SMA News and Events: 2009

December 3, 2009 Studying a Star Before it is Born Science Update
The first phase of a star's formation are thought to begin deep inside a natal cloud of gas and dust. In the earliest stages, material coalesces under the influence of gravity into so-called "dense cores," which, because they absorb optical light, are sometimes seen in the sky as black shapes against a background of stars or nebulosity.

November 19, 2009 A Movie of Motions Around a Young Star Science Update
The famous Orion Nebula is the closest nursery of massive young stars to the earth, and is about 1300 light-years away.

October 22, 2009 The Explosive Disintegration of a Young Stellar System in Orion Science Update
The Orion Nebula is one of the most beautiful sights of the winter night sky, its gas and dust glowing from the intense ultraviolet radiation of a cluster of massive young stars. At 1300 light-years away, the nebula is the closest nursery of massive stars to us.

September 10, 2009 Making Massive Stars Science Update
Our understanding of star formation leans heavily on observations of stars like the sun, namely, those that are modest in mass and that are born and evolve at a relatively leisurely pace.

September 9, 2009 Magnetic Fields Play Larger Role in Star Formation than Previously Thought News Release
The simple picture of star formation calls for giant clouds of gas and dust to collapse inward due to gravity, growing denser and hotter until igniting nuclear fusion. In reality, forces other than gravity also influence the birth of stars. New research shows that cosmic magnetic fields play a more important role in star formation than previously thought.

August 13, 2009 The Edge of a Black Hole Science Update
The existence of black holes is one of the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity.

August 6, 2009 Jets from a Possible Young Brown Dwarf Science Update
A brown dwarf, a star whose mass is less than about 8% of the sun's, lacks sufficient gravitational contraction to heat up its interior to the roughly ten million kelvin temperatures needed for hydrogen burning (hydrogen burning fuels the sun).

July 17, 2009 Watching Young Solar Systems Grow Science Update
In fewer than ten million years the material in the circumstellar disk around a young star will either be accreted on to its star, dispersed into the interstellar medium, or converted into planets or smaller solid bodies.

July 2, 2009 Binary planetary systems caught in the act of forming! News Release: blogs.discovermagazine.com "Astronomers have discovered a young binary system where both stars are surrounded by thick disks of material that are in the process of forming planets! And it's a near thing, too -- this system almost didn't exist at all."

July 2, 2009 A Cluster of Young Stars Science Update
One new star is born somewhere in our Milky Way galaxy per year, on average, according to the current estimates.

June 11, 2009 Planet-Forming Disk Discovered Orbiting Twin Suns News Release: www.sciencedaily.com "Astronomers have announced that a sequence of images collected with the Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA) clearly reveals the presence of a rotating molecular disk orbiting the young binary star system V4046 Sagittarii."

June 11, 2009 Magnetic Fields Dominate Young Stars of all Sizes News Release: Universe Today "When it comes to the role of magnetism in the formation of stars, size might not matter."

June 11, 2009 Mystery in the Orion Nebula Science Update
The Orion Nebula, one of the most famous sights in the night sky, contains several clusters of hot young stars.

June 10, 2009 Radio Telescope Images Reveal Planet-Forming Disk Orbiting Twin Suns News Release
Astronomers are announcing today that a sequence of images collected with the Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA) clearly reveals the presence of a rotating molecular disk orbiting the young binary star system V4046 Sagittarii. The SMA images provide an unusually vivid snapshot of the process of formation of giant planets, comets, and Pluto-like bodies. The results also confirm that such objects may just as easily form around double stars as around single stars like our Sun.

June 09, 2009 Cosmic Cloud Poised to Birth Massive StarNews Release: www.space.com "A massive, tranquil object found lurking in a dark cloud in our galaxy could be about to transform into a massive star or stars, giv ing astronomers their first glimpse at such a region on the cusp of stellar birth."

May 9, 2009 Matter Falling in Toward the Galactic Center Science Update
The center of our Milky Way galaxy is located about twenty-five thousand light years from earth, in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius.

March 31, 2009 SMA Joins Upcoming "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" Webcast SMA Event: Site no longer available. As one of the major observatories, the Submillimeter Array was invited to, and has signed up to, participate in 'Around the World in Eighty Observatories'. This is a 24-hour web-cast organized by ESO as part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy Global Cornerstone Project to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy, 2009.

February 23, 2009 Turbulence May Promote the Birth of Massive Stars News Release
On long, dark winter nights, the constellation of Orion the Hunter dominates the sky. Within the Hunter's sword, the Orion Nebula swaddles a cluster of newborn stars called the Trapezium. These stars are young but powerful, each one shining with the brilliance of 100,000 Suns. They are also massive, containing 15 to 30 times as much material as the Sun.

February 19, 2009 Molecular Probes of the Orion Nebula Science Update
Astronomers have found that complex molecules, including organic species, exist in numerous kinds of places in the cosmos, especially in the giant molecular clouds of gas and dust where new stars form.

February 12, 2009 Astronomers Unveiling Life's Cosmic Orgins News Release
Using the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawaii, Brogan and her colleagues studied a nebula 5,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius where stars significantly more massive than our Sun are forming. "It's essential to understand what's going on in systems like this because most stars, Sun-like stars included, form in clusters," Brogan said.

February 10, 2009 CfA SMA Science Symposium 2009 SMA Event: Website The purpose of this meeting is to present recent results from science projects undertaken at the CfA with the SMA, and to provide a forum for the interchange of ideas about SMA results and capabilities among the broader community. This meeting is open to anyone at the CfA who is interested. Participants may attend for the full day or for any part of the day, including the coffee break/poster sessions. There is no need to register, and there is no registration fee.

February 10, 2009 SMA Image Contest 2009 SMA Event: Website The Submillimeter Array (SMA) announces its first Image Contest. Much like the annual NRAO "Radio Astronomy Imaging Contest", the purpose of this contest is to gather visually compelling images based on SMA data from the SMA user community to be used for a variety of purposes, including public outreach.

January 29, 2009 Studying Seven-Billion Year-Old Carbon Science Update
Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe, and an essential constituent of life. Atomic carbon is also a critical component in the giant gas clouds that populate galaxies and from which new stars and planets are made.

January 9, 2009 The Abundance of Oxygen Science Update
Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen and helium). It is therefore thought to be an important constituent of the clouds of gas and dust from which new stars and their planets develop.

January 5, 2009 Stars Forming Just Beyond Black Hole's Grasp at Galactic Center News Release
The center of the Milky Way presents astronomers with a paradox: it holds young stars, but no one is sure how those stars got there. The galactic center is wracked with powerful gravitational tides stirred by a 4 million solar-mass black hole. Those tides should rip apart molecular clouds that act as stellar nurseries, preventing stars from forming in place. Yet the alternative - stars falling inward after forming elsewhere - should be a rare occurrence.

January 5, 2009 Milky Way a Swifter Spinner, More Massive, New Measurements Show News Release
Fasten your seat belts -- we're faster, heavier, and more likely to collide than we thought. Astronomers making high-precision measurements of the Milky Way say our Galaxy is rotating about 100,000 miles per hour faster than previously understood.