First surface "image" of Altair

[docm]

....using optical interferometry.<br /><br />Link....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>Astronomers Capture The First Image Of Surface Features On A Sun-like Star</b><br /><br />University of Michigan astronomers combined light from four widely separated telescopes to produce the first picture showing surface details on a sun-like star beyond our solar system.<br /><br />The image of the rapidly rotating, hot star Altair is the most detailed stellar picture ever made using an innovative light-combining technique called optical interferometry, said U-M astronomer John Monnier.<br /><br />Beyond this technical milestone, the Altair observations provide surprising new insights that will force theorists to revise ideas about the behavior of rapid rotators like Altair.<br /><br />"This powerful new tool allows us to zoom in on a star that's a million times farther away than the sun," said Monnier, lead author of a paper to be published online Thursday by the journal Science. "We're testing the theories of how stars work in much more detail than ever before."<br /><br />Monnier and U-M graduate student Ming Zhao led an international team that made the Altair observations using four of the six telescopes at Georgia State University's Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) interferometric array on Mount Wilson, Calif.<br /><br />The four telescopes were separated by nearly 300 yards. Vacuum tubes carried starlight from the four scopes to a U-M built device called the Michigan Infrared Combiner, known as MIRC.<br /><br />The combiner allowed researchers to merge infrared light from four of CHARA's telescopes for the first time, simulating a single giant instrument three football fields across. The result was an image of unprecedented detail---roughly 100 times sharper than pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope.<br /><br />While solar astronomers can vi</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[3488]

Fascinating stuff.<br /><br />Perhaps long term observations like these will determine Altair's star spot cycle, etc.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

image <br />(An artist's rendering of Altair, based on data obtained through the U-M-led observations (Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[abq_farside]

Interesting. I notice that the image shown is a artist rendering. Would they expect it to be blue? Any word on the release of the actual image? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em><font size="1" color="#000080">Don't let who you are keep you from becoming who you want to be!</font></em></p> </div>

 

[3488]

Altair / Alpha Aquilae.<br /><br />The image shows an oblong, otherworldly sun that spins so fast that its equator bulges outward. The rapid rotation makes the star's poles burn hotter, while the equator stays cooler. Altair makes nearly three rotations per day, while the Sun takes about 25 days to make one full turn. Because of its rapid spinning, Altair is about 22 percent wider than it is tall.<br /><br />MeteorWayne's image is actually based on the photo.<br /><br />I have posted the photo with a superimposed grid.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[larper]

Will they eventually get the tech good enough to see the Krell homeworld? Oh, wait. That got blown up. Nevermined. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Vote </font><font color="#3366ff">Libertarian</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[docm]

<font color="yellow">Oh, wait. That got blown up. Nevermined.</font><br /><br />That won't happen until the early 2200's <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

And we won't find out about it till 16,701,093 years from now <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

About Altair:<br /><br />Altair is a white main sequence dwarf star of spectral and luminosity type A7 V-IV. According to various estimates, the star has about 1.7 times Sol's mass (RECONS), 1.8 times its equatorial diameter (JPL press release, 2001; T. Moon, 1985; Morossi and Malagnini, 1985, page 369; and Johnson and Wright, 1983, page 695), and about 10.7 times its visual luminosity. Like Sirius, however, Altair radiates much more in ultraviolet wavelengths than Sol, and, not surprisingly, the European Space Agency has used ultraviolet spectral flux distribution data to determine stellar effective temperatures and surface gravities, including those of Altair. <br /><br />Based on Altair's abundance of iron, the star appears to be twice as enriched as Sol with elements heavier than hydrogen ("metallicity"), (Cayrel de Strobel et al, 1991, page 306). Not surprisingly, dust has been detected around this young star (Kuchner et al, 1998 -- in pdf). According to Holweger et al (1999), this dust disk may have developed after most of the surrounding nebulae of gas has been absorbed or expelled as a shell of gas from the developing star before it reached the main sequence. <br /><br />Altair has the New Suspected Variable designation NSV 24910 and is unusually bright for its spectral type and so may be becoming a subgiant star that is beginning to evolve off the main sequence, as it begins to fuse the increasing amounts of helium "ash" mixed with hydrogen at its core. Although the star should be only a few hundred million years old, it is so much bigger and hotter than Sol that it will exhaust its core hydrogen around only a billion years and turn into a red giant or Cepheid variable before puffing away its outer layers to reveal a remnant core as a white dwarf. <br /><br />From here <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[3488]

Thanks MeteorWayne.<br /><br />I wonder, if Altair has been observed for planets.<br /><br />Altair seems to have a very metallicity, making it a good candidate.<br /><br />Another thing is,being so young, I wonder if it is highly active in Starspots?<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

All this time I thought it would be 16,701,094 years but then...whos counting LOL. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[3488]

Model of Vega (Alpha Lyrae) from CHARA.<br /><br /> Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[3488]

Model of Regulus (Alpha Leonis) from CHARA.<br /><br />Model of our own Sun to correct scale in bottom right.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

What's a few months among friends <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>