Studying the solar system and beyond using multi-wavelengths of light, including visible, x-ray, and infrared, reveals many different views of the same object. Check out the Milky Way’s Galactic Center in the visible, infrared and x-rays.
Two recent Guest Observers were aboard to study the infrared universe- Dr. Monica Rubio from the University of Santiago Chile, and Dr. James Jackson, from the University of New Castle, north of Sydney, Australia.
Jackson is a veteran observer on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO), the predecessor to SOFIA which carried a 36-inch telescope in a converted C-141 military cargo plane. His first remarks about SOFIA were, “It’s big. The instruments are 10x larger than on the KAO. And there is more room for more people and space to walk.” He called the mapping feature of the GREAT instrument on the SOFIA telescope, “phenomenal.” This feature, aptly called “The Translator,” enables efficient communication between the science instrument and the telescope, so that this airborne observatory uses every minute in the sky to its fullest potential.
The object that Jackson is studying is the Nessie Nebula, named because it looks quite serpentine across the sky. It is a large gas cloud in the spiral arm of our Milky Way, and is a fascinating home to some wacky star-forming regions. Jackson is looking for gas infalling on the cores, which are thought to be forming massive stars. With the data gathered on SOFIA, he hopes to be put together a clearer picture how stars form from collapsing clouds.
Rubio is studying the Small Magellanic Cloud, or SMC, a neighboring galaxy to ours that is 200,000 light years away. The SMC is very different from our own galaxy, in terms of its chemical makeup. SOFIA is in a prime location to observe this galaxy high in the sky when flying in the Southern Hemisphere. Over multiple nights, Rubio is observing seven different star formation regions in the SMC. She’s studying emission from ionized carbon, which is used as a tracer to measure the star-forming gases in the SMC and better explain the chemistry of the universe. These SOFIA observations give her the infrared view of the chemistry she needs to complete her research, which also includes observations from ground-based, sub-millimeter telescopes.
This flight took us down to 64 degrees south, which also provided a nice glimpse of the Aurora Australis, also known as the southern lights. Aurora are a chemistry of a different kind, a result of Earth’s atmosphere interacting with solar winds.
