In January 2022, published paper by Zeljko Ivezić, Vedrana Ivezić, Moeyens Joachim… DiRAC members Joachim Moeyens and Zeljko Ivezić, aided by a DiRAC guest researcher Vedrana Ivezić, led a multi-institutional team of scientists who produced and analyzed simulated SPHEREx spectra of asteroids. SPHEREx is a 2-year NASA space mission scheduled for launch in less than […]
Published paper by Melissa Graham Supernovae are the explosions of stars that can be seen across vast distances, appearing as new bright points of light in optical images of the sky, even when the original star was far too faint to be detected. When different types of stars explode (e.g., low-mass and high-mass) they cause […]
A tenet of modern cosmology is the existence of the “cosmic web”, a vast filamentary structure formed via the collapse of matter due to gravity. This structure is ubiquitous in cosmological simulations yet challenging to observe due to its diffuse nature. Recently, a new technique was developed which is inspired by the growth and movement […]
Trans-Neptunian objects provide a window into the history of the solar system, but they can be challenging to observe due to their distance from the Sun and relatively low brightness. In the recently published paper, Sifting through the Static: Moving Object Detection in Difference Images, DiRAC researchers report the detection of 75 moving objects that […]
DiRAC researchers are heavily involved in building the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a new facility that is currently under construction in Chile. This observatory will feature the 8.4 meter Simonyi Survey Telescope and the world’s largest CCD camera which will scan the entire visible sky every three nights. It will discover and observe millions of […]
Observations and computer simulations of their orbits and interactions with planets yield insights into the asteroids’ dynamic lives. Sarah Greenstreet is a senior researcher with the B612 Asteroid Institute in Mill Valley, California, and a research scientist with the Dirac Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle.
In October 2023 a new telescope in Chile called the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will begin a 10-year survey of the entire overhead sky called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). “Typical telescopes find objects out to 50 or 60 AU,” says LSST team member Mario Jurić of the University of Washington. “With LSST, we […]
A team led by Dr. James Davenport, research assistant professor of astronomy at the UW and associate director of the UW’s DIRAC Institute, analyzed more than 125 years of observations of HS Hydra – from astro-photographic plates in the late 1800s to 2019 observations by TESS – and showed how this system has changed dramatically over the course of just a few generations.
Published paper includes contribution from DiRAC Researchers: Graham Melissa, Connolly Andrew, Morrison Christopher B., Ivezić Željko, Daniel Scott, Jones R. Lynne, Jurić Mario, Yoachim Peter, Bryce Kalmbach J. Published Date: April 2020. Abstract Accurate photometric redshift (photo-zz) estimates are essential to the cosmological science goals of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and […]
