ALMA Press Release: The Slow Rotation of the Red Supergiant Betelgeuse
Using the ALMA telescope an international team of astronomers, led by Pierre Kervella (Paris Observatory, France) and including Anita Richards from the UK ARC Node, have measured the rotation period of Betelgeuse. Observations of the Doppler shift of spectral line emission from silicon monoxide (SiO) and carbon monoxide (CO) have allowed the team to measure the rotation period to be approximately 30 years. See the press release and the associated journal article for more information.
UK ALMA Data Reduction Workshop Poll
The UK ARC Node is keen to collect the communities' input on future ALMA data reduction workshops around the UK. To gauge interest and identify where people would like workshops to be held we have created a short survey, which can be found via this link. The survey should only take a few minutes, and your input will be greatly appreciated.
Upcoming ALMA-Related Meetings
European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS 2018)
03-06 April 2018
Arena & Convention Centre (ACC)
Liverpool, United Kingdom
The European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS, formerly JENAM) is the annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS). With more than 25 years of tradition, it has imposed itself as the largest conference for European astronomy. In addition to plenary sessions and the award of prestigious prizes, the conference hosts many symposia held in parallel, as well as special sessions and meetings.
Of potential interest to UK ALMA users are the following sessions:
- Galaxy formation through cosmic time: synergising theory and observations in the era of large facilities
- The formation of stars and planets
- Complex organic molecules in the Universe: current understanding and perspectives
See the conference website for more information.
Imaging of Stellar Surfaces
March 5-9, 2018
ESO
Garching, Germany
Until very recently, all information about mechanisms affecting the stellar surface came either from indirect observations or from studies of the Sun. The stellar surface is the locus where we first interface with the mechanisms happening at the interior of the stars such as convection, magnetic field, and diffusion producing abundance anomalies. Studying stellar surfaces is important for advancing our understanding of these physical processes. For more information, see the conference website.
Tracing the Flow: Galactic Environments and the Formation of Massive Stars
02-06 July 2018
Lake Windermere, UK
Developing a comprehensive understanding of the varied and complex processes associated with the formation of massive stars requires connecting a wide range of environments and physical size scales from galactic disks down to individual massive sources. We can now map the flow of material from galactic environments through clouds to protostars by combining large scale surveys of our galactic plane with sub-arcsecond ALMA images in the millimetre and sub-millimetre. Increasingly these observations probe not only the structure and kinematics of regions but also their chemistry and magnetic fields. Wide field surveys also help to place massive star formation in the wider context of the environment of our galaxy as well as other more extreme galaxies.
Pre-registration now open. For more information please see the meeting website.