometers, in order to make these instruments even more reliable and sensitive.

News 06/06/2008

Extragalactic Workshop 2008

Since 1998, the extragalactic group at Birmingham has held regular Workshops to bring together observational and theoretical astronomers for two days to discuss a current "hot topic" in extragalactic astronomy. This year, the 11th Workshop will be held on June 24-25th on the topic: Semi-analytic models - are we kidding ourselves?

These models have been developed over the past 15 years to help astrophysicists understand the formation and evolution of galaxies. Although "semi-analytic" models are now very popular, many astronomers remain suspicious of them, and the aim of the meeting is to bring together enthusiasts and sceptics to examine what we can learn from the successes and failures of such models. Some lively debate is guaranteed!

News 23/05/2008

Observing the evolved stellar populations in galaxy clusters

In mid May, Dr. Chris Haines visited the NOAO Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, USA, to observe a dozen galaxy clusters using recently commissioned wide-field near-infrared instrument NEWFIRM on the 4m Mayall telescope. This near infrared data provides a direct measure of the overall mass in the form of stars in the virialized regions of the clusters, and we will compare the distribution of stars within the clusters with the underlying dark matter, as measured using weak lensing. We will also combine this data with incoming mid-infrared data from the Spitzer infrared space telescope, to find dusty starburst galaxies within the cluster, to attempt to unravel the processes which transfrom infalling starforming spiral galaxies into the "red and dead" elliptical galaxies thad dominate local clusters. These data were obtained as part of LoCuSS, a large multi-wavelength survey of ~100 galaxy clusters at redshifts from 0.15-0.3.

News 09/05/2008

The Vast majority of galaxies are within groups of galaxies and they are probably the best laboratories to study the interaction and evolution of galaxies.

Ali Dariush, a postgraduate student in the Extragalactic group and his supervisor Dr. Somak Raychaudhury are leading the optical part of XI-project, a multi-wavelength survey of 25 redshift selected groups of galaxies with the aim of understanding their physical properties and dynamics.

Ali's last observing run was in May 2008 where he used the wide field CCD camera installed on 100 inch du Pont telescope at Las Campanas observatory , Chile for mosaic imaging of a sample of 12 XI-groups in B and R bands.

The XI-project is a joint project between the Extragalactic group of Birmingham University and Carnegie institution of Washington, USA.

News 15/04/2008

Space Weather and Lunar Exploration - 10th Patrick Moore Lecture

Space is a dangerous place for humans, once we step beyond the protection of the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. Galactic cosmic rays and bursts of charged particles from the Sun damaging to health happen with alarming frequency - the Apollo astronauts were lucky. Understanding the physics of radiation from distinct source in space will be useful to help future space voyagers plan journeys in greater safety, and produce effective shields for these unavoidable events on journeys to Mars or beyond.

The 10th "Patrick Moore" lecture is to take place on the 8th May at 7:30pm. The talk will be by Dr Mike Hapgood, who is the Head of the Space Environment Group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. The talk starts at 7:30pm on Thursday 8th May in the Poynting Physics Large Lecture Theatre (S02). Snacks and tea in the Study lounge from 7pm before the talk. If clear, sky viewing with telescopes with the help of Astrosoc members after the talk.

For more information and directions please see our talks page.

This series of talks is funded by STFC http://www.scitech.ac.uk/, (Public Understanding of Science grant), and is organised by the School of Physics and Astronomy http://www.ph.bham.ac.uk and the Astronomical Society of UoB

News 07/03/2008

Artist in residence

Tom Espiner, an actor and co-director of Sound and Fury Theatre Company , is working with the Astrophysics department as an artist-in-residence until June 2008.

The project is an opportunity to research ideas for a performance piece, which will focus on astronomy and the human interaction with the universe.

Sound and Fury has previously staged work in total darkness with surround sound design - immersing their audiences in an environment, which harnesses the power of the imagination and heightens the aural sense. Tom is interested in using these methods to explore ideas of light and darkness in astronomy. He also wants to frame the scale of the universe in a different perspective by paralleling the cosmic with everyday experience.

Tom is keen to explore metaphor, analogy and patterns in both art and science. The idea of pattern seeking and pattern interpretation is both a scientific and artistic pursuit. Where these pursuits share common ground and where they diverge may provide fertile grounds for discussion.

News 26/02/2008

Observing Galaxy Clusters

In mid February, Dr. Tom Targett and postgraduate student Vicky Hamilton-Morris visited the NOAO Kitt Peak facility in Arizona, USA, to observe galaxy clusters in the infra-red, using the 4m Mayall telescope. The hope was to add to previous IR observations taken at the 4m Victor M. Blanco telescope in Chile. These clusters were being observed as part of LoCuSS, a large multi-wavelength survey of ~100 galaxy clusters at redshifts from 0.15-0.3.

News 31/01/2008

Astronomers search for radio emission from Brown Dwarfs

Dr Ian Stevens and postgraduate student Samuel George travelled to India to use the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) as part of their continuing work investigating the nature of brown dwarfs. Their targets were 10 L dwarf stars, otherwise known as brown dwarfs (or ultra-cool stars). The GMRT is the world's most sensitive radio telescope at decametric wavelengths and these objects are expected to produce emission at these frequencies. The interiors of these stars are expected to be fully convective, suggesting that they will be capable of generating a magnetic field by a dynamo process. Particles are expected to become trapped in this field and due to a process known as an electron-cyclotron maser strong, and possibly flared, emission is expected.

News 11/05/2007

Rockets @ the BBC Birmingham's Public Space

Members of the Astrophysics & Space Research Group and the University's Astronomical Society took over the BBC Birmingham's Public space for two weekends of astronomy related activities.

This was part of the celebrations for the 50th Anniversary of the BBC television show "The Sky at Night" - a show that is produced at the Birmingham centre. Over the course of four days some 2,000 members of the general public were treated to a variety of fun activities. These events included the chance to build and launch their own rockets that were propelled upwards by compressed air, land the space shuttle on a simulator, look at photographic plates of the Universe and hunt around the BBC centre for the planets of our solar system.

News 20/01/2007

STEREO News Update

Following the final orbital manouevre of the STEREO-B spacecraft, the door covering the Heliospheric Imager instrument on this spacecraft was opened on 11th January and we took first-light images with the cameras. We were greeted by a wonderful surprise! Because the spacecraft is not yet in its final pointing attitude we had a spectacular view of Comet McNaught (designated C/2006 P1) the brightest comet in over 40 years, in the HI-1B camera. Over the subsequent days the spacecraft was rotated about the Sun direction until the comet was no longer in the field-of-view of this camera, however at around the same time it had entered into the field of the HI-1 camera on spacecraft A and we were able to follow it here for several weeks. It is currently still visible in the wider angle HI-2B camera, albeit at lower resolution.

This image (on the right) shows a close-up of the details in the tail of the comet, with stars in the background. The core, or "coma", of the comet is just off the bottom right of the picture and is so bright it would cause serious saturation of the CCD detector if it were in the field-of-view.

During the past few weeks, whilst we have been working on the commissioning and calibration of the instruments, we have made a number of other important observations including detection of asteroids down to 12th magnitude. Most importantly, we have already shown that we are capable of meeting the prime science requirements of the mission by detecting a number of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and following their propagation across the field-of-view of the HI-1 camera and into HI-2.

This picture from HI-1A shows a CME being ejected from the Sun. The CMEs are typically 1% of the brightness of the coronal background, which has been subtracted off. The two really bright objects in this image are the planets Venus and Mercury.

STEREO spacecraft B had its second and final lunar "swing-by" on 21st January, so both spacecraft are now in heliocentric orbits around the Sun and will gradually separate from the Earth during the coming months giving a truly "stereo" view of the CMEs.

For more information on STEREO see [here].

News 26/12/2006

First STEREO images

STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program and it consists of two nearly identical space-based observatories. One of these observatories is placed ahead of the Earth's orbit and the other one trails behind. The Heliospheric Imager (HI) instruments on-board STEREO have been developed by a UK-led consortium from the University of Birmingham and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, as well as the Centre Spatial de Liege, Belgium, and the Naval Research Laboratory, USA.

The two spacecraft were successfully launched on 25th October 2006 and following the final orbital manouevre of the STEREO-A spacecraft, the door covering the HI instrument on this spacecraft was opened on 13th December, allowing imaging. We were absolutely delighted with the quality and clarity of the "first light" images from both cameras in HI-A

This (image on right) is a 50 sec exposure with the HI-1A camera. The field-of-view is 20 degrees across and the centre of the Sun is about 4 degrees off the right hand side of the picture. The glow on the right hand side is the extended F-Corona of the Sun, otherwise known as the Zodiacal Light, caused by scattering of sunlight from dust particles in interplanetary space. The profile of this Coronal background is exactly as predicted without any significant instrumental background. The very bright object with the vertical streaks is Venus. As expected this saturates the pixels of the CCD detector locally and there is "bleeding" of the charge up and down the CCD columns.

On 15 Dec both spacecraft had their first lunar "swing-by". STEREO-A had a closest approach to the Moon of 5,600 km, resulting in its escape into heliocentric orbit. About 20 mins after this the Moon appeared in the field of the HI-2 camera from behind the baffles. The image is a 2 sec exposure. The bright crescent of the Moon is causing serious saturation of the CCD on the right hand edge but we have some nice views of the dark side.

For more information on STEREO see [here].

News 17/12/2006

Fowler Astronomy Prize awarded to researcher

The Royal Astronomical Society have awarded the 2007 Fowler Astronomy Prize to Dr. Graham P. Smith from our Astrophysics and Space Research Group.

Two Fowler Prizes are awarded annually to individuals who have made a particularly noteworthy contribution to the astronomical and geophysical sciences at an early stage of their research career.

Dr. Smith's award recognises his achievements in advancing our understanding of the distribution of dark matter in galaxy clusters, and the impact of his work on attempts to measure dark energy, the mysterious driving force behind the current accelerating expansion of the Universe.

Smith currently devotes most of his research time to leading the Local Cluster Substructure Survey (LoCuSS), a new multi-disciplinary collaboration, spanning Europe, USA, Canada, Japan and Taiwan.

For more information on the award please see [ras.org.uk] and for more on Dr Graham P. Smith see his [who's who entry].

News 11/12/2006

Black Holes and White Rabbits - the magic of astronomy

The 5th Patrick Moore lecture, one of a series organised jointly between the School of Physics and Astronomy and Astrosoc (the University's Astronomical Society), took place last Thursday. We had the great honour of having the 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Prof John Brown, along to give this talk.


Prof John Brown is not just an astronomer but also an accomplished magician. Given his title, "Black Holes and White Rabbits", we were expecting to be amazed, and the crowd of over 200 people from the University and general public was not disappointed. He used his skills as a magician to good effect, as he showed how one can visualize complex astrophysics by using illusion. He did conjure something out of his top hat, but instead of a white furry animal, he produced an entire Universe for us all to see and wonder at.


The lecture series funded by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).


For more information about the group's outreach activities see our outreach pages.

News 01/12/2006

Astrosoc - Best Student Physics Society in 2006

The University of Birmingham Astronomical Society was recently declared to be the best student physics society in the country. This annual award was presented by Nexus, the student wing of the Institute of Physics, and reflects the continuing hard work by the society.


"Astrosoc" is run by students, and membership is open to all students within the University. Recently, the society started work in collaboration with the Astrophysics and Space Research Group, to deliver a series of PPARC-funded evening lectures. These, along with other public outreach work, are seen as key factors in this success. For more information about the society please see [www.astrosoc.org.uk]

News 12/10/2006

Hinode Satellite Successfully Launched

The Solar-B satellite was successfully launched from Japan’s Uchinoura Space Centre on September 23rd at 6:36 a.m. (Japanese Standard Time). Following the launch Solar-B was renamed Hinode (meaning “sunrise”). The Hinode mission comprises three coordinated instruments – an optical telescope, an EUV imaging spectrometer and an X-ray/EUV telescope – which together will investigate the interaction between the Sun’s magnetic field and its corona. This will result in an improved understanding of the mechanisms that give rise to solar magnetic variability and how this variability modulates the total solar output and creates the driving force behind space weather. The Astrophysics and Space Research Group has been a major contributor to the UK-led EUV imaging spectrometer (EIS). We were responsible for the design and manufacture of the lightweight Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) structure of the instrument, for the vacuum door that protects the optical filter at the entrance aperture of the telescope, and for the thermal design and modeling of the instrument. Opening of the aperture doors and “first light” for the various telescopes is expected to take place around the end of October.

News 26/06/2006

Secrets of fossil galaxy clusters

Many galaxies reside in galaxy groups, where they experience close encounters with their neighbours. These interactions cause large galaxies to spiral slowly towards the centre of the group, where they can merge to form a single giant central galaxy, which progressively swallows all its neighbours. If this process runs to completion, and no new galaxies fall into the group, then the result is an object dubbed a 'fossil group', in which almost all the stars are collected into a single giant galaxy, which sits at the centre of a group-sized dark matter halo. The presence of this halo can be inferred from the presence of extensive hot gas, which fills the gravitational potential wells of many groups and emits X-rays.

Taking advantage of the high sensitivity of ESA's XMM-Newton and the sharp vision of NASA's Chandra X-Ray space observatories, a team of astronomers at the Astrophysics and Space Research group studied in detail the physical features of the most massive and hot known fossil group, with the main aim to solve a puzzle and understand the formation of massive fossils. In fact, according to simple theoretical models, they simply could not have formed in the time available to them! The XMM-Newton and Chandra X-ray observations, combined with optical and infrared analyses, revealed that group sits within a hot gas halo extending over three million light years and heated to a temperature of 50 million degrees, mainly due to shock heating as a result of gravitational collapse. Such a high temperature, about as twice as the previously estimated values, is usually characteristic of galaxy clusters.

For further information please see this ESA article

News 01/06/2006

Extragalactic Workshop on "Substructure in Dark Matter Halos"

The cold dark matter (CDM) model reproduces well the observed large scale structure of the local universe, however on smaller scales non-linear collapse of dark matter halos and the presence of baryons complicate the picture severely. How does the hierarchical assembly of dark matter halos modify the galaxies and gas trapped in those halos? What is the relationship between baryonic structures, and the underlying substructure of dark matter halos? Is the substructure of dark matter halos consistent with CDM? This Workshop will address these questions, emphasising the relationship between dark and luminous substructure.

For further information please see the workshop pages

News 24/04/2006

The transforming group spiral NGC 2276

Conventional wisdom holds that stripping of gas from galaxies by interactions with the hot gas in galaxy groups is an inefficient process. Chandra X-ray data by Rasmussen & Ponman of the starburst spiral NGC 2276 in a small galaxy group is challenging this assumption. The data reveal a shock front ahead of the galaxy (to the right in the X-ray image shown), indicating that NGC 2276 is moving through the surrounding group gas at supersonic speeds. There is also a tail of gas behind the galaxy, stripped from NGC 2276 by the surrounding gas due to this motion. This interaction removes the galactic gas from which new stars would form, eventually leading to the transformation of this strongly star-forming galaxy into a quiescent system.

The mass of gas in the tail indicates that NGC 2276 could be losing all its gas within the next billion years. The result that stripping of galactic gas can occur so rapidly in groups, where most galaxies reside, will help to elucidate which processes are driving the evolution of a large fraction of galaxies in the Universe.

News 20/02/2006

The merging cluster Abell 2255

An X-ray image of the elongated cluster of galaxies Abell 2255 taken with the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory by Sakelliou & Ponman shows clear signs that this system is the result of a collision between two progenitor clusters. The X-ray emission from the cluster, shown by the contours on both the images (to the right), is extended east-west, which is evidently the collision axis. Unlike normal clusters, the X-rays do not peak on a bright central galaxy. The temperature of the hot gas responsible for the X-ray emission, shown in the map on the right, reaches 10⁸ K (1 keV is equivalent to 1.16x10⁷ K), and has a complex asymmetrical structure. Cluster collisions such as this are the most energetic events in the Universe since the Big Bang.

Further recent articles on this:

• XMM Science

News 22/11/2005

The direct detection of gravitational waves is one of the grand experimental challenges of today. After more than three decades of research and development in gravitational-wave detectors, at last, the first detection of a gravitational wave on Earth is expected in the near future. You can read more or less interesting opinions on that in The Times Online (2005), the BBC (2005) and even on Slashdot.

Five such instruments are starting to take data: GEO 600: a British-German detector, located in Hannover, Germany, LIGO three large detectors in the United States, run by a large international science collaboration, the LIGO Science Collaboration (LSC), the VIRGO and a slightly smaller detector in Japan: TAMA.

Further recent news articles on gravitational wave detection:

• Guardian (2005)
• Telegraph (2005)