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Physics & Astronomy

Department Features

Department Features

Current research and activities in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

BYU Receives Funding for Jet Noise Reduction Effort

 Kent Gee and Tracianne Neilsen, along with PhD candidate Alan Wall, are leading a team of undergraduate and graduate students on a new project studying the noise environment from the F-22 Raptor. The findings will be used by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Office of Naval Research, who have sponsored the effort, to mitigate the noise impact on military personnel and communities.

First Light for the BYU 0.9-m Telescope

 This image was secured during the installation of the 0.9-m telescope at the BYU West Mountain Observatory. Data for this image is from August 27, 2009. This was the first night that a CCD had been mounted on the telescope so that imaging was possible. This 'First Light' image shows the globular cluster known as M15 in the constellation of Pegasus. The distance to this cluster is more than 33,000 light years and yet individual stars are easily resolved all through the cluster. Globular cluster stars have an extremely low abundance of heavy elements as compared to stars found in the solar neighborhood and represent the oldest population of stars known in the Galaxy. It is interesting to note the many cool red giant stars that are visible in the cluster as well as a large number of evolved horizontal branch stars that are blue in color. Many of the horizontal branch stars are known to be RR Lyrae variable stars that are useful as distance indicators since it is possible to determine their luminosity and compare that value to their apparent magnitude as measured from the observed images. The color image processing for this picture is the work of Dr. Rob Gendler. Dr. Gendler is well known for producing amazingly detailed astronomical images that are often featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Heirarchically Structured Materials

 Carbon nanotube templated microfabrication (CNT-M) was used to create structured materials with control over length scales from 10 nm to over 100 microns. The electron micrographs shows control over three dimensional microscale features that is possible with CNT-M (as seen in top left image). Nanoscale porosity is also controlled (seen in top right image) and when coupled with microscale patterning results in the fabrication of structures (bottom left) for high performance chemical separations (bottom right).

Intricate details of the Dumbbell Nebula

 This composite image of the Dumbbell Nebula (known by catalog designations such as M27 or NGC 6853), located in the northern summer constellation of Vulpecula, presents a remarkably detailed view of the planetary nebula that was first discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. The complex shells of gas that are observed in planetary nebulae are in fact the remnants of material lost by an aging star that has collapsed to form a white dwarf. In the case of the Dumbbell Nebula, the expansion rate of the material surrounding the central star indicates that the main portion of the nebulosity is only three or four thousand years old.

Noted astrophysical image processor Dr. Robert Gendler has combined image data from the 2.4-meter Hubble Space Telescope, the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope located near the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawai’i, and the 0.9-meter Brigham Young University Telescope at the West Mountain Observatory in Utah to produce a rich and finely detailed image of this well known object. The data from the Hubble Space Telescope provide the small scale detail in the central portions of the nebula. The Subaru Telescope data add to the overall fine detail that is resolved in the nebula. The data from the wide field 0.9-meter Brigham Young University Telescope were secured in the summer of 2010 by BYU astronomers Dr. Michael D. Joner and Dr. C. David Laney. The BYU images provide the majority of the color information and details in the outer shells of the nebulosity that were used in the assembly of this intricately detailed image.
 
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