{"id":264,"date":"2008-02-05T00:38:20","date_gmt":"2008-02-05T05:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2008-02-05T00:38:21","modified_gmt":"2008-02-05T05:38:21","slug":"first-light-from-kecks-null-mode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/?p=264","title":{"rendered":"First light from Keck’s null mode"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RS<\/a><\/p>\n

Astronomers from the Keck Observatory at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> are reporting the first results from the telescope used as an interferometer in “null mode”.<\/p>\n

For background, the Keck Observatory consists of\u00a0 two 10 m telescopes that work together to give combined resolution equivalent to an 85 m mirror.\u00a0 It’s easily the world’s most powerful observing instrument.<\/p>\n

In null mode, it blocks out the light from a central object such as a star or supernova so that it can examine fainter details in the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

Its first subject was a nearby nova called RS Ophiuchi which consists of a red giant that is shedding its atmosphere and a white dwarf that is mopping much of it up. As the star stuff condenses on the white dwarf’s surface, it eventually reaches a critical temperature that triggers a fusion-fired flareup.<\/p>\n

In null mode, with the resolution of around 4 milliarcseconds (that’s good enough to spot a human head from about 12,000 km), Keck has provided an unprecedented insight into the way this process works.<\/p>\n

Astronomers had always thought that the flareups generate much of the dust that can be seen around novas.\u00a0 Keck, on the other hand, has shown that the dust is clearly there before the nova, and probably shed by the red giant.<\/p>\n

But the real reason astronomers are excited about this is that the null mode could be used to spot and study earthlike planets orbiting other stars.<\/p>\n

Ref: arxiv.org\/abs\/0801.4165<\/a>: Milliarcsecond N-Band Observations of the Nova RS Ophiuchi: First Science with the Keck Interferometer Nuller<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Astronomers from the Keck Observatory at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii are reporting the first results from the telescope used as an interferometer in “null mode”. For background, the Keck Observatory consists of\u00a0 two 10 m telescopes that work together to give combined resolution equivalent to an 85 m mirror.\u00a0 It’s easily the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-secrets","category-stars-in-their-eyes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}