New Domain: International team installs first of three telescopes in Antarctica

[ScienceRocks]

New Domain: International team installs first of three telescopes in Antarctica
April 23, 2012
A team of scientists representing several international institutions, including Texas A&M University, has succeeded in installing the first of three Antarctic Survey Telescopes (AST3-1) at the Chinese Kunlun Station at Dome Argus, the highest point of the Antarctic Plateau.



The telescope is the first of three, half-meter devices to be installed at PLATeau Observatory (PLATO-A), a fully robotic observatory established at "Dome A" in 2008 and intended to reveal new insights into the Universe once possible only from space. In combination, the three telescopes are expected to find planets around other stars about the size of Earth, hundreds of supernovaes useful for cosmological studies and many other variable objects relevant to future discoveries in astrophysics.

Texas A&M is joined in the international project by the Chinese Center for Antarctic Astronomy (CCAA) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), which built PLATO-A and the control computers responsible for its autonomous operation. Lifan Wang, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Texas A&M, also serves as director of the CCAA.

"This is an astounding achievement," says Michael Ashley, head of the UNSW team responsible for PLATO-A. "A stand-alone telescope in the pristine environment of Antarctica can conduct scientific research that would otherwise only be possible from space, but at a few percent of the cost."

Four years after a making only the second arduous trek to Dome A in history in order to found PLATO-A, the same team returned to finish the latest leg of the adventurous international undertaking led by the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC). The telescope installation project was carried out over a three-month period by four astronomers as part of China's 28th Antarctica Expedition. The 26-member team left Tianjin, China, aboard the Xuelong Icebreaker on November 3, reaching the Chinese Zhongshan Station at the Antarctic Coast 26 days later. On December 16, they started their inland traverse, arriving at Dome A on January 4 and completing their installation of the telescope during the subsequent three weeks before returning to Zhongshan Station on February 9.

Among its many unprecedented features, the AST3-1 is equipped with a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera that is 110 megapixels in size — the largest single-piece detector in use in astronomy today. The telescope will be used to search for planets around stars other than the Sun, enabling the continuous monitoring of hundreds of millions of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, Wang explains.

"The ability to monitor stars during the dark austral winter makes AST3-1 a unique facility for astronomical studies," Wang adds.

Ashley says the autonomous observatory is accompanied by an onsite computing system that analyzes the massive amount of data from the CCD camera in real-time to catch transient events, such as supernova explosions and gamma-ray-burst afterglows. Supernova explosions, which are caused by the death of massive stars, are visible to distances far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. Wang notes that it was precise measurements of these explosions in Type Ia supernovae which led to the discovery of accelerated expansion of the Universe — a breakthrough recognized with last year's Nobel Prize in Physics.

"AST3-1 aims to discover these Type Ia supernovae within one day after they become visible," Wang says. "Such early discovery is important in resolving the mysterious physics that leads to supernova explosions."

In addition, the telescope can be used for observations of the optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts, which are important in early detection of supernovae as well as timely data collection and measurement.

"We are able to process the data from each exposure within two minutes after they are taken to promptly alert the science team when a new supernova occurs," says Prof. Zhaohui Shang of the National Astronomical Observatory of China and Tianjin Normal University.
New Domain: International team installs first of three telescopes in Antarctica

 

[Mr. H.]

That's a lot of megapixels.

 

[waltky]

Astronomers find largest known spiral galaxy with Galex...

Galaxy crash sparks large spiral
11 January 2013 - The ultraviolet range that Galex can see in revealed a wealth of new stars at the galaxy's outer reaches

Astronomers have spotted the largest known spiral galaxy - by accident. A team was looking through data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) satellite for star-forming regions around a galaxy called NGC 6872. But they were shocked to see a vast swathe of ultraviolet light from young stars, indicating that the galaxy is actually big enough to accommodate five of our Milky Way galaxies within it. The find was reported at the American Astronomical Society meeting in the US. NGC 6872, a galaxy about 212 million light-years away in the constellation Pavo, was already known to be among the largest spiral galaxies.

Near it sits a lens-shaped or lenticular galaxy called IC 4970, which appears to have crashed through the spiral in recent astronomical times. Rafael Eufrasio of the Catholic University of America and Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and the European Southern Observatory in Chile were interested in a number of regions away from the galaxy. "I was not looking for the largest spiral - it just came as a gift," Mr Eufrasio told BBC News.

Galex - a space telescope designed to search for the ultraviolet light that newly born stars put out - hinted that NGC 6872 was made much larger in size by the collision. The team went on to use data from a range of other telescopes including the Very Large Telescope, the Two Micron All-Sky Survey and the Spitzer space telescope - each of which sees in a particular set of colours, in turn evidencing stars of varying ages.

They found the youngest stars in the outer reaches of the galaxy's enormous spiral arms, getting progressively older toward the centre. That suggests a wave of star formation that travelled down the arms, set off by the collision with IC 4970, with the newest stellar neighbourhoods pushing the galaxy into the top spot in terms of size. "It's been known to be among the largest for two decades, but it's much larger than we thought," explained Mr Eufrasio. "The galaxy that collided with the [central disc of NGC 6872] splashed stars all over the place - 500,000 light-years away."

More BBC News - Galaxy crash sparks large spiral

 

[waltky]

Granny says China gonna sneak in an' suck alla oil outta Antarctica an' leave us nothin' but a dry hole...

China is boosting its presence in resource-rich Antarctica
February 18, 2013 - China is boosting its presence in Antarctica with an eye on the icy continent’s vast untapped resources, even though it could take 35 years to start exploiting them.

China has doubled its spending on Antarctic research in the past decade, although, at about $55 million in 2012, its effort is still much smaller than the U.S. Antarctic Program — almost $300 million on top of Department of Defense support. National Science Foundation representative in Antarctica George Blaisdell said U.S. funding remains flat as the government grapples with economic woes and costs rise for fuel and other supplies. About 1,200 U.S. scientists, support workers and military personnel have been there this summer conducting research at remote locations.

Antarctic Treaty members, which include the U.S. and China, have agreed not to exploit Antarctic resources until 2048, but there is nothing to stop them doing geographical surveys. The U.S. has carried out such work in the past but, these days, U.S. scientists applying for Antarctic study grants are more likely to focus on climate change than mineral prospecting. The Chinese, who already have looked to other countries for resources to feed their growing industries, appear to have a different attitude. The Polar Research Institute of China’s website used to feature a series of maps outlining Antarctic resources, including oil reserves off the coast of Antarctica, but they have recently been taken down.

Anne-Marie Brady, a political science professor at New Zealand’s Canterbury University and editor of The Polar Journal, wrote in a recently published research paper that China is clearly interested in Antarctic resources, which range from minerals to meteorites, intellectual property from bio-prospecting, locations for scientific bases, fisheries and tourism access. “As an energy-hungry nation, China is extremely interested in the resources of Antarctica (and the Arctic) and any possibilities for their exploitation,” Brady wrote. Chinese-language polar social science discussions are dominated by debates about Antarctic resources and how China might gain its share, she wrote. “Such discussions are virtually taboo in the scholarly research of more established Antarctic powers,” she wrote.

Numerous newspaper reports in Chinese have alleged that some countries are already prospecting in Antarctica under the cover of scientific research, Brady said. In Chinese-language debates, scholars, government officials and journalists appear to agree that the exploitation of Antarctica is only a matter of time and that China be ready, she said. Texas A&M University oceanographer and Antarctic researcher Chuck Kennicutt II said it would be expensive to recover oil and gas from Antarctica but that a spike in oil prices could make it economically viable. Fishing and tourism also offer great economic potential, he said.

MORE

See also:

Environmentalists fight whalers near Antarctica
Tue, Feb 19, 2013 - Militant environmentalists yesterday accused Japanese whalers of attempting to crash into their ship as they tried to prevent harpoonists from hauling a slaughtered whale on board.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is chasing the Japanese fleet hunting whales off Antarctica, said the confrontation occurred after its Bob Barker tried to block the transfer of a whale. “We blocked it for nine attempts, but then their harpoon ship attempted to try and come across and hit us so we ducked away and that’s when they were able to make the transfer of that whale,” Sea Shepherd Australia’s Jeff Hansen said.

Hansen said the confrontation, which he said took place “well and truly” inside Australian Antarctic waters, lasted several hours as he called on Canberra to intervene. “Is this Australian territory or not? If it is, then come down and exert some kind of authority,” Hansen said. “In the past there were Patagonian toothfish operators down there, illegal poachers from Uruguay, the Customs vessel chased them all over the Southern Ocean, arrested them and confiscated their vessel.”

Sea Shepherd also said the Japanese fleet’s fuel tanker, the Sun Laurel, had been followed by the activists’ Sam Simon and had spilled oil into the pristine waters. “The crew smelled diesel fuel, they stopped and collected samples; it was diesel on the water,” Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson told Sky News. “The rules say that you can’t drop any amount of fuel into the Antarctic territory. And you are especially not allowed to drop fuel that is a cargo fuel and this is a cargo fuel that they are dropping.”

Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke has described Japan’s whale hunt as cruel and unnecessary, but said the government would not send a boat to “watch and do nothing.”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2013/02/19/2003555189