222° Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

One of the largest astronomy meetings of the year will open to the public for the first time in its history. More than 500 astronomers, journalists and guests will bring their cosmic know-how to Indianapolis next week for the 222nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The conference begins on Sunday (June 2) and runs through June 6 at the Indiana Convention Center; it is the second of two meetings held annually by the AAS. New findings about alien worlds, mysterious dark matter and the Milky Way will be discussed, and this year anyone can take part in the cosmic action. Several presentations on Monday and Tuesday will be geared toward amateurs that decide to pay the fee and attend. The presentations include information about the Hubble Space Telescope, nearby exoplanets, Pluto, and the formation of galaxies in the early universe. In addition to those talks, the society will also hold two free public events during the convention. Throughout the course of the conference, scientists will take part in town hall-style meetings about NASA, the National Science Foundation and other agencies. The latest findings from the badly damaged planet hunting Kepler Space Telescope will be presented as well. Twitter users can follow the conference using the hashtag #AAS222.

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The 2° PANDA Symposium on Multi-messenger Astronomy

PANDA Symposia series are aiming at establishing and fostering collaborations among young post doctoral fellows (0-6 years from graduation) from the Pacific/Asiatic scientific community with their peers across the globe. Besides enabling scientific mobility and networking, we are also aiming in providing young researchers with a forum to exchange ideas on current and future projects.

The First PANDA Symposium was a great success. 23 astrophysicists from 9 foreign countries attended, as well as 78 astrophysicists from China. The Symposium was an outstanding international forum for discussion of various topics related to “Products of Astrophysical Outflows”, and addressed some of the most exciting research frontiers of high energy astrophysics. It provided many opportunities for Chinese researchers and advanced students to become acquainted with leaders in these fields and to present their own research results to an international audience. The Second PANDA Symposium will focus on multi-messenger Astronomy, which combines detections of electromagnetic signals from astrophysical sources with high energy neutrinos, cosmic ray (particle) astrophysics and gravitational waves.

10° IBWS (INTEGRAL/BART) workshop

IBWS 2013 is tenth in the series of successful workshops dedicated to high energy astrophysics and supporting ground-based experiments (e.g. robotic telescopes). The workshop will be held in Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad),  Czech Republic, April 22 – 25 2013. The IBWS is expected to start with welcome cocktail in the evening, April 22, the scientific sessions will start in the morning, April 23. Originally, the IBWS (INTEGRAL/BART) workshops focused on the work of High energy astrophysics group in Astronomical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and relevant international collaborators from the field, with strong student participation. Nowadays, the IBWS workshops promote regional collaboration in high-energy astrophysics with emphasis on interface between satellite projects and ground-based experiments (e.g. robotic telescopes).

The Modern Radio Universe 2013

80 years ago, in spring 1933, Karl Jansky published his discovery of cosmic radio emission. This paved the way not only for a new discipline, radio astronomy, but also for an exploration of the universe that now encompasses almost the entire electromagnetic window. Today, radio astronomy is about to enter into yet another new era with a number of new or upgraded radio facilities coming online and major new initiatives, like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), are starting up. This conference will try to highlight the original and exciting science currently being produced by radio astronomical telescopes, such as the GBT, Effelsberg, LOFAR, ALMA, the JVLA, GMRT, eMERLIN, EVN, VLBA, as well as pathfinder experiments of the SKA, and others.
Science areas that will be discussed are among others: Cosmology, galaxy evolution, AGN and compact objects, star formation, interstellar medium, The Milky Way and Galactic science, radio transients, fundamental and astroparticle physics, extreme physics and associated theory. This fresh view on the radio universe will improve our current knowledge of the universe and highlight new trends in radio astronomy. The science delivered by the radio astronomical community addresses key questions in modern astrophysics that may lead us to even more ambitious science goals to be targeted by future radio facilities like the SKA.
The last Modern Radio Universe took place 2007 in Manchester commemorating 50 years of the Lovell telescope and looking forward towards the SKA. This issue of the conference commemorates the groundbreaking work of Karl Jansky 80 years ago and comes 40 years after the Effelsberg 100 metre telescope started operations. While combining past and future in this conference, the main focus of the science presentations, however, will be to make an inventory of outstanding science results that are presently being obtained with the new or upgraded facilities.

20° Young Scientists’ Conference on Astronomy and Space Physics

Department of Astronomy & Space Physics and Virtual Roentgen and Gamma Observatory (VIRGO.UA)announce the 20th Open Young Scientists’ Conference on Astronomy and Space Physics. The conference will take place at the Faculty of Physics of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv on April 22-27, 2013.

The conference is intended for participation of students, PhD students and young researches who are involved in research in one of the following fields:

• atmospheric studies and space geophysics
• Solar physics and heliosphere
• Solar System & extrasolar planets
• stellar astrophysics
• interstellar and intergalactic medium
• extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology
• high-energy astrophysics and astroparticle physics
• positional astronomy and astronomical equipment
• computers in astronomy

During the Conference each young participant should present a short report (12 minutes) about results of his/her research or a poster (with an oral (!) poster presentation for 5 minutes). Besides students’ reports several invited lectures are planned. Participants can present their reports using either multimedia projector or projector for transparent films. Working language of YSC’20 is English. The conference programme also includes excursions to the Main Astronomical Observatory of the NAS of Ukraine, Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, Kyiv city tour (by bus), Kyiv by night (walking tour), evening for theater/opera/organ hall and conference dinner. In order to participate in the conference it is necessary to submit information about yourself (name, address, institution, affiliation, etc.) along with a short abstract of your report via electronic registration form. The book of abstracts of YSC’20 will be published after the deadline and distributed among the participants during the registration

All the articipants are welcome to submit their contributions to peer-reviewed journal Advances in Astronomy and Space Physics till April 30, 2013.

Massive black holes in galaxies

The University of Sussex will host a specialist Science meeting, and a memorial service to remember our colleague and friend professor David Axon. The School brings together two outstanding and progressive departments: the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The synergy of these two subjects enables the School to deliver new and challenging opportunities for faculty and students. These opportunities are expansive and open up many new career paths for our graduates: mathematics already plays a major role in disciplines such as economics and computer science and, increasingly, both mathematics and physics are becoming pivotal in the life sciences revolution.

Exploiting the Herschel and Planck data

The Doctoral School of Astronomy-Astrophysics of Paris Area (ED 127) is the only thematic doctoral school in France, in the field of astronomy and astrophysics. The school is supported by four universities or Institutes : the Paris Observatory (carrier), Université Paris-Sud (P11), Université Paris Diderot (P7) and UPMC (P6).

Since 2008, the Doctoral School organizes a biennial international school in the field of observational astronomy, intended for PhD students and postdocs. The third edition of this school will be held in March 2013. The previous two had been very successful and received about 40 participants each, representing more than fifteen different nationalities. This is the third edition of a school with the goal to train young researchers, PhD students and postdocs, regardless of nationality, to the scientific exploitation of two recently launched European space missions, Planck and Herschel. The first results obtained by these two satellites, the most successful ever launched in their respective fields, are reshaping the landscape in many areas of astrophysics (cosmology, galaxies and large structures, star formation, interstellar medium, the solar system) and there is some urgency to introduce the concepts and specific methods of exploitation of their data to future researchers. The school last one week and will follow the organization of the two schools previously held by the ED 127, a scheme that has proved itself and was appreciated by participants. The morning is devoted to lectures given by leading researchers, from around the world, and the afternoon is devoted to practical work in pairs around computers. These includes manipulating data from each satellite, a familiarization with the software to access, treatment and data analysis, using tools developed by space agencies and consortia of the two scientific missions. The astrophysical interpretation will also be addressed by numerical models developed by the community. We will offer to students the opportunity to explore the complete chain that goes from theory to the analysis of astrophysical observations. From a practical standpoint, the whole school will be held at the International Centre of Pedagogical Studies (CIEP) in Sèvres, a center able to accommodate all participants in half-board at a reasonable cost and providing modern teaching facilities. The morning will be devoted to lectures and the afternoon, students will use the computer workstations in special rooms. Students will be invited to present a poster on a topic that motivates them particularly. A laboratory visit will take place during a half day. One feature of this school is to target a wide international audience, particularly to developing countries. Accordingly, we maintain a low registration fee, thanks to a call for funding by several partners.

More info: International Young Astronomer School on Exploiting the Herschel and Planck data

Transformational Science with ALMA

Now that the ALMA Cycle 1 proposal deadline is behind us, why don’t we head to Hawaii for the next NAASC meeting? Did you hear that Ewine van Dishoeck will be the Keynote Speaker at the Workshop? Dr. van Dishoeck holds the title of Professor of Molecular Astrophysics at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and is an expert on observational, laboratory and theoretical astrochemistry.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) is the world’s most complex ground-based astronomical observatory. While still under construction, ALMA is opening a window into cosmic origins from previously inaccessible cold and dark parts of our universe. With its anticipated 66 antennae in full operations, ALMA will deliver astonishing imaging capabilities and sensitivity that will surpass any other telescope at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The first light observations from ALMA, begun in September 2011, are exciting researchers with new views of gas and dust harboring young stars and planetary systems. We are on the threshold of an explosion of observations that will transform our knowledge and understanding of how solar systems, planets, and life all begin. In this workshop, investigators from around the world will meet in Hawaii to explore the evolution of material in protostellar disks from formation to dissipation. The Island of Hawaii is home to the largest observatory in the Northern Hemisphere, and is the site of extensive, collaborative, international research efforts. A focus of the workshop will be the processing of the gas and dust components, and the growth of planetesimals. We will also explore chemical changes, and radiative signatures at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. We will showcase results from ALMA early science projects and feature synergies with other telescopes that can help to advance this field, particularly those sited on the island of Hawaii.

This workshop will prepare us for the exciting adventures ahead in the new era and will not only focus on the new opportunities in astronomy but also foster new collaborations with geologists, chemists, engineers and biologists to investigate the origins of cosmic material in the universe. This workshop, with its broad, international scope, will allow students and recent post-docs to learn about the cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research opportunities available with ALMA. Most importantly, beginning researchers will participate in the workshop in a substantial, meaningful way by presenting posters and partnering with mentors before and during the workshop. We hope these collaborations will continue well beyond the end of this meeting and a whole new set of researchers will emerge to use ALMA.

Specifically, this workshop will address the following questions:

• When do circumstellar disks first form and how?
• How does gas evolve in circumstellar disks?
• What is the origin of the gaps and holes in “transition disks”?
• What are the observational signatures of embedded planets in circumstellar disks?
• What is the process of grain growth and evolution?
• Can we fully ascertain the physical and chemical processing of planetary materials, and their connections to meteorites, planetesimals, comets, and KBOs?
• What is the full extent of disk chemistry and what is the detectable limit of molecular material in disks?
• What do millimeter continuum and spectral line observations tell us about solar system bodies?
• Polarimetry and magnetic activities in the protostellar envelopes and inner disks
• Instruments in Hawaii that could facilitate the sciences featured in this workshop

The deaths of stars and the lives of galaxies

The meeting will cover topics related to the final stages of stellar evolution and the many important aspects of astronomy that depend on understanding how stars die and what happens to their remnants.  Topics related to the stars themselves and how their later stages of evolution proceed, as well as how their demise affects their immediate surroundings and host galaxies, will be addressed. The meeting will be unique in bringing together researchers in quite diverse areas of stellar astrophysics, but which actually have strong connections.

The broad themes to be covered by the meeting will be:

Channels of stellar death: The dichotomy between low-mass and high mass stars in their evolution and death as been established since many decades and constitutes the basis of many textbooks: low and intermediate mass stars produce a degenerate C/O core which, after a short but intriguing phase known as planetary nebula, becomes the final white dwarf; massive stars, on the other hand, will spent a much shorter but more eventful life that culminates in a final explosion, known as a supernova. Things have become more blurred in the recent years, however. It is now clear that there is a huge deficiency in the number of planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Galaxy, if indeed all low and intermediate mass stars go through this evolutionary stage. Moreover, in order to explain the 80% of aspherical PNe, it is now becoming more and more obvious that binarity is a key factor. Perhaps even to the extent that PNe won’t be produced by single stars at all! On the front of supernovae also, things have become more complicated. For example, in recent years a growing number of under-energetic and unusual supernovae (SNe) have been discovered. The faint transients SN2008S and SN2008ha represent two of these peculiar events, whose nature is still ambiguous and extensively debated, being either SN “impostors” or electron-capture SNe involving a super-AGB star. Strangely enough, recent observations have also shown that what was thought to be well known – the upper limit of the masses of stars – appeared incorrect: there are now evidence for stars whose initial mass was twice as large as the previous limit. In the last three years there has been an increasing interest in the importance of binarity for the evolution of massive stars. A striking result is the very large proportion of binaries among massive stars – up to 90%! – and the strong preference for binaries with short orbital periods of several days and less.

Products of stellar death:  Mass loss from evolved stars, both high and low mass, profoundly affects their host galaxies, leaving imprints that can be detected throughout the age of the universe.  Theories and observations of the chemical evolution of galaxies both rely on and inform theories of stellar evolution.  Quasars at redshifts of >6 are observed to contain hundreds of millions of solar masses of dust, only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.  The known sources of dust cannot account for this enormous quantity. Meanwhile in the local universe, studies have found that the combined contributions of high mass and low mass stars to the dust budget of galaxies fall short of the observed totals.  Where is the dust in the universe coming from?  Low mass stars are the dominant source of nitrogen in the universe, while high mass stars are the main source of oxygen, but the question of which type of stars produce the universe’s carbon is still unresolved.

Stellar death in an extragalactic context: Finally dying stars provide tools with which to examine the evolution of the universe, with the Type Ia supernovae being the most prominent example, used to reveal the acceleration of the universe’s expansion.  Despite their fundamental importance, the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae have not been unambiguously identified, and nor has the relative importance of single and double degenerate channels been quantified.  Recent years have seen great advances in studies of recurrent novae, as their outbursts have been predicted in advance and consequently observed in great detail.  However, controversy still exists as to whether each eruption ultimately increases or reduces the mass of the white dwarf for any of the handful of known recurrent novae.  Nova-like events observed inside planetary nebulae also suggest that in some cases, these objects could be potential supernovae progenitors, a finding which illustrates the potential benefits of bringing together researchers from fields as nominally distinct as novae, planetary nebulae and cosmology.

All these developments clearly illustrate the timeliness of a review of these topics, and more importantly, of the need to link them together, so as to gain new insights from this wide, rather than traditional, approach.

SnowCluster 2013: Physics of Galaxy Clusters

Clusters of galaxies have long been recognized as sensitive cosmological probes. To realize their full constraining potential for “precision cosmology,” it is essential to address the outstanding questions on cluster physics. The aim of this workshop is to bring together observers in the X-ray and SZ fields, people working on gravitational lensing mass measurements and non-thermal phenomena in the radio and gamma-ray bands, and theorists developing numerical simulations and working on plasma processes. The focus will be on recent progress in our understanding of the cluster physics and how the various uncertainties and nontrivial processes in the ICM may affect cosmological tests. Apart from the old workhorses such as Chandra, XMM-Newton, Suzaku, Fermi, SWIFT, GMRT, VLA and the ground-based SZ telescopes, we will discuss new results from Herschel, Planck, NuStar, and LOFAR. On a theoretical side, simulations with various microphysical properties of the ICM and the inclusion of various macroscopic effects will be discussed, as well as predictions for Astro-H.

Topics to be covered:

• SZ observations: individual clusters, samples
• X-ray masses & their uncertainties
• Gravitational lensing masses
• Mass scaling relations
• Nuisance parameters for precision cosmology
• Observations & simulations of mergers, shocks & cold fronts
• ICM turbulence: simulations, current constraints
• Cluster outskirts
• Cold gas & star formation in cool cores
• AGN-ICM interaction
• Relativistic matter in clusters: theory & observations
• Transport processes in the ICM

More info: SnowCLUSTER 2013