Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Monitoring Agns With H-Beta Asymmetry: Markarian 841, Samuel J. Schonsberg

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Quasars are among the most luminous objects in the Universe, and the mechanism behind their luminosity was shrouded in mystery decades after their discovery. Since then, we have found that these objects are active galactic nuclei (AGN), which are powered by actively-feeding super massive black holes at the center of a galaxy. But we still know fairly little about the structure and motion of the material surrounding active super massive black holes, and most of these objects are not resolvable by conventional observations. We use a technique called reverberation mapping, which is traditionally used only as a mass determination …

Axial Symmetry Tests Of Milky Way Disk Stars Probe The Galaxy's Matter Distribution, Austin Hinkel

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

In Galactic dynamics, various assumptions have been employed for mathematical ease. These assumptions are approximately valid, but departures reveal perturbations on our Galaxy. In this dissertation, we select a complete, Gaia DR2 data set, and using this data, we find evidence for axial symmetry breaking in the Galaxy, away from the spiral arms and the Galactic bar. This asymmetry is compatible with a prolate dark matter halo tilted with respect to the disk, with a long axis pointing in the direction of the Magellanic Clouds, and this matches an inventory of nearby torques. These asymmetries vary North and South of …

Closest Jupiter, Saturn Conjunction In Almost 400 Years, Erik Johnson

Natural Science Faculty

If you've been looking up in the evening over the last several months, you may have seen some rather bright objects in the southern sky. Those are the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and on December 21 they are going to appear closer together than people have seen in nearly 400 years.

Staerkel Planetarium Can Give You Eyes In The Sky, Erik Johnson

Natural Science Faculty

People come to the William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College to see the wonders of the universe. The images you see on the dome and in the lobby of the planetarium are not possible to view if you are merely staring up at the night sky because these objects are too dim to see without using a telescope.

Flare Emission Observed In High Resolution And Comparison With Numerical Modeling, Nengyi Huang

Dissertations

As one of the most intense activities on the solar surface, flares have been extensively observed and studied ever since the first report. The standard model of solar flares has been established and commonly accepted. However, many limitations from the researching tools have left some of the problems unsolved or controversial. For example, the density of electrons in the corona is lower than it is required to activate the observed emission in HXR, and the mechanism that these electron beams can penetrate down to lower chromosphere is unclear. Many theoretical scenarios were suggested, and more observations had been in need. …

Relativity Lite: A Pictorial Translation Of Einstein’S Theories Of Motion And Gravity, Jack C. Straton

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

Relativity Lite is designed for the General Astronomy sequence (PH 361-2U, SCI 315-6U) whose primary book glosses over Special Relativity and General Relativity while trying to explain the Cosmology that is based on those subjects. Relativity Lite translates the mathematical equations conventional relativity texts rely upon into pictures that are readily understood and contain within them the mathematical essentials. This book provides the comprehensive coverage needed to understand, in sufficient depth, these three linked areas of our reality.

Readers seeking this knowledge on their own, and those in other courses for nonscientists, may also find it helpful.

Adopt/Adapt
If you …

Staerkel Planetarium's Doors Closed, But Skies Are Always Open, Erik Johnson

Natural Science Faculty

Ask any astronomer and they will tell you that the best night skies are found when you get away from light pollution. The COVID-19 pandemic has not taken away our ability to enjoy watching the stars, but it has prevented the staff of the William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College from sharing the immersive environment of the dome with the public for the rest of 2020. Since the cycles of the sky are still in motion, the staff have strived to keep everyone informed about what they can see under dark skies or in their backyard.

Astroalign: A Python Module For Astronomical Image Registration, Martin Beroiz, Juan B. Cabral, Bruno Sanchez

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present an algorithm implemented in the Astroalign Python module for image registration in astronomy. Our module does not rely on WCS information and instead matches three-point asterisms (triangles) on the images to find the most accurate linear transformation between them. It is especially useful in the context of aligning images prior to stacking or performing difference image analysis. Astroalign can match images of different point-spread functions, seeing, and atmospheric conditions.

Solar Radio Burst Type Ii And Iii With Half Wave Dipole Antenna, Mohd Pauzi Farah Aqilah

Student Works (2020-2029)

An investigation into the physics of solar radio burst type II was done to understand the frequency gap between its fundamental and harmonic emissions that happen as aftershocks of Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). Up until now, the evolution of type II and its associated coronal wave still remain a mystery. Hazardous CME study upholds its fore coming danger to human and technology. This work also addresses the issue of the lack of spatial resolution of previous solar radio burst type II studies. An instrument produced by ETH Zürich namely the Compound Astronomical Low-cost Low-frequency Instrument for Spectroscopy and Transportable Spectrometers …

Computational Astronomy: Classification Of Celestial Spectra Using Machine Learning Techniques, Gayatri Milind Hungund

Master's Projects

Lightyears beyond the Planet Earth there exist plenty of unknown and unexplored stars and Galaxies that need to be studied in order to support the Big Bang Theory and also make important astronomical discoveries in quest of knowing the unknown. Sophisticated devices and high-power computational resources are now deployed to make a positive effort towards data gathering and analysis. These devices produce massive amount of data from the astronomical surveys and the data is usually in terabytes or petabytes. It is exhaustive to process this data and determine the findings in short period of time. Many details can be missed …

Design And Modal Analysis Of An Ultra-Wideband Receiver For Green Bank Observatory, Alyssa Bulatek

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

The next generation of radio receivers for astronomy will be marked by tenfold improvements in sensitivity. These sensitive receivers will be useful for the detection of broadband fast radio bursts and other transients as well as the efficient discovery of radio recombination lines among many other scientific pursuits. One contribution to these improvements is an increase to decade receiver bandwidths. The Green Bank Observatory (GBO) is currently in the process of fabricating a new ultra-wideband (UWB; 0.7 to 4.2 GHz) receiver for the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The UWB receiver will be used by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for …

Determining The Rotational And Orbital Velocities Of Objects In The Solar System, Mark Jones

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Astronomers have been observing the night sky for many centuries to establish a better understanding for our universe and solar system. As part of their observations, astronomers characterize celestial bodies by fundamental properties such as mass, motion, and composition in order to provide further insight about the objects in question. As technology and science have evolved, the methods for measuring these properties have become more precise and accurate. One such methodology is known as spectroscopy, and it is a significant tool for observational astronomy. In this paper, we shall describe how we used astronomical spectroscopy to determine orbital and rotational …

Sensory-Friendly Show Set To Return At Staerkel Planetarium, Erik Johnson

Natural Science Faculty

When most people come to the William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College for a show, they are greeted by a 50-foot dome and the impressive – but imposing – Zeiss star projector. As the programs begin, the lights get dimmer than they would in a movie theater, which may briefly create an environment that can be distressing for some guests, particularly if they are sensitive to significant sensory changes.

However, on February 29, the Staerkel Planetarium took a different approach and hosted its first ever sensory-friendly shows with the goal of providing a more welcoming experience for members of …

Automated Spectroscopic Detection And Mapping Using Alma And Machine Learningtechniques, Steven Cocke, Andrew Wilkins, Josephine Mcdaniel, John Santerre, Conor Nixon

SMU Data Science Review

In this paper we present a methodology for automating theclassification of spectrally resolved observations of multiple emissionlines with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).Molecules in planetary atmospheres emit or absorb different wavelengthsof light thereby providing a unique signature for each species. ALMAdata were taken from interferometric observations of Titan made be-tween UT 2012 July 03 23:22:14 and 2012 July 04 01:06:18 as part ofALMA project 2011.0.00319.S. We first employed a greedy set cover algorithm to identify the most probable molecules that would reproducethe set of frequencies with respective flux greater than 3σaway from themean. We then selected a subset of …

Perfect Circles: A Study Of The Scattering Regions Of Wolf Rayet Binary Stars, Stella Yoos, Jennifer Hoffman, Andrew Fullard

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Although we have been able to develop an understanding of many aspects of stellar evolution and formation, a few key gaps remain. One is the fate of massive binary star systems composed of Wolf-Rayet (WR) and O-type stars. In these WR + O binaries, the stellar winds surrounding these stars collide, creating a complex interaction region in which light from the stars scatters and becomes polarized. To study these scattering regions, I employ a technique that allows me to map the polarization of the light emitted from these stars and track its variation over the binary orbit. I found that …

In-Class Activities For Openstax Astronomy, Rosa Williams, Kimberly Shaw

Physics and Astronomy Ancillary Materials

This set of in-class activities in Microsoft Word format are intended to supplement OpenStax Astronomy. Topics include:

• Atmospheric Gas
• Celestial Sphere
• Dwarf Planets
• Earth Size
• Earth Impact
• Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change
• Jovian Planet
• Jovian Moon and Ring
• Mars Atmosphere and Climate
• Solar System Formation and Scale
• Sunspots
• Terrestrial Planet and Lunar Features
• Venus Atmosphere and Climate

Host-Galaxy Morphology Of 14 Local Active Galaxies As Imaged By The Hubble Space Telescope, Tomas Henry Snyder

Physics

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are galaxies with super-massive black holes, that are undergoing accretion, at their centers. The study of these objects provides us with a deeper understanding of how the black holes evolved along with their host galaxies since black hole mass is highly correlated with bulge mass. A sample of 66 AGNs were imaged using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and 14 of those are analyzed in this paper to determine their structure, bulge luminosity, and bulge type. The program GALFIT is implemented to determine these parameters, that will be used in further research in the future. These …

A Writing Intensive Upper Division Astrophysics/Planetary Science Course, Laura M. Woodney

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This poster describes the major writing components of an upper division Astronomy or Planetary Science course. These components are intended to be integrated throughout the semester along with the content of the course. The papers the instructor chooses for the scaffolded assignments should compliment/enhance the content the students are learning in the course. This project used the "Backwards Design" method from Bean (2011, citation in poster): where the instructor first identifies the final project, determines what challenges the students will encounter attempting to do that project, and then builds scaffolded assignments intended to address each of these challenges. This presentation …

Longer Nights Mean More Chances To Stargaze At Staerkel Planetarium, Erik Johnson

Natural Science Faculty

The William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College offers programs for different audiences throughout the year. This article provides a comprehensive schedule for 2020.

Creating A Sample Of Off-Color Galaxies Using Big Data Tools, Christopher Becker

Honors Program Theses

This thesis begins an investigation into the presence of off-colored galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Through establishing the emergence and history of Astroinformatics, the thesis introduces the concepts surrounding both off-color galaxies and the Big Data tools helpful in analyzing the data to find them. A discussion of initial implementation methods and revised implementation due to difficulties with previous plans follows. Results are presented, with well in excess of 500,000 candidates for off-color galaxies present in the sample. Conclusions are then drawn regarding such a large sample and the implications this may have on the conventional understanding of …

Significance Of Gravitational Nonlinearities On The Dynamics Of Disk Galaxies, Alexandre Deur, Corey Sargent, Balša Terzić

Physics Faculty Publications

The discrepancy between the visible mass in galaxies or galaxy clusters and that inferred from their dynamics is well known. The prevailing solution to this problem is dark matter. Here we show that a different approach, one that conforms to both the current standard model of particle physics and general relativity (GR), explains the recently observed tight correlation between the galactic baryonic mass and the measured accelerations in the galaxy. Using direct calculations based on GR's Lagrangian and parameter-free galactic models, we show that the nonlinear effects of GR make baryonic matter alone sufficient to explain this observation. Our approach …

Searching For Needles In The Cosmic Haystack, Thomas Ryan Devine

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Searching for pulsar signals in radio astronomy data sets is a difficult task. The data sets are extremely large, approaching the petabyte scale, and are growing larger as instruments become more advanced. Big Data brings with it big challenges. Processing the data to identify candidate pulsar signals is computationally expensive and must utilize parallelism to be scalable. Labeling benchmarks for supervised classification is costly. To compound the problem, pulsar signals are very rare, e.g., only 0.05% of the instances in one data set represent pulsars. Furthermore, there are many different approaches to candidate classification with no consensus on a best …

Historical Milestones In Astronomy: As Shown Through The Byu Special Collections Archives, Dan Broadbent

Faculty Publications

Science Research: The “Long Conversation”

• Ideas in science can take a long time to develop.
• How do they develop?

• These books document a part of a conversation that began 447 years ago and spanned a 153 year period… documenting:
• how the overall nature of the universe was worked out,
• the establishment of the scientific method, and the boundaries of religious authority,
• and culminated in Isaac Newton’s book that presented his three laws of motion that allow us to explore the universe to this day.

Plenty Of Stars On Display On Parkland's Campus, Erik Johnson

Natural Science Faculty

Since 1987, the William M. Staerkel Planetarium has brought the universe to Champaign-Urbana even if the skies are cloudy. Parkland College’s first president, William Staerkel (“star-kul”), dreamed of establishing a cultural center in campus, engaging the community in arts and sciences with a theater and a planetarium. That vision was realized at the end of his tenure and the planetarium was named in his honor.

Milky Way Morphology, Laurence A. Marschall

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

From our limited perspective—living on a planet that orbits one of several hundred billion stars inside the Milky Way—the detailed structure of our home galaxy is difficult to determine. It has long been recognized by astronomers as a typical spiral galaxy, one of countless flattened pinwheels of stars seen throughout the universe. By mapping the distances to more than 2,400 stars, scientists have now created, with unprecedented precision, a three-dimensional map that shows the Milky Way has a twisted shape. [excerpt]

Descriptive Astronomy I: The Solar System (Csu), Rosa Williams, Kimberly Shaw

Physics and Astronomy Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Descriptive Astronomy I was created under a Round Thirteen ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

Preparing A Database Of Extremely High Velocity Outflows In Quasars, Griffin Kowash, Carla P. Quintero, Sean S. Haas, Paola Rodriguez Hidalgo

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

No abstract provided.

Pipeline For Variable Star Detection And Eclipsing Binary Characterization, Moises Castillo

Theses and Dissertations

Stars have been observed and recorded since ancient times. Practices of documenting brightness led to observations of variability. Optical CCD observations of eclipsing binary stars were made with instruments at UTRGV Dr. Cristina Valeria Torres Memorial Astronomical Observatory. There are two main goals for this project. The first goal is to create a pipeline written in python (lightcurator) that creates a framework for detecting variable stars. The pipeline starts by creating a list of ccd frames written in FITS format of an eclipsing binary star observation. These object frames are expected to be already reduced, but lightcurator provides tools to …

Preservation Of Our Astronomical Heritage: State Of The Profession White Paper For Astro2020, James Lattis, Wayne Osborn, Terry D. Oswalt, Jennifer Lynn Bartlett, Elizabeth Griffin, Thomas Hockey, Stephen Mccluskey, Alexei A. Pevtsov, Sara Schechner, Virginia Trimble

Publications

We argue that it is essential that the Astro2020 survey of the present state of American astronomy and the recommendations for the next decade address the issue of ensuring preservation of, and making more discoverable and accessible, the field’s rich legacy materials. These include both archived observations of scientific value and items of historical importance. Much of this heritage likely will be lost if action is not taken in the next decade. It is proposed that the decadal plan include recommendations on (1) compiling a list of historic sites and development of models for their preservation, (2) carrying out a …

Real-Time Rfi Mitigation In Radio Astronomy, Emily Ramey, Nick Joslyn, Richard Prestage, Michael Lam, Luke Hawkins, Tim Blattner, Mark Whitehead

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

As the use of wireless technology has increased around the world, Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) has become more and more of a problem for radio astronomers. Preventative measures exist to limit the presence of RFI, and programs exist to remove it from saved data, but the use of algorithms to detect and remove RFI as an observation is occurring is much less common. Such a method would be incredibly useful for observations in which the data must undergo several rounds of processing before being saved, as in pulsar timing studies. Strategies for real-time mitigation have been discussed and tested with …