New studies using the VLA and other telescopes have added to our knowledge of what happens when a black hole shreds a star, but also have raised new questions that astronomers must tackle.
Quasar Discovery Sets New Distance Record
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), along with other telescopes, have discovered the most distant quasar yet found. The bright quasar, powered by a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy, is seen as it was only 670 million years after the Big Bang, and is providing valuable clues about how such huge black holes and their host galaxies formed in the early Universe.
IMAGE RELEASE: A Blazar In the Early Universe
Observations with the continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) reveal previously unseen details in a jet of material ejected from the core of a galaxy seen as it was when the universe was only about 7 percent of its current age.
IMAGE RELEASE: Galaxies in the Perseus Cluster
New VLA images show how the crowded environment of a cluster of galaxies affects the individual galaxies, helping astronomers better understand some of the complex details of such an environment.
NRAO Contest Winners Illustrate Diverse Cosmic Phenomena
Winners in NRAO’s VLA 40th Anniversary Image Contest are from around the world, and their works illustrate a fascinating variety of celestial objects. Entries combined observational data from the VLA with data from optical, infrared, and X-ray telescopes, and from computer simulations.
AAS Names NRAO Astronomer as Fred Kavli Plenary Lecturer
NRAO astronomer Paul B. Demorest has been selected to give the Fred Kavli Plenary Lecture at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, to be held virtually, on 11 January 2021.