Tag

Time Domain Astronomy

All articles tagged with #time domain astronomy

science1 month ago•11 min saved

Pasadena teen uses AI to sift 200 billion infrared observations, spotting 1.5 million candidates

An 18-year-old Pasadena high school senior, Matteo Paz, built a neural-network–assisted pipeline to comb through nearly 200 billion raw infrared detections from NASA's NEOWISE survey, sorting by variability to flag about 1.5 million potential new objects. Described in The Astronomical Journal and aided by Caltech/IPAC mentorship, the method turns a data firehose into manageable leads rather than confirmed discoveries. The catalog will undergo follow-up observations to confirm which candidates are real, with Paz’s win in the 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search marking a starting line for applying the approach to future time-domain surveys.

via Space Daily|

#astronomy #infrared-data #machine-learning

science1 month ago•11 min saved

Car-sized eye launches a decade-long survey of the southern sky

The Vera Rubin Observatory’s ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time began formal operations from Cerro Pachón, Chile, using a car-sized, 3-tonne camera to image the southern sky about every 40 seconds and revisit each field roughly 800 times over the decade. The 3,200-megapixel instrument, cooled to −100 C, feeds a massive pipeline that can issue millions of change alerts per night to brokers for quick follow-up, enabling study of supernovae, moving objects, variable stars, and other transients. Rubin combines an 8.4-meter telescope with a very wide field and runs four science programs—Solar System inventory, Milky Way mapping, time-domain astronomy, and dark matter/dark energy research—while data are processed at SLAC and distributed publicly to maximize participation over ten years.

via Space Daily|

#alerts #astronomy #lsst

science4 months ago•7 min saved

High-School AI Maps the Infrared Sky, Flagging 1.5 Million Hidden Cosmic Signals

Seventeen-year-old Matteo Paz, mentored by Caltech researchers, built VARnet to scan NASA’s NEOWISE infrared sky data and identify 1.5 million variable-object candidates. The pipeline processes each source in under 53 microseconds and could yield a full infrared variability catalog once follow-up work confirms the objects, with implications for time-domain astronomy; Paz later won a top national science prize for the achievement.

via Indian Defence Review|

#artificial-intelligence #astronomy #nasa

astronomy8 months ago•19 min saved

Old Glass, New Skies: Mapping a Century of Cosmic Change

The article explains how astronomy blends modern time-domain surveys with century-old glass plates to trace cosmic changes over long timescales. By digitizing archives like Harvard’s DASCH and comparing them with new data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, researchers build a century-long view of variability—from supernovae and active galactic nuclei to variable stars—creating a “movie” of the sky while tackling challenges in data calibration and plate preservation.

via Quanta Magazine|

#astronomy #photographic-plates #rubin-observatory

science1 year ago•16 min saved

Vera Rubin Observatory's First Images and Its Cosmic Discovery Potential

The Vera Rubin Observatory, with its wide-field, high-resolution, and rapid imaging capabilities, is poised to revolutionize our understanding of the universe by solving cosmic puzzles such as the nature of dark energy, the Hubble tension, and discovering new transient phenomena through time-domain astronomy, while also enabling rapid follow-up observations with other telescopes.

via Big Think|

#cosmic-puzzles #dark-energy #science

astronomy2 years ago•9 min saved

"NASA Observes Record-Breaking Cosmic Event"

NASA's Fermi and Swift satellites detected the brightest cosmic event ever recorded, known as the BOAT, a long gamma-ray burst possibly originating from a massive star's core collapse. This event showcases the power of Time-Domain and Multimessenger Astronomy, allowing scientists to study dynamic processes in the universe. Follow-up observations from over 150 telescopes provided insights into the event's origin and composition, while newer signals like GRB 230307A offer further mysteries and opportunities for study. NASA plans to launch new satellites and missions to continue monitoring transient events and unraveling the universe's secrets.

via SciTechDaily|

#astronomy #cosmic-event #gamma-ray-burst

space3 years ago•6 min saved

"NASA's Roman Mission: Unveiling the Flickering Lights of the Milky Way"

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch in 2027, will conduct a Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, monitoring hundreds of millions of stars in the Milky Way to detect flickers that indicate the presence of planets, distant stars, icy objects, black holes, and more. The mission aims to set a new record for the farthest-known exoplanet and explore the center of our galaxy, providing insights into different galactic neighborhoods and the formation and evolution of planetary systems. The survey will also study brown dwarfs, neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, and Kuiper belt objects, while conducting stellar seismology studies on a million giant stars.

via Phys.org|

#exoplanets #milky-way #nasa

space-science3 years ago•5 min saved

Unveiling the Dynamic Universe: NASA's Roman Mission Explores Milky Way's Flickering Lights

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch in 2027, will provide an unprecedented view into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. The mission aims to monitor hundreds of millions of stars, searching for flickers that indicate the presence of planets, distant stars, icy objects in our solar system, and isolated black holes. By conducting a long-term sky monitoring survey, the telescope will contribute to time-domain astronomy, studying how the universe changes over time. The mission will focus on the Milky Way's Galactic Bulge, using infrared vision to penetrate dust clouds and reveal the crowded central region of our galaxy. Roman's observations are expected to uncover thousands of exoplanets, including those in the habitable zone, as well as brown dwarfs, neutron stars, and Kuiper belt objects.

via NASA|

#exoplanets #milky-way #nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope