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@xploringalternateuniverses
No texting while someone else is driving.
Sometimes I feel like I’m not in this universe. Like I’m phasing in and out of this reality.
Alien Life Form
Dark matter could explain earliest supermassive black holes
Dark matter decays could be the missing ingredient explaining how giant black holes formed before the first stars
A growing mystery in astronomy is the presence of gargantuan black holes — some weighing as much as a billion suns — existing less than a billion years after the Big Bang. According to the standard theory of black hole formation, these black holes simply should not have had enough time to grow so large.
A study led by University of California, Riverside graduate student Yash Aggarwal shows that dark matter decays could be the key to understanding the origin of these cosmic behemoths. Published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, the research shows that the energy released from dark matter decay could alter the chemistry of early galaxies enough to cause some of them to directly collapse into black holes rather than forming stars.
The result is timely since NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope continues to observe unusually large black holes in the early universe that could have formed by direct collapse. Astronomers had believed this process requires a coincidence of nearby stars shining onto pre-stellar gas and so expected it to be rare.
Aggarwal’s team goes beyond the standard approach by using dark matter — the unknown 85% of the matter in the universe that helps form galaxies. They show that if dark matter decays, it can leak a small amount of its energy into the gas and supercharge the direct collapse rate. Each decaying dark matter particle would only need to inject an amount of energy that is a billion trillionth the energy of a single AA battery.
“Our study suggests that decaying dark matter could profoundly reshape the evolution of the first stars and galaxies, with widespread effects across the universe,” Aggarwal said. “With the James Webb Space Telescope now revealing more supermassive black holes in the early universe, this mechanism may help bridge the gap between theory and observation.”
Flip Tanedo, associate professor of physics and astronomy at UCR and Aggarwal’s doctoral co-advisor, said ideas related to this work had been bouncing around his group since 2018.
“The first galaxies are essentially balls of pristine hydrogen gas whose chemistry is incredibly sensitive to atomic-scale energy injection,” said Tanedo, a coauthor on the paper. “These are the properties that we want for a dark matter detector — the signature of these ‘detectors’ might be the supermassive black holes that we see today.”
The research team, which included James Dent of Sam Houston State University in Texas and Tao Xu of the University of Oklahoma, modeled the thermo-chemical dynamics of the gas in the presence of decaying axions and found that a window of dark matter masses between 24 and 27 electronvolts could produce the conditions to seed direct collapse black holes.
Tanedo pointed out that the work stemmed from a series of coincidences that brought the right people together at the right time, including a series of workshops that connected particle physicists, cosmologists, and astrophysicists to discuss the big questions in their field.
“We showed that the right dark matter environment can help make the ‘coincidence’ of direct collapse black holes much more likely,” he said. “In the same way, the support for interdisciplinary work helped make the ‘coincidence’ leading to this work possible.”
Dark Interstellar Ghost B93 ©
Bright Galaxy M81
Credits: Robert Gendler
NGC 1512 and NGC 1510, Exclamation Mark
There are just way too many galaxies out there that we humans may never completely explore within our existence, no matter what technology is developed in the future.
Andromeda Galaxy © astrofalls
Only a fool would say there is no life within these trillions of star systems in the galaxy of Andromeda that may be similar to humanoids.
3C58: Pulsar Power
Credits: Harvard-Smithsonian CfA, et al., CXC, NASA
Incredible power within this pulsar
M104: The Sombrero Galaxy
Credits: NASA, ESO, NAOJ, R. Colombari
Looks like a giant UFO to me!!
Spaghetti Nebula Supernova Remnant ©
Or it can be the creator’s brain?
Fighting Dragons of Ara NGC 6188 ©
THE DEADHEAD NEBULA
Discovered in 2022
Patchick-Strottner-Drechsler object 1 / PaStDr object 1 / Nova shell G332
The constellation Centaurus is one of the most interesting cosmic regions due to its diversity.
We are very pleased to present another exciting object in Centaurus.
The Deadhead Nebula is a joint discovery by Dana Patchick, Marcel Drechsler, and Xavier Strottner - the scientific lead was Professor Robert Fesen of Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH).
This very unusual looking object is an extremely faint fine gas shell around the emission line star CD-30 11814.
The structure has a diameter of 15.5 arcminutes and is located at coordinates: 14:55:28.61 -30:41:56.66 (J2000).
The origin of this shell is a stellar nova whose exact age is not yet known.
Major new telescope on Chilean summit opens window on universe
Thirty-four years after Cornell University scientists first conceived it, the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) now rises above the Atacama Desert, near the summit of Cerro Chajnantor in Chile. FYST will help answer some of the most important questions in astronomy, including how the universe works, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, how galaxies form and evolve and what happened in those mysterious first moments after the Big Bang.
A celebration of the telescope took place on Cerro Chajnantor at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Telescope facility, with more than 100 attendees, including international dignitaries, project supporters and scientists from the U.S., Germany, Canada and Chile, underscoring the global effort behind this milestone achievement.
The inauguration marks the culmination of decades of collaboration across continents, said Cornell University President Michael I. Kotlikoff, a speaker at the inauguration ceremony.
"It is the realization, through the incredible determination, foresight and vision of so many treasured partners, of a unique vision for an enterprise led by academic scientists," Kotlikoff said. "And it will carry the spirit of collaboration and cooperation that brought us to this moment forward, through new partnerships and new discoveries—lighting the path of scientific exploration and advancing the Cornell ethos of collaboration for generations of scientists to come."
FYST is a project of the Cornell-led CCAT Observatory, Inc., a collaboration that includes Germany's University of Cologne, University of Bonn and Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, and a Canadian consortium of universities led by the University of Waterloo, in conjunction with Chilean astronomers through the University of Chile.
"When we first went there and realized what an exceptional site Cerro Chajnantor might be, submillimeter astronomy as a field wasn't advanced enough for us to be able to build the telescope and its instruments. But now it is, and we have FYST to show for our patience and determination," said Martha Haynes, president of the CCAT board and professor emerita.
The telescope features an innovative optical design that allows astronomers to observe over a wide field-of-view in each exposure, enabling them to rapidly and efficiently map wide areas of the sky. Operating in the submillimeter wavelength range of light, FYST will create movies of the sky—"celestial cinematography"—in a part of the electromagnetic spectrum where this has never before been done.
At a height of 18,400 feet (5,640 meters) above sea level—higher than the Mount Everest base camp (17,598 feet)—FYST lies above most of the atmospheric layers that block submillimeter waves from reaching the ground. The Atacama Desert's extremely dry air will provide exceptional views, without water vapor to obscure the signal.
Building a major new telescope at this elevation presented a significant challenge. Atmospheric pressure at the summit of Cerro Chajnantor is less than half what it is at ground level, which required construction workers, and all visitors to the site, to pass a strict physical examination and use supplemental oxygen at the summit.
FYST is named after Cornell alum Fred Young, who has supported FYST since the project's early days. In addition to his financial support, Young actively participated in the planning process, offering business and engineering expertise.
"As the time for celebration of 'first light' for the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope nears, it is appropriate to recognize the inspiration for this world-class project," said Young, referring to the first time a telescope is used to observe the sky. "Central to that is the vision developed in the last century by the late Riccardo Giovanelli and by Martha Haynes to exploit the unique potential for far infrared astronomy at what is, arguably, its best site on Earth."
The telescope's Prime-Cam instrument, designed by Michael Niemack, professor of physics and astronomy at Cornell, can hold up to seven changeable modules, giving FYST unmatched flexibility as a platform for new technologies. The instrument will provide unprecedented spectroscopic and broadband measurement capabilities to address fundamental questions in astrophysics and cosmology.
The CCAT Heterodyne Array Instrument (CHAI), developed by the University of Cologne, is a high resolution spectrometer used to study the cycle of interstellar matter in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. The large number of pixels, high sensitivity and choice of spectral lines available with CHAI will, for the first time, trace the flow of interstellar gas to probe how the process of star formation may vary in different galactic environments.
"FYST is the culmination of decades of engagement of the University of Cologne in submillimeter-wave astrophysics in Chile. Alongside our partners at Cornell, we are excited to present this milestone in technology development, which will revolutionize our view of the sky at this important, but underexplored wavelength regime—from a site whose observing conditions are rivaled only by the vacuum of space," said CCAT board member Dominik Riechers, professor of astrophysics at the University of Cologne.
CPI Vertex Antennentechnik GmbH, in Duisburg, Germany designed and manufactured the telescope structure, including its drive and control systems. The company invested more than 250,000 hours in design, materials engineering, simulation, manufacturing, qualification and project coordination—contributing to the technological record-breaking achievements that make the system one-of-a-kind worldwide.
Because of the challenges of working at extreme altitude, engineers first assembled the telescope in Germany. The team then disassembled it into large pieces and transported them by barge and then cargo ship to Chile, where workers trucked the pieces—the heaviest of which weighed 60 tons—up the mountain, a feat of careful coordination.
"The Canadian CCAT team, at over a dozen institutions across the country, is eagerly awaiting the wealth of fantastic data that will begin to flow from FYST in a few months," said Canadian CCAT project leader Michel Fich, University of Waterloo. "In addition to significant contributions to the construction of the telescope itself, the Canadian team is also creating software for both the Observatory and for data reduction, providing a central part of the telescope instrumentation, and leading key science projects."
"FYST will create a globally unique observatory that will set new standards in submillimeter astronomy," said CCAT board member Frank Bertoldi, professor of radioastronomy at the University of Bonn. "We are proud that the University of Bonn is involved in this project, and we are excited to see the results of the planned deep sky surveys, which will tell us more about the formation of stars and galaxies, the evolution of cosmic structures and the origin of the universe."
IMAGE: Cornell visitors use continuous oxygen for the extreme altitude at the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope. From left, Peter John Loewen, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Fred Young '64, M.Eng '66, MBA '66; Martha Haynes, professor of astronomy emerita; and President Michael I. Kotlikoff. Credit: Jason Koski/Cornell University