NRAO: VLA Begins Huge Project of Cosmic Discovery

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NRAO: VLA Begins Huge Project of Cosmic Discovery

Post by bystander » Tue Sep 19, 2017 5:08 pm

VLA Begins Huge Project of Cosmic Discovery
National Radio Astronomy Observatory | 2017 Sep 18

New sky survey is largest observing project in VLA's history.
[img3="The new VLA Sky Survey (VLASS) sharpens the view. Here is the same radio-emitting object as seen, from left to right, with the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS), the FIRST Survey, and the VLASS. The VLASS image, unlike the others, allows astronomers to positively identify the image as jets of material propelled outward from the center of a galaxy that also is seen in the visible-light Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
"]https://public.nrao.edu/wp-content/uplo ... 70x600.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
Astronomers have embarked on the largest observing project in the more than four-decade history of the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) — a huge survey of the sky that promises a rich scientific payoff over many years.

Over the next 7 years, the iconic array of giant dish antennas in the high New Mexico desert will make three complete scans of the sky visible from its latitude — about 80 percent of the entire sky. The survey, called the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS), will produce the sharpest radio view ever made of such a large portion of the sky, and is expected to detect 10 million distinct radio-emitting celestial objects, about four times as many as are now known. ...

Astronomers expect the VLASS to discover powerful cosmic explosions, such as supernovae, gamma ray bursts, and the collisions of neutron stars, that are obscured from visible-light telescopes by thick clouds of dust, or that otherwise have eluded detection. The VLA’s ability to see through dust will make the survey a tool for finding a variety of structures within our own Milky Way that also are obscured by dust.

The survey will reveal many additional examples of powerful jets of superfast particles propelled by the energy of supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies. This will yield important new information on how such jets affect the growth of galaxies over time. The VLA’s ability to measure magnetic fields will help scientists gain new understanding of the workings of individual galaxies and of the interactions of giant clusters of galaxies. ...
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