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Exploring cosmological constraints of the weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering joint analysis in the CSST photometric survey

Recent IoA Publications - Thu, 10/04/2025 - 09:57
arXiv:2410.19388v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We explore the joint weak lensing and galaxy clustering analysis from the photometric survey operated by the China Space Station Telescope (CSST), and study the strength of the cosmological constraints. We employ a high-resolution JiuTian-1G simulation to construct a partial-sky light cone to $z=3$ covering 100 deg$^2$, and obtain the CSST galaxy mock samples based on an improved semi-analytical model. We perform a multi-lens-plane algorithm to generate corresponding synthetic weak lensing maps and catalogs. Then we generate the mock data based on these catalogs considering the instrumental and observational effects of the CSST, and use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to perform the constraints. The covariance matrix includes non-Gaussian contributions and super-sample covariance terms, and the systematics from intrinsic alignments, galaxy bias, photometric redshift uncertainties, shear calibration, and non-linear effects are considered in the analysis. We find that the constraint result is comparable to that from Stage III surveys, and it can be significantly improved further in the full CSST survey with 17500 deg$^2$. This indicates the CSST photometric survey is powerful for exploring the Universe.

Exploring cosmological constraints of the weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering joint analysis in the CSST photometric survey

Cosmology and Fundamental physics - Thu, 10/04/2025 - 09:57
arXiv:2410.19388v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We explore the joint weak lensing and galaxy clustering analysis from the photometric survey operated by the China Space Station Telescope (CSST), and study the strength of the cosmological constraints. We employ a high-resolution JiuTian-1G simulation to construct a partial-sky light cone to $z=3$ covering 100 deg$^2$, and obtain the CSST galaxy mock samples based on an improved semi-analytical model. We perform a multi-lens-plane algorithm to generate corresponding synthetic weak lensing maps and catalogs. Then we generate the mock data based on these catalogs considering the instrumental and observational effects of the CSST, and use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to perform the constraints. The covariance matrix includes non-Gaussian contributions and super-sample covariance terms, and the systematics from intrinsic alignments, galaxy bias, photometric redshift uncertainties, shear calibration, and non-linear effects are considered in the analysis. We find that the constraint result is comparable to that from Stage III surveys, and it can be significantly improved further in the full CSST survey with 17500 deg$^2$. This indicates the CSST photometric survey is powerful for exploring the Universe.

Evidence of star cluster migration and merger in dwarf galaxies

Astronomy News - Thu, 10/04/2025 - 09:54

Nature, Published online: 09 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08783-9

High-resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope show evidence of star cluster migration and merger in dwarf galaxies.

Water abundance in the lunar farside mantle

Astronomy News - Thu, 10/04/2025 - 09:54

Nature, Published online: 09 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08870-x

An estimate of water abundance in the lunar mantle indicates that the farside mantle is potentially drier than its nearside counterpart.

NASA’s Juno Back to Normal Operations After Entering Safe Mode

Astronomy News - Thu, 10/04/2025 - 09:48

3 min read

NASA’s Juno Back to Normal Operations After Entering Safe Mode NASA’s Juno flies above Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in this artist’s concept. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The spacecraft was making its 71st close approach to Jupiter when it unexpectedly entered into a precautionary status.

Data received from NASA’s Juno mission indicates the solar-powered spacecraft went into safe mode twice on April 4 while the spacecraft was flying by Jupiter. Safe mode is a precautionary status that a spacecraft enters when it detects an anomaly. Nonessential functions are suspended, and the spacecraft focuses on essential tasks like communication and power management. Upon entering safe mode, Juno’s science instruments were powered down, as designed, for the remainder of the flyby.

The mission operations team has reestablished high-rate data transmission with Juno, and the spacecraft is currently conducting flight software diagnostics.The team will work in the ensuing days to transmit the engineering and science data collected before and after the safe-mode events to Earth.

Juno first entered safe mode at 5:17 a.m. EDT, about an hour before its 71st close passage of Jupiter — called perijove. It went into safe mode again 45 minutes after perijove. During both safe-mode events, the spacecraft performed exactly as designed, rebooting its computer, turning off nonessential functions, and pointing its antenna toward Earth for communication.

Of all the planets in our solar system, Jupiter is home to the most hostile environment, with the radiation belts closest to the planet being the most intense. Early indications suggest the two Perijove 71 safe-mode events occurred as the spacecraft flew through these belts. To block high-energy particles from impacting sensitive electronics and mitigate the harmful effects of the radiation, Juno features a titanium radiation vault.

Including the Perijove 71 events, Juno has unexpectedly entered spacecraft-induced safe mode four times since arriving at Jupiter in July 2016: first, in 2016 during its second orbit, then in 2022 during its 39th orbit. In all four cases, the spacecraft performed as expected and recovered full capability.

Juno’s next perijove will occur on May 7 and include a flyby of the Jovian moon Io at a distance of about 55,300 miles (89,000 kilometers).

More About Juno

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. Various other institutions around the U.S. provided several of the other scientific instruments on Juno.

More information about Juno is available at:

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

News Media Contacts

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov

Deb Schmid
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org

2025-049

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Jeremiah Ostriker (April 13, 1937 – April 6, 2025)

Latest News - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 17:09

Jeremiah Ostriker, one of the most influential astrophysicists of the 20th century, has died at the age of 87. His work reshaped our understanding of the Universe, revealing it to be dominated not just by stars and galaxies, but also by mysterious dark matter and dark energy. From 2001 to 2004, Ostriker held the Plumian...

Tue 15 Apr 11:00: Growing pains: the dining habits of stars, planets and black holes

IoA Institute of Astronomy Talk Lists - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 15:30
Growing pains: the dining habits of stars, planets and black holes

To make planets, stars and supermassive black holes, one must rapidly accrete material onto central objects. But the tiniest tangential motion combined with angular momentum conservation sends material into orbit, rather than accreting. Since work at the IoA in the 1970s we have understood that Nature solves the angular momentum problem by forming accretion discs, but the angular momentum transport mechanism remains unclear. The past 10 years have given us spectacular resolved observations of discs around both young and old stars, bringing fresh clues. In this talk I’ll explain how pairing 3D simulations with observations helps us solve the problem of accretion, revealing how stars and planets form, black holes grow and how accretion powers tidal disruption events.

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Tue 15 Apr 11:00: Growing pains: the dining habits of stars, planets and black holes

Next Wednesday Seminars - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 15:30
Growing pains: the dining habits of stars, planets and black holes

To make planets, stars and supermassive black holes, one must rapidly accrete material onto central objects. But the tiniest tangential motion combined with angular momentum conservation sends material into orbit, rather than accreting. Since work at the IoA in the 1970s we have understood that Nature solves the angular momentum problem by forming accretion discs, but the angular momentum transport mechanism remains unclear. The past 10 years have given us spectacular resolved observations of discs around both young and old stars, bringing fresh clues. In this talk I’ll explain how pairing 3D simulations with observations helps us solve the problem of accretion, revealing how stars and planets form, black holes grow and how accretion powers tidal disruption events.

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Categories: Talks

The Ultraviolet Spectra of 2003fg-like Type Ia Supernovae

Stars and stellar evolution - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 10:57
arXiv:2504.05869v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: 2003fg-like Type Ia supernovae (03fg-like SNe Ia) are a rare subtype of SNe Ia, photometrically characterized by broader optical light curves and bluer ultraviolet (UV) colors compared to normal SNe Ia. In this work, we study four 03fg-like SNe Ia using Swift UltraViolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT) grism observations to understand their unique UV properties and progenitor scenario(s). We report 03fg-like SNe Ia to have similar UV features and elemental compositions as normal SNe Ia, but with higher UV flux relative to optical. Previous studies have suggested that the UV flux levels of normal SNe Ia could be influenced by their progenitor properties, such as metallicity, with metal-poor progenitors producing higher UV flux levels. While 03fg-like SNe were previously reported to occur in low-mass and metal-poor host environments, our analysis indicates that their UV excess cannot be explained by their host-galaxy parameters. Instead, we demonstrate that the addition of a hot blackbody component, likely arising from the interaction with the circumstellar material (CSM), to the normal SN Ia spectrum, can reproduce their distinctive UV excess. This supports the hypothesis that 03fg-like SNe Ia could explode in a CSM-rich environment.

The Ultraviolet Spectra of 2003fg-like Type Ia Supernovae

Recent IoA Publications - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 10:57
arXiv:2504.05869v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: 2003fg-like Type Ia supernovae (03fg-like SNe Ia) are a rare subtype of SNe Ia, photometrically characterized by broader optical light curves and bluer ultraviolet (UV) colors compared to normal SNe Ia. In this work, we study four 03fg-like SNe Ia using Swift UltraViolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT) grism observations to understand their unique UV properties and progenitor scenario(s). We report 03fg-like SNe Ia to have similar UV features and elemental compositions as normal SNe Ia, but with higher UV flux relative to optical. Previous studies have suggested that the UV flux levels of normal SNe Ia could be influenced by their progenitor properties, such as metallicity, with metal-poor progenitors producing higher UV flux levels. While 03fg-like SNe were previously reported to occur in low-mass and metal-poor host environments, our analysis indicates that their UV excess cannot be explained by their host-galaxy parameters. Instead, we demonstrate that the addition of a hot blackbody component, likely arising from the interaction with the circumstellar material (CSM), to the normal SN Ia spectrum, can reproduce their distinctive UV excess. This supports the hypothesis that 03fg-like SNe Ia could explode in a CSM-rich environment.

China researchers propose gravitational-wave observatory

Astronomy News - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 10:31
Researchers in China have proposed a novel gravitational-wave observatory to search for cracks in Einstein’s general theory of relativity using four satellites that form a tetrahedral structure in space.

Euclid mission spots Einstein ring

Astronomy News - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 10:30
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a spectacular image of an Einstein ring – a circle of light formed around a galaxy by gravitational lensing.

Building blocks of life seen in samples from the asteroid Bennu

Astronomy News - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 10:30
A sample of asteroid dirt brought back to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission contains amino acids, the nucleobases of RNA and DNA as well as brines that could have facilitated the formation of organic molecules.

How long is a day on Uranus? Slightly longer than we thought, it seems

Astronomy News - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 10:30

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we now know that a day on Uranus lasts for 28 seconds longer than previously thought - a difference that could be crucial in planning future missions to the gas giant

Space could emerge from time

Astronomy News - Wed, 09/04/2025 - 10:29

An investigation of the changing behaviour of a single quantum bit through time has uncovered a tantalising similarity to the geometry of three-dimensional space

Mon 02 Jun 16:00: Title to be confirmed

IoA Institute of Astronomy Talk Lists - Tue, 08/04/2025 - 18:27
Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

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The Bayesian Global Sky Model (B-GSM): A Calibrated Low Frequency Sky Model for EoR Applications

Cosmology and Fundamental physics - Tue, 08/04/2025 - 12:08
arXiv:2504.04503v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We present the Bayesian Global Sky Model (B-GSM), a new absolutely calibrated model of the diffuse Galactic foreground at frequencies below 408 MHz. We assemble a dataset of publicly available diffuse emission maps at frequencies between 45 MHz and 408 MHz, along with absolute temperature data from the EDGES radiometer between 40 and 200 MHz. We use nested sampling to perform a joint Bayesian analysis of these two datasets and determine posterior distributions of: spatially resolved diffuse components, spectral parameters for the diffuse emission, and calibration corrections for each observed map. Using Bayesian model comparison, we find that the low-frequency sky is optimally modelled by two emission components, each following a curved power-law spectrum. The spectrum for the first component has a spectral index of beta_1 = -2.633 plus/minus 0.002 and a curvature of gamma_1 = 0.014 plus/minus 0.001, while the second has beta_2 = -2.108 plus/minus 0.008 and gamma_2 = -0.424 plus/minus 0.008. The diffuse maps require temperature-scale corrections of 1% to 29%, and zero-level adjustments of a few kelvin to a few hundred kelvin. We find that the Haslam 408 MHz map is well calibrated, requiring a scale correction of 1.029 plus/minus 0.003 (about 3%) and a zero-level correction of 0.91 plus/minus 0.05 kelvin. Posterior predictions for the sky's absolute temperature are in excellent agreement with EDGES data, indicating accurate calibration. The posterior sky predictions agree with observations within statistical uncertainty across all frequencies. However, agreement varies by position, with the largest discrepancies in the Galactic plane. This is the second paper in the B-GSM series; the low-frequency sky model, along with all code and data, is available for download.

The Bayesian Global Sky Model (B-GSM): A Calibrated Low Frequency Sky Model for EoR Applications

Recent IoA Publications - Tue, 08/04/2025 - 12:08
arXiv:2504.04503v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We present the Bayesian Global Sky Model (B-GSM), a new absolutely calibrated model of the diffuse Galactic foreground at frequencies below 408 MHz. We assemble a dataset of publicly available diffuse emission maps at frequencies between 45 MHz and 408 MHz, along with absolute temperature data from the EDGES radiometer between 40 and 200 MHz. We use nested sampling to perform a joint Bayesian analysis of these two datasets and determine posterior distributions of: spatially resolved diffuse components, spectral parameters for the diffuse emission, and calibration corrections for each observed map. Using Bayesian model comparison, we find that the low-frequency sky is optimally modelled by two emission components, each following a curved power-law spectrum. The spectrum for the first component has a spectral index of beta_1 = -2.633 plus/minus 0.002 and a curvature of gamma_1 = 0.014 plus/minus 0.001, while the second has beta_2 = -2.108 plus/minus 0.008 and gamma_2 = -0.424 plus/minus 0.008. The diffuse maps require temperature-scale corrections of 1% to 29%, and zero-level adjustments of a few kelvin to a few hundred kelvin. We find that the Haslam 408 MHz map is well calibrated, requiring a scale correction of 1.029 plus/minus 0.003 (about 3%) and a zero-level correction of 0.91 plus/minus 0.05 kelvin. Posterior predictions for the sky's absolute temperature are in excellent agreement with EDGES data, indicating accurate calibration. The posterior sky predictions agree with observations within statistical uncertainty across all frequencies. However, agreement varies by position, with the largest discrepancies in the Galactic plane. This is the second paper in the B-GSM series; the low-frequency sky model, along with all code and data, is available for download.

A Multi-Mechanism Hybrid Model of Peaked-Spectrum Radio Sources

Recent IoA Publications - Tue, 08/04/2025 - 12:03
arXiv:2504.04387v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The peaked-spectrum (PS) sources exhibit turnover characteristics in their broad radio spectra. However, the mechanism underlying this phenomenon remains elusive. The two most common hypotheses are synchrotron self-absorption (SSA) and free-free absorption (FFA). By incorporating multiple absorption scenarios, we propose a multi-mechanism hybrid (MMH) model, which aligns well with current observational data and provides a good physical explanation. Using the GLEAM survey data, we identified a sample of 4,315 sources with peak frequencies approximately between 72--3000 MHz, most of which are MHz-peaked-spectrum sources (MPS). Our analysis shows that instead of SSA, the FFA is the dominant mechanism in producing the spectral turnover for most of the sources in this sample. The index of the optically thick spectrum alpha_thick has a lower boundary due to the FFA, and the steeper alpha_thick indicates a complex multi-absorption mechanism. In particular, the external FFA produces substantial alpha_thick, which exhibits a weak correlation with the peak frequency. Future ultra-long wavelength observations would also provide data on the spectrum of these sources at even lower frequencies. Determining the absorption mechanism that shaped the spectrum of these sources would be a crucial part of understanding their nature.