Category: Astronomical instrumentation

NANOCOSMOS astronomers will map Orion with SOFIA

/ Marcelo Castellanos

A legacy program to map the far-IR fine structure line of C+ at 158 microns with the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has been recently awarded to a small international team led by Prof. Tielens (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands) and including 3 members of the NANOCOSMOS project, Dr. J. R. Goicoechea (ICMM-CSIC), Dr. O. Berné (IRAP, CNRS) and Prof. J. Cernicharo (ICMM-CSIC). The observing time to map the Orion molecular cloud will be more than 50 hours, which means several flights on board SOFIA!!

[CII] 158μm emission image taken by Herschel with the locations of famous regions in the cloud identified (Goicoechea et al. 2015)
[CII] 158μm emission image taken by Herschel with the locations of famous regions in the cloud identified (Goicoechea et al. 2015). SOFIA will map an area 20 times larger than the region covered by Herschel.

The ionized carbon emission dominates the gas cooling of the low density interstellar medium and it is the brightest emission line in the IR spectrum of galaxies. In the next 2 years, astronomers will use the instrument upGREAT flying on board SOFIA to map an area of more than 20 times the central region of Orion recently observed with the Herschel Space Telescope (Goicoechea et al. 2015, ApJ, 812, 75, see the publications section). This project will allow to uniquely determine the use of the C+ line as a star formation rate indicator, derive the amount of molecular cloud mass not measured by CO (so-called “CO-dark” gas), and semi-empirically determine the photo-electric heating efficiency on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and interstellar dust grains.

The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a joint project between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) consisting of a custom-modified Boeing 747SP aircraft with an effective aperture of 2.5 m mounted in an open cavity towards the tail of the aircraft.

SOFIA air-to-air over the Sierra Nevada Mountains (Credit: NASA, USRA (Universities Space Research Association), and L-3 Communications Integrated Systems/Jim Ross)
SOFIA air-to-air over the Sierra Nevada Mountains (Credit: NASA, USRA (Universities Space Research Association), and L-3 Communications Integrated Systems/Jim Ross)

Javier R. Goicoechea awarded for a study of the interstellar clouds

/ Marcelo Castellanos
Composite image obtained from the emission of 12CO (blue), 13CO (green), and C18O (red) of the Orion B molecular cloud (IRAM 30m telescope). Credit: J. Pety.

Javier R. Goicoechea, astronomer at the ICMM-CSIC

 
 

The Société Française d’Astronomie et d’Astrophysique (SF2A) and the Sociedad Española de Astronomía (SEA) have awarded Javier R. Goicoechea (ICMM-CSIC) and Jérôme Pety (IRAM, France) with the SEA-SF2A 2015 prize for their outstanding achievements in the study of interstellar clouds illuminated by ultraviolet radiation from nearby massive stars, in a French-Spanish scientific research cooperation.

Congrats to both¡¡¡

More info at:

IRAM news

Blog de Consolider-Ingenio ASTROMOL

High-Resolution Submillimeter Spectroscopy of the Interstellar Medium and Star Forming Regions — From Herschel to ALMA and Beyond (Zakopane, Poland, May 12 – 16, 2015)

/ Marcelo Castellanos
copyright © : Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)
copyright © : Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)

Two NANOCOSMOS members, Prof. José Cernicharo and Dr. Javier R. Goicoechea gave two invited talks at this workshop in Poland. José Cernicharo showed the NANOCOSMOS latests results from the ALMA observations of the archetypical AGB carbon-star IRC+10216. The NANOCOSMOS team has published 4 articles (see publications) on these results (including IRAM observations) and new exciting results are expected for the coming months. Javier R. Goicoechea talked about the velocity-resolved [CII] emission and [CII]/FIR mapping along Orion. The [CII] 158μm fine structure line is arising in gas irradiated by UV-photons from the Trapezium cluster and contributes significantly to the cooling of the cold neutral medium. These observations in combination with Far-Infrared photometric images of the dust emission and maps of the H41α hydrogen recombination and CO provide an unprecedented close view (0,16 light-years in resolution) of the Orion Cloud surrounding the Trapezium. Stay tuned¡

NANOCOSMOS at the recent ALMA / Herschel Archival Workshop (Garching, Germany)

/ Marcelo Castellanos

alma_herschel_low_resFour NANOCOSMOS researchers gave their presentations at the ALMA/Herschel Archival Workshop held in Garching (Germany) at the ESO headquarters in April 15 -17, 2015. José Cernicharo (NANOCOSMOS Corresponding P.I.) talked about the synergies between the ALMA high resolution observations in the innermost zones of star-forming regions, AGB, post-AGBs stars and extragalactic objects and those of Herschel´s archive submillimeter and far-IR observations. Our postdoctoral researchers, Marcelino Agúndez, Guillermo Quintana-Lacaci and Belén Tercero talked about the following topics: Continue reading →