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08/08/23: Ryan Keenan- PhD Defense

Date: 
Tuesday, August 8, 2023 - 9:00am to 11:00am
Room: 

08/02/23: Ryan Boyden- PhD Defense

Date: 
Wednesday, August 2, 2023 - 9:00am to 11:00am
Room: 

Please join me in congratulating our 2023 College of Science Graduate Student Award Recipients from the Department of Astronomy — a reception was hosted by the College on Monday of this week to honor all the award winners from the College and two of our students and their mentors/advisors were able to attend in person (photos of Samantha Scibelli and her advisor Yancy Shirley and Rachel Amaro and her advisor Daniel Apai are attached). Jiachuan Xu (advisor Tim Eifler) was on travel.

Congratulations to Jiachuan, Rachael, and Samantha!!!  Some notes about their awards and why they were selected are below.

We will celebrate/recognize these award winners at the end of the Steward Observatory Internal Symposium this Friday. Each year there are three awards in each department for outstanding achievement/performance in the areas of research, teaching, and service.

Congrats to our three amazing students!

Buell Jannuzi, Xiaohui Fan, and Kaitlin Kratter

 

Jiachuan Xu: Research - Jiachuan is being recognized for his work on a new cosmological measurement technique known as Kinematic Lensing, which will utilize data from the upcoming Roman Space Telescope and other data sets.

Sam Scibelli: Teaching — Sam is being recognized for her outstanding work as a TA in ASTR 196 and 300B simultaneously. Sam took over in-class instruction for our undergraduate radiative processes classes due to an unexpected faculty illness.

Rachael Amaro: Service - Rachael is being recognized for her leadership as both a member of the initial Steward Observatory Diversity and Inclusiveness Committee, as well as one of the founders of the student led Steward Observatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative.

We report the discovery of a new transient in James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) NIRCam exposures of the massive galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67 (G165) taken as part of the Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science (PEARLS) program (GTO-1176; PI: R. Windhorst). The source was not detected in previous Hubble Space Telescope images (Frye et al. 2019; Pascale et al. 2022). 

Follow-up spectroscopy was accomplished using the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) LUCI in a consortium-wide effort.  The partners from Germany allocated the telescope time, the partners from Italy prepared, carried out, and reduced the spectroscopy,  and the partners from UArizona directly supported the organization and observing activities.  As a result of this grand effort, the redshift of the SN host was measured. 

Additional imaging and spectroscopy have been carried out with JWST (DD-4446; PI: B. Frye). This one transient is detected in three different locations (a, b, and c) as a result of gravitational lensing by the foreground galaxy cluster G165. Our gravitational lensing model predicts that light from the transient arrived first in image “a,” followed by “c,” and then “b”. This transient, which we designate as "SN H0pe," is s Type Ia supernova that was classified as a result of analyzing the JWST observations. 

Figure caption: JWST/NIRCam color image in the central region of G165.  {\it Right:} Closeup of the boxed region depicting the three images of the galaxy Arc 2, as labeled. The SN Ia candidate is circled.  Note the parity flip between images 2c and 2b, and images 2b and 2a, as predicted by lensing theory. The SN Ia candidate appears in all three images.

Participation within the state of Arizona includes both ASU and UArizona.  At UArizona significant contributions were made by astronomy majors Nick Foo, Reagen Leimbach, Paulina Soto Robles, and Nikhil Garuda, and from computer science major (and Outstanding Senior for 2023 in that department) Gavin Vogt.  
On April 22, 2023 we celebrated 100 years of discovery with the Steward Observatory Dome and the 36-inch first “All-American” made reflecting telescope,” both still in use today. This telescope is part of the SpaceWatch® Program on Kitt Peak, which monitors objects in space that might present a hazard to Earth.

Celebrating 100-Years of Discovery!

Friends of Steward Observatory,

Our thanks to all of you who joined us this past Saturday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the “All American” 36-inch Telescope of Steward Observatory and our recommitment to the research, education, and outreach missions it generated.  We hope you had as much fun as we did

The 36-inch, then a “Telescope of Huge Size,” according to the Arizona Daily Star, was built thanks to the philanthropic gift of $60,000 by Lavinia Steward to the University of Arizona. This enabled Andrew Ellicott Douglass, the first Director of Steward Observatory, to build the University’s first major research telescope.   This was the start of our growth into a world-class Observatory and Department of Astronomy. It paved the way for other major research facilities at the University, and ushered in an era of transformational philanthropic giving to the University.

Today, in honor of our first century and the philanthropic legacy that shaped it, we ask you to consider making a donation that can stimulate a new century of growth that will make as much history as our first 100 years. Our goal is to secure 100 donations by the end of April 30.  We are going to have a time capsule, to be opened on the 200th Anniversary of the dedication, that will have memorabilia from our celebration this past week as well as the names of the donors that participate in this mini-drive — so please consider joining Lavinia Steward among the long line of donors that have enabled us to explore the Universe together.

Sincerely,

Buell Jannuzi and Cathi Duncan
(On behalf of the Committee that Organized our Celebration of the Dedication of the 36-inch Telescope and rededication of Steward Observatory)

Be One of 100: Carry Steward into the future!

 
On April 22, 2023 we will be celebrating 100 years of discovery with the Steward Observatory Dome and the 36-inch first “All-American” made reflecting telescope,” both still in use today. This telescope is part of the SpaceWatch® Program on Kitt Peak, which monitors objects in space that might present a hazard to Earth.

Celebrating 100-Years of Discovery!

Open House: Learn How Our Discoveries Will Transform Our Understanding of the Universe in the Next Century!
 
Saturday, April 22, 2023: 1:00 – 5:00 pm MST
Steward Observatory, 933 N. Cherry Ave. Dome and Room N210
Nearest Parking: 2nd Street and Cherry Ave. Garage
 

1:00 pm

Welcome and Rededication of the Dome and 36” Telescope

1:30 pm

Refreshments

2:00 pm

A series of brief talks sharing the exciting research taking place today and what we expect to discover in our next 100 years. Attendees will have an opportunity to sample the diverse astronomy and astrophysics research being done by our students, staff, and faculty.

5:00 pm

Conclusion

 

Steward Observatory 100-Year Celebration Science Talk Schedule
April 22, 2023

1

2:00 - 2:15

SPACEWATCH® at 40 Years:  Asteroids, Planetary Defense, and the Steward Observatory 36” Telescope

Melissa Brucker, Spacewatch

2

2:15 - 2:25

Star formation in nearby galaxies - peering through dust with the James Webb Space Telescope

Daniel Maschmann

3

2:25 - 2:35

The mystery of the brightest gamma-ray burst of all time!

Manisha Shrestha

4

2:35 - 2:45

Taking Pictures of Exoplanets with Steward Observatory Telescopes

Jared Males

5

2:45 - 2:55

Finding Hidden Monsters with Steward Observatory

Raphael Hviding

6

2:55 - 3:05

Machine learning reveals how supermassive black holes grow with galaxies 

Haowen Zhang

 

Break 15 minutes

7

3:20 - 3:30

The JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey: Discovery of an Extreme Galaxy Overdensity at z = 5.4 with JWST/NIRCam in GOODS-S

Jakob Helton

8

3:30 - 3:40

Resolving Nearby Black Holes With The Event Horizon Telescope

Jasmin Washington

9

3:40 - 3:50

CatSat - UA's most advanced cubesat 

Hilliard Wegner Paige III

10

3:50 - 4:00

Fundamental physics with large cosmological datasets - weighing neutrinos with galaxy observables

Paul Rogozenski

11

4:00 - 4:10

The Pandora SmallSat Mission: Characterizing Exoplanets and their Host Stars

Megan Mansfield

12

4:10 - 4:20

Steward, Stars, and (Exo) Solar Systems 

Kevin Hardegree Ullman

13

4:20 - 4:30

GUSTO: Mapping the ISM in the Galaxy

Del Spangler

14

4:30 - 4:40

From lab to outer space- Developing new technologies and space telescopes to study the Circumgalactic Medium and its role in galaxy formation and evolution

Aafaque Khan

15

4:40 - 4:50

Probing galaxies in the early Universe with JWST

Lily Whitler

16

4:50 - 5:00

Closing Remarks

Buell Jannuzi

 

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