Posted on by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Dark Matter

This image shows the galaxy MCS J0416.1–2403, one of six clusters targeted by the Hubble Frontier Fields programme. The blue in this image is a mass map created by using new Hubble observations combined with the magnifying power of a process known as gravitational lensing. In red is the hot gas detected by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and shows the location of the gas, dust and stars in the cluster. The matter shown in blue that is separate from the red areas detected by Chandra consists of what is known as dark matter, and which can only be detected directly by gravitational lensing.Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields. Acknowledgement: Mathilde Jauzac (Durham University, UK) and Jean-Paul Kneib (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland).

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll feel mysterious about today’s topic: dark matter!

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Posted on by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Absolute Magnitude

Taken with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert, this stunning image shows the Milky Way’s central region with an angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds. This means the level of detail picked up by HAWK-I is roughly equivalent to seeing a football (soccer ball) in Zurich from Munich, where ESO’s headquarters are located. The image combines observations in three different wavelength bands. The team used the broadband filters J (centred at 1250 nanometres, in blue), H (centred at 1635 nanometres, in green), and Ks (centred at 2150 nanometres, in red), to cover the near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. By observing in this range of wavelengths, HAWK-I can peer through the dust, allowing it to see certain stars in the central region of our galaxy that would otherwise be hidden.   

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll surely measure the awesomeness of today’s topic: absolute magnitude!

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Posted on by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Electromagnetism

An artist view of a highly magnetized neutron star -- a magnetar. It's thought that these objects have solid surfaces and suffer eruptions when their magnetic fields are disturbed. Credit: Carl Knox/ OzGrav
An artist view of a highly magnetized neutron star -- a magnetar. It's thought that these objects have solid surfaces and suffer eruptions when their magnetic fields are disturbed. Credit: Carl Knox/ OzGrav

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! There’s a lot to see with today’s topic: electromagnetism!

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Posted on by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Weak Force

A view of the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter detector. Shown are photomultiplier tubes that can ferret out single photons of light. Signals from these photons told physicists that they had not yet found Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) Credit: Matthew Kapust / South Dakota Science and Technology Authority

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll be surprised by the power of today’s topic: the weak force!

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Posted on by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Strong Nuclear Force

The pentaquark, a novel arrangement of five elementary particles, has been detected at the Large Hadron Collider. This particle may hold the key to a better understanding of the Universe's strong nuclear force. [Image credit: CERN/LHCb experiment]

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! Feel the power of today’s topic: the strong force!

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