Astrophysics / en For a billion years, Earth's day lasted just 19.5 hours  – a new study reveals why /news/astrophysicists-reveal-why-earths-day-was-constant-over-billion-years <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">For a billion years, Earth's day lasted just 19.5 hours &nbsp;– a new study reveals why</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2023-07/GettyImages-1253695426-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=foydoqYz 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2023-07/GettyImages-1253695426-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=1CM88i0w 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2023-07/GettyImages-1253695426-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=osFArm3U 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2023-07/GettyImages-1253695426-crop.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=foydoqYz" alt="view of earth from space with the sun shining in the background"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>siddiq22</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2023-07-13T12:54:12-04:00" title="Thursday, July 13, 2023 - 12:54" class="datetime">Thu, 07/13/2023 - 12:54</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item"><p><em>Without the sun’s pull on the Earth’s atmosphere, our day would be 60 hours long (photo by&nbsp;dima_zel/Getty images)</em></p> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/chris-sasaki" hreflang="en">Chris Sasaki</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/physical-and-environmental-sciences" hreflang="en">Physical and Environmental Sciences</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy" hreflang="en">Astronomy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/canadian-institute-theoretical-astrophysics" hreflang="en">Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/climate-change" hreflang="en">Climate Change</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/physics" hreflang="en">Physics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research-innovation" hreflang="en">Research &amp; Innovation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-scarborough" hreflang="en">U of T Scarborough</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">An atmospheric tide driven by the sun countered the effect of the moon, astrophysicists say</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>A team of astrophysicists from the Ƶ has revealed how the slow and steady lengthening of Earth’s day caused by the tidal pull of the moon was halted for over a billion years.</p> <p>They show that from approximately two billion years ago until 600 million years ago, an atmospheric tide driven by the sun countered the effect of the moon, keeping Earth’s rotational rate steady and the length of day at a constant 19.5 hours.</p> <p>Without this billion-year pause in the slowing of our planet’s rotation, our current 24-hour day would stretch to over 60 hours.</p> <p>Drawing on geological evidence and using atmospheric research tools, the scientists show that the tidal stalemate between the sun and moon resulted from the incidental but consequential link between the atmosphere’s temperature and Earth’s rotational rate.</p> <p>The study was <a href="https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.science.org%2Fdoi%2F10.1126%2Fsciadv.add2499&amp;data=05%7C01%7Cjosslyn.johnstone%40utoronto.ca%7Ce5d4a503473d41530b6208db78bc8829%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C638236523938537572%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=h9f5hPM0XIIsHiLu9xyld1Hmtw8CzNCnDLrWNJrNylk%3D&amp;reserved=0">published in the journal&nbsp;<em>Science Advances</em></a>.</p> <p>The paper’s authors include Professor <a href="https://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~murray/"><strong>Norman Murray</strong></a>, a theoretical astrophysicist with the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cita.utoronto.ca/">Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics</a>&nbsp;(CITA); graduate student <a href="https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/members/wu-hanbo/"><strong>Hanbo Wu</strong></a>, with CITA and the <a href="https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/">department of physics</a>; <a href="https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/physsci/kristen-menou"><strong>Kristen Menou</strong></a>, associate professor in the <a href="https://www.astro.utoronto.ca/">David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics</a>&nbsp;and the <a href="https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/physsci/welcome-physical-environmental-sciences">department of physical and environmental sciences</a> at U of T Scarborough; <strong>Jeremy Leconte</strong>, a CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire d’astrophysique de Bordeaux and a former CITA postdoctoral fellow; and <strong>Christopher Lee</strong>, assistant professor in the department of physics.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <figure role="group" class="caption caption-drupal-media align-left"> <div> <div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2023-07/Williams_2000_Reynella_tidal_laminae-crop.jpg" width="300" height="367" alt="&quot;&quot;"> </div> </div> <figcaption><em>Murray and his collaborators relied on geologic evidence in their study, like these samples from a tidal estuary that reveal the cycle of&nbsp;<a href="https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nb/fundy/nature/environment/marees-tides/vives-mortes-spring-neap">spring and neap tides</a>. Thick bands correspond to spring tides, and thin bands to neap tides (image by G.E. Williams)</em></figcaption> </figure> <p>When the moon first formed some 4.5 billion years ago, the day was less than 10 hours long. But since then, the moon’s gravitational pull on the Earth has been slowing our planet’s rotation, resulting in an increasingly longer day. Today, it continues to lengthen at a rate of some 1.7 milliseconds every century.</p> <p>The moon slows the planet’s rotation by pulling on Earth’s oceans, creating tidal bulges on opposite sides of the planet that we experience as high and low tides. The gravitational pull of the moon on those bulges, plus the friction between the tides and the ocean floor, acts like a brake on our spinning planet.</p> <p>“Sunlight also produces an atmospheric tide with the same type of bulges,” says Murray. “The sun's gravity pulls on these atmospheric bulges, producing a torque on the Earth. But instead of slowing down Earth’s rotation like the moon, it speeds it up.”</p> <p>For most of Earth’s geological history, the lunar tides have overpowered the solar tides by about a factor of ten&nbsp;– hence the Earth’s slowing rotational speed and lengthening days.</p> <p>But some two billion years ago, the atmospheric bulges were larger because the atmosphere was warmer and because its natural resonance&nbsp;– the frequency at which waves move through it&nbsp;– matched the length of day.</p> <p>The atmosphere, like a bell, resonates at a frequency determined by various factors, including temperature. In other words, waves&nbsp;– like those generated by the enormous eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883&nbsp;– travel through it at a velocity determined by its temperature. The same principle explains why a bell always produces the same note if its temperature is constant.</p> <p>Throughout most of Earth’s history that atmospheric resonance has been out of sync with the planet’s rotational rate. Today, each of the two atmospheric “high tides” take 22.8 hours to travel around the world. Since that resonance and Earth’s 24-hour rotational period are out of sync, the atmospheric tide is relatively small.</p> <p>But during the billion-year period under study, the atmosphere was warmer and resonated with a period of about 10 hours. Also, at the advent of that epoch, Earth’s rotation&nbsp;– slowed by the moon&nbsp;– reached 20 hours.</p> <p>When the atmospheric resonance and length of day became even factors (ten and 20), the atmospheric tide was reinforced, the bulges became larger and the sun’s tidal pull became strong enough to counter the lunar tide.</p> <p>“It’s like pushing a child on a swing,” Murray says.</p> <p>“If your push and the period of the swing are out of sync, it’s not going to go very high. But, if they’re in sync and you’re pushing just as the swing stops at one end of its travel, the push will add to the momentum of the swing and it will go further and higher. That’s what happened with the atmospheric resonance and tide.”</p> <p>Along with geological evidence, Murray and his colleagues achieved their result using global atmospheric circulation models (GCMs) to predict the atmosphere’s temperature during this period. The GCMs are the same models used by climatologists to study global warming. Murray says the fact they worked so well in the team’s research is a timely lesson.</p> <p>“I've talked to people who are climate-change skeptics who don't believe in the global circulation models that are telling us we’re in a climate crisis,” he says. “And I tell them: We used these global circulation models in our research, and they got it right. They work.”</p> <p>Despite its remoteness in geological history, the result adds additional perspective to the climate crisis. Because the atmospheric resonance changes with temperature, Murray points out that our current warming atmosphere could have consequences in this tidal imbalance.</p> <p>“As we increase Earth's temperature with global warming, we’re also making the resonant frequency move higher&nbsp;– we’re moving our atmosphere farther away from resonance. As a result, there's less torque from the sun and therefore the length the day is going to get longer&nbsp;– sooner than it would otherwise.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Thu, 13 Jul 2023 16:54:12 +0000 siddiq22 302246 at First space images captured by balloon-borne telescope /news/first-space-images-captured-balloon-borne-telescope <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">First space images captured by balloon-borne telescope</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2023-04/SuperBIT_tarantula_full-crop.jpeg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=QrkUeR1b 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2023-04/SuperBIT_tarantula_full-crop.jpeg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=J4fGbp3h 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2023-04/SuperBIT_tarantula_full-crop.jpeg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=KXmP2q2T 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2023-04/SuperBIT_tarantula_full-crop.jpeg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=QrkUeR1b" alt="A false-colour image of the “Tarantula Nebula” taken in visible and ultraviolet light by the SuperBIT telescope shortly after launch."> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>siddiq22</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2023-04-21T09:34:16-04:00" title="Friday, April 21, 2023 - 09:34" class="datetime">Fri, 04/21/2023 - 09:34</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item"><p>A false-colour image of the “Tarantula Nebula” taken in visible and ultraviolet light by the SuperBIT telescope shortly after launch (image courtesy of SuperBIT)</p> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy" hreflang="en">Astronomy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy-astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/dunlap-institute-astronomy-astrophysics" hreflang="en">Dunlap Institute for Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-staff" hreflang="en">Faculty &amp; Staff</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/graduate-students" hreflang="en">Graduate Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Astronomers have successfully launched a balloon-borne telescope that has begun capturing images of the universe on its first flight&nbsp;above the Earth’s atmosphere.&nbsp;</p> <p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://sites.physics.utoronto.ca/bit">Super Pressure Balloon-Borne Imaging Telescope</a>&nbsp;(SuperBIT) was flown to the edge of space by a helium-filled NASA scientific balloon the size of a football stadium. There, it will help researchers investigate the mystery of dark matter.</p> <p>SuperBIT has already taken its first images on this flight, showing the “Tarantula Nebula” – a&nbsp;bright cluster of gas and dust in a galaxy neighbourhood near our Milky Way –&nbsp;and&nbsp;the collision between the two galaxies NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, known as “the Antennae.”</p> <p>SuperBIT is a collaboration between the Ƶ, Princeton University, Durham University and NASA.</p> <p>“A dedicated team of students developing one of the world’s great telescopes – it’s inspiring,” says&nbsp;<a href="https://sites.physics.utoronto.ca/barthnetterfield"><strong>Barth Netterfield</strong></a>, a professor in U of T's David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics and the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science, and an associate at the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/">Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics</a>.</p> <p>“After a decade of tremendous effort, we are getting these exquisite images with a wide range of science goals, which will help us to better understand the universe.”</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <figure role="group" class="caption caption-drupal-media"> <div> <div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2023-04/SuperBIT_antennae_full-crop.jpeg" width="1140" height="760" alt="A false-colour image taken by the SuperBIT telescope shows of a pair of galaxies smashing into each other."> </div> </div> <figcaption><em>A false-colour image taken by the SuperBIT telescope shows of a pair of galaxies smashing into each other&nbsp;(image courtesy of&nbsp;SuperBIT)</em></figcaption> </figure> <p>The balloon aunched from Wānaka, New Zealand&nbsp;earlier this week, following a two-year delay due to the COVID pandemic.</p> <p>Carried by seasonally stable winds for about three months, SuperBIT will circumnavigate the southern hemisphere several times – imaging the sky all night, then using solar panels to recharge its batteries during the day.</p> <p>SuperBIT flies at an altitude of 33.5 kilometres, above 99.5 per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere. It takes high-resolution images like those from the Hubble Space Telescope, but with a much wider field of view.</p> <p>The scientific&nbsp;goal for the&nbsp;first flight is to measure the properties of dark matter, a heavy but invisible type of material.</p> <p>SuperBIT will test whether dark-matter particles can bounce off each other, by mapping the dark matter around clusters of galaxies that are colliding with neighbouring galaxy clusters.</p> <figure role="group" class="caption caption-drupal-media"> <div> <div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2023-04/Untitled%20design%20%287%29.png" width="1300" height="900" alt="The SuperBIT telescope in New Zealand prior to the launch"> </div> </div> <figcaption><em>The SuperBIT telescope in New Zealand prior to the launch&nbsp;(photo courtesy of Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility)</em></figcaption> </figure> <p><em>The SuperBIT telescope in New Zealand prior to the launch&nbsp;(photo courtesy of Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility)</em></p> <p>Various theories suggest that&nbsp;some dark matter might either slow down, spread out,&nbsp;or get chipped off during a collision.</p> <p>Although dark matter is invisible, SuperBIT will map where it is by the way it bends passing rays of light&nbsp;–&nbsp;a technique known as gravitational lensing.</p> <p>While telescopes on the ground must squint through the Earth’s atmosphere – meaning their view can become blurred – space-based telescopes get a clear view of the light that has travelled billions of years from the distant universe.</p> <figure role="group" class="caption caption-drupal-media"> <div> <div class="field field--name-field-media-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2023-04/IMG_0659%20%281%29.jpg" width="2016" height="1512" alt="Members of the SuperBIT team prepare for&nbsp;a flight test"> </div> </div> <figcaption><em>Members of the SuperBIT team prepare for&nbsp;a flight test (photo courtesy of&nbsp;SuperBIT)</em></figcaption> </figure> <p>SuperBIT is the first balloon-borne telescope capable of taking wide-field images&nbsp;–&nbsp;its sharpness of vision is not affected by the atmosphere, but only by the laws of optics.</p> <p>During its final test flight in 2019, SuperBIT demonstrated extraordinary pointing stability.</p> <p>“Imagine you’re trying to thread a needle that’s 2.5 kilometres&nbsp;away – so roughly 30 city blocks,” explains&nbsp;<a href="https://www.emaadparacha.com/"><strong>Emaad Paracha</strong></a>, a PhD candidate in&nbsp;the department of physics.</p> <p>“SuperBIT has the ability to point to the exact spot you’d need that needle to be thread, while keeping that thread from touching the sides of the needle for up to 60 minutes.”</p> <p>SuperBIT cost about US$5 million – almost 1,000 times less than an equivalent satellite. Not only is helium cheaper than rocket fuel, but the ability of SuperBIT to return to Earth via parachute meant the team could tweak its design over several test flights.</p> <p>“A successful SuperBIT launch paves the way to a future in which individual academic institutions are able to design, develop and operate world-class space instruments at a low cost, while also providing the training opportunity for instrument development and data analysis for the students,” says&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ajaygill.com/"><strong>Ajay Gill</strong></a>, a PhD candidate at the David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics and the Dunlap Institute.</p> <p>SuperBIT can also be upgraded on a regular basis.&nbsp;For example, the development team buys a new camera shortly before each launch, because modern detectors are improving so rapidly.</p> <p>The team already has funding to upgrade SuperBIT’s 0.5-metre&nbsp;telescope to 1.6 metres, which would boost light gathering power tenfold, with a wider-angle lens and more megapixels.</p> <p>The relatively cheap cost may even make it possible for a fleet of balloon-borne telescopes to offer time to astronomers around the world. Interested members of the public can&nbsp;track SuperBIT's flight status&nbsp;<a href="https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon10/flight728NT.htm">on NASA's website</a>.</p> <p>The mission was funded by NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the Royal Society&nbsp;and U of T's Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics.</p> <p><em>With notes from&nbsp;Meaghan MacSween</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-add-new-author-reporter field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Add new author/reporter</div> <div class="field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/leighton-kitson" hreflang="en">Leighton Kitson</a></div> </div> </div> Fri, 21 Apr 2023 13:34:16 +0000 siddiq22 301285 at U of T in focus: The year in pictures /news/u-t-focus-year-pictures <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">U of T in focus: The year in pictures</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/shadow-puppet.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=LwuFmtpv 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/shadow-puppet.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=8xA1MaQ6 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/shadow-puppet.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=7_LQBfjO 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/shadow-puppet.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=LwuFmtpv" alt="Boy makes shadow puppets at Science Rendezvous"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>geoff.vendeville</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2018-12-19T00:00:00-05:00" title="Wednesday, December 19, 2018 - 00:00" class="datetime">Wed, 12/19/2018 - 00:00</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Mason Godkewitsch, 8, makes shadow puppets on the walls of the “cell cave” in the student lounge in the McLennan building on the downtown Toronto campus (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/geoffrey-vendeville" hreflang="en">Geoffrey Vendeville</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/nick-iwanyshyn" hreflang="en">Nick Iwanyshyn</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/rose-patten" hreflang="en">Rose Patten</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/black-graduation" hreflang="en">Black Graduation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/canada-research-chairs" hreflang="en">Canada Research Chairs</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-staff" hreflang="en">Faculty &amp; Staff</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-applied-science-engineering" hreflang="en">Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/first-world-war" hreflang="en">First World War</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/graduate-students" hreflang="en">Graduate Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/hart-house" hreflang="en">Hart House</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/indigenous" hreflang="en">Indigenous</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/microfluidics" hreflang="en">Microfluidics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/remembrance-day" hreflang="en">Remembrance Day</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research-innovation" hreflang="en">Research &amp; Innovation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/stem" hreflang="en">STEM</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-mississauga" hreflang="en">U of T Mississauga</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-scarborough" hreflang="en">U of T Scarborough</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/undergraduate-students" hreflang="en">Undergraduate Students</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/university-college" hreflang="en">University College</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>In the lab, classrooms and at a variety of events on the three Ƶ campuses, <em>U of T News</em> photographers captured moments that made this year special.</p> <p>Staff photographer <strong>Nick Iwanyshyn</strong> selected some of the&nbsp;highlights of 2018.&nbsp;</p> <hr> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9831 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-001.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <i>Axel Guenther, scientific director of the Centre for Microfluidic Systems, inspects microfluidic devices in a cleanroom. This fall, U of T partnered with&nbsp;Canada’s National Research Council&nbsp;</i><a href="/news/u-t-partners-national-research-council-create-national-innovation-hub-microfluidics" style="font-style: italic;">to create a national innovation hub focused on microfluidics</a>&nbsp;<em>(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9832 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="528" src="/sites/default/files/POY-002.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Students line up before making a grand entrance at the <a href="/news/young-gifted-and-black-u-t-students-celebrate-second-annual-black-graduation">second student-led Black graduation ceremony in June at Hart House</a>. In 2017, U&nbsp;of T became the first Canadian university to host a Black graduation (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9833 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-003.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland looks on during a service of remembrance at the Ƶ's downtown campus (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9834 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-004.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Alán Aspuru-Guzik, who came to U of T from&nbsp;Harvard University to become a Canada 150 Research Chair, <a href="/news/ai-researcher-outlines-vision-self-driving-labs-u-t-tsinghua-university-conference">delivered the keynote address at the Ƶ-Tsinghua University Entrepreneurship and Innovation Forum</a> in May&nbsp; (photo by Chris Sorensen)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9835 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-005.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em><a href="/news/willpower-nutshell-against-odds-elspeth-arbow-working-towards-u-t-degree-despite-cystic">Elspeth Arbow, an undergraduate student with cystic fibrosis recovering from her second double-lung transplant,</a>&nbsp;gets ready for physiotherapy at Toronto General Hospital&nbsp;on May 4 (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9836 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-006.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Wearing matching maple leaf socks, former <a href="/news/former-google-ceo-lauds-role-universities-canada-s-innovation-ecosystem">U.S. vice-president Al Gore and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt chat on the main stage at the Elevate technology conference</a> in Toronto, on Sept. 26 (photo by Chris Sorensen)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9868 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-020.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Your mind isn't playing tricks on you. Students go up the stairs at U of T Scarborough (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9838 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-008.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Kirsty Duncan, minister of science and sport, watches a demonstration&nbsp;<a href="/news/research-action-u-t-awarded-21-canada-research-chairs">during a Nov. 13&nbsp;&nbsp;announcement about new and renewed chairs</a>&nbsp;in the Canada Research Chairs program, including 21 at U of T&nbsp; (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9839 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-009.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em><a href="/news/u-t-s-hart-house-celebrates-pride-3000-rainbow-coloured-paper-cranes">Cranes in the colours of the rainbow</a> hang from a window at Hart House's reading room in June to mark Pride (photo by Romi Levine)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9869 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-007_0.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Students gather to study and chat&nbsp;at U of T Mississauga (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <div>&nbsp;</div> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9840 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-010.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Enakshi Shah, who earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at U of T,&nbsp;<a href="/news/high-demand-why-u-t-graduates-are-among-most-sought-after-planet">found there were lots of opportunities</a>&nbsp;after graduating&nbsp;(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)&nbsp;</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9841 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-011.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>A girl adds to a poster about what it means to be a woman in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) <a href="/news/science-rendezvous-brings-u-t-research-lab-streets">at Science Rendezvous&nbsp;on May 12</a>&nbsp;(photo by Geoffrey Vendeville).</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9842 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="546" src="/sites/default/files/POY-012.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Hundreds of people in a rainbow of colours filled the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport at the Ƶ&nbsp;<a href="/news/adrenaline-and-pure-joy-were-feeding-my-soul-nine-photos-powwow-u-t">for the Indigenous Studies Students' Union's powwow</a>&nbsp;on March 11&nbsp;&nbsp;(photo by Laura Pedersen)</em><br> &nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9844 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="502" src="/sites/default/files/POY-014.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>For Remembrance Day and the 100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the armistice ending the First World War, <a href="/news/then-and-now-take-look-these-photos-first-world-war-campus">U of T News staff photographer Nick Iwanyshyn juxtaposed archival campus photos</a> with present-day pictures at the same location. Above, a Sopwith Camel plane appears in front of University College in 1918&nbsp;(photo illustration includes a U of T Archives photograph)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9845 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-015.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Members of the U of T community gather outside of University College on&nbsp;Oct. 30&nbsp;<a href="/news/i-refuse-walk-world-afraid-u-t-community-remembers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-victims">for a vigil for victims of the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh</a> (photo by Romi Levine)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9846 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="446" src="/sites/default/files/POY-016.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Astrophysicist Matt Russo makes music using the movements of objects in space. <a href="/news/u-t-astrophysicist-musician-helps-blind-partially-sighted-experience-cosmos-musical-planetarium">The music was featured in Our Musical Universe,</a> an audio-focused planetarium show that debuted at U of T in January&nbsp;(photo by Romi Levine)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9847 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="476" src="/sites/default/files/POY-017.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Drummers welcome delegates during <a href="/news/higher-level-spiritual-consciousness-u-t-parliament-world-s-religions">a Spiritual Opening Ceremony for the Parliament of the World’s Religions</a> around the Sacred Fire in Olympic Park, on Nov. 2 (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9870 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-021%20%281%29.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em>Rose Patten, centre, U of T's 34th chancellor, <a href="/news/diligence-focus-and-passion-rose-patten-installed-u-t-s-34th-chancellor">was installed in a ceremony in November</a>&nbsp;(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><img alt class="media-image attr__typeof__foaf:Image img__fid__9848 img__view_mode__media_original attr__format__media_original" height="500" src="/sites/default/files/POY-018.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" width="750" loading="lazy"><br> <em><a href="/news/kids-discover-u-t-through-25th-annual-bring-our-children-work-day">At the 25th annual&nbsp;Bring Our Children to Work Day on April 26</a>, kids got to see a soda geyser made of Mentos and cola spraying 12 feet above the courtyard near Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories&nbsp;(photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 19 Dec 2018 05:00:00 +0000 geoff.vendeville 149233 at Molly Shoichet on the importance of creativity, imagination in research /news/molly-shoichet-importance-creativity-imagination-research <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Molly Shoichet on the importance of creativity, imagination in research</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2018-03-06-shoichet-resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=0Oci9ns_ 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2018-03-06-shoichet-resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=9Ag9d80h 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2018-03-06-shoichet-resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=uYvWQqYY 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2018-03-06-shoichet-resized.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=0Oci9ns_" alt="Photo of Molly Shoichet in lab"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>noreen.rasbach</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2018-03-06T00:00:00-05:00" title="Tuesday, March 6, 2018 - 00:00" class="datetime">Tue, 03/06/2018 - 00:00</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">"I think what we need to do more of in Canada is celebrate science and celebrate discovery and encourage curiosity," says U of T's Molly Shoichet, Ontario's chief scientist (photo by Roberta Baker)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jennifer-robinson" hreflang="en">Jennifer Robinson</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/our-community" hreflang="en">Our Community</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-applied-science-engineering" hreflang="en">Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-law" hreflang="en">Faculty of Law</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/indigenous" hreflang="en">Indigenous</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/molly-shoichet" hreflang="en">Molly Shoichet</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/regenerative-medicine" hreflang="en">Regenerative Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research-innovation" hreflang="en">Research &amp; Innovation</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Three top scholars – an astrophysicist, an Indigenous legal rights expert and a biomedical engineer – will talk about the importance of creativity and imagination in the pursuit of world-changing research at a special anniversary event tonight for one of the most prestigious awards in Canada.</p> <p>All three Killam Prize winners will speak at Innis Town Hall Theatre.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/imagining-new-frontiers-celebrating-50-years-of-groundbreaking-research-tickets-42796948826">Tickets are free and are available by registering here.</a></p> <p>The event, hosted by the Canada Council for the Arts and moderated by <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas" target="_blank">Paul Kennedy,</a>&nbsp;host of CBC Radio's&nbsp;<em>Ideas</em>, features:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.uvic.ca/law/facultystaff/facultydirectory/borrows.php" target="_blank"><strong>John Borrows</strong>,</a>&nbsp;Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law and former professor in the Faculty of Law at the Ƶ</li> <li><a href="http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~vkaspi/" target="_blank"><strong>Victoria Kaspi</strong></a>,&nbsp;Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics and director of the McGill Space Institute,&nbsp;McGill University&nbsp;</li> <li><a href="http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~molly/molly_bio.html" target="_blank"><strong>Molly Shoichet</strong></a>, Ontario’s chief scientist, Canada Research Chair in Tissue Engineering and professor in U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering’s department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry and the Institute for Biomaterials &amp; Biomedical Engineering.</li> </ul> <p>To get an idea of what the evening may hold, <em>U of T News</em> caught up with Shoichet, a globally recognized leader in stem cell transplantation and regenerative medicine, ahead of her talk.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Why is creativity and imagination important in your research?</strong></p> <p>We’re trying to solve problems that no one has been able to solve. If you want to try and solve a really big problem, you have to take a different approach from what other people have done – that requires creativity and imagination.</p> <p>For example, we’re trying to get the brain to regenerate. We know the brain has the capacity to do this but no one’s really been able to figure out <em>how</em> to do that after a traumatic injury like a stroke. So how can we get the brain to repair itself? What molecules can we deliver to it or what cells can we transplant to get the brain to repair itself after a stroke?</p> <p>I’ve heard there’s been about a thousand failed clinical trials in strokes. That’s a lot of really smart people not being successful.&nbsp;If we try to do the same thing, we’re just going to continue to fail.</p> <p><strong>What impact is your work and your field&nbsp;having on the world?</strong></p> <p>I look at research as the core to invention, innovation and commercialization. If we don’t do that research, we’re not going to have those inventions, the innovation, the commercialization, and you’re not going to have impact on human health.</p> <p>Have we impacted human health so far? No. But that is a major driver for what we do and a major driver for the creativity we talked about before.</p> <p>In our lab, we use innovation in chemistry and engineering to solve problems and answer questions in biology and medicine. We have invented new materials, we have licensed those materials to companies, or used our inventions as the founding technology to start companies, and this is an active part of what we do.</p> <p>Recently we started a company that focuses on post-surgical pain. We want to use some of our inventions to better manage pain for these patients. It’s a very exciting time to take that invention and that commercial opportunity to make a difference in people’s quality of life.</p> <h3><a href="/news/tags/molly-shoichet">Read more about Molly Shoichet</a></h3> <p><strong>Have you met your fellow panellists before? What are you hoping to hear from them?</strong></p> <p>I know both of them. Vicky [Victoria Kaspi], I’ve known for years. I don’t know where I first met her but we’ve been on panels together before. What I love and what I’m looking forward to hearing from her is&nbsp; how a better understanding of the universe can help us better understand who we are.</p> <p>John [Borrows] and I both worked together at the Killam Prize last year. I had the opportunity to meet him at the Killam event. He has such a different perspective on knowledge and how knowledge can be used to affect people’s lives – actually, among the three of us, he has probably had the biggest impact on people’s lives looking at Indigenous rights and Indigenous law. [His work is] very much on the ground.</p> <p><strong>What did winning the Killam last year mean to you?</strong></p> <p>I would say it’s Canada’s biggest prize, certainly in engineering, and perhaps the biggest in science or among the biggest. It’s always humbling when you look at the previous winners and realize you have the support of your peers.</p> <p>I think [the prize] is really a reflection of the fantastic people that I’ve had the opportunity to work with and continue to have the opportunity to work with – the students, the graduate students in the lab, the post-doctoral fellows, even the undergraduate students who come to our labs.</p> <p>And then of course there’s our collaborators. What I love about being at the Ƶ is just the opportunity to be challenged and to collaborate and to partner with brilliant people and to think outside of the box and to think in a multidisciplinary way.</p> <p><strong>Since winning the Killam, you’ve been named Ontario’s chief scientist. What has changed for you?</strong></p> <p>What’s changed with being chief scientist is . . . it’s a lot. It’s just a huge opportunity to give back to Ontario and to Canada. I’ve gained so much from living here.</p> <p>[The chief scientist has] a really broad mandate but it’s very energizing. It’s this idea of opening up a culture of science or enhancing the culture of science in Ontario. In government, can we enhance the culture of science? Can we take advantage of scientific methodology to make better decisions? Outside of government, can we do more to engage with the public and restore public trust in science?</p> <p>And then [there’s] also looking at Ontario’s research agenda and making sure that we really are doing our best.</p> <p>I have to say that I didn’t have a good understanding of government before I got here. I’ve been here for two months now and it’s fantastic to learn about all the great work that people in government are doing.</p> <p>I also still have my lab at U of T, which is really important to me. I think we all realized it was important for the chief scientist to still be a scientist.</p> <p><strong>Any thoughts on the recent federal budget and the boost in funding for fundamental research? Does this mean it’s a good time to be a scientist in Canada?</strong></p> <p>I really do applaud the federal government for investing in science. It was really needed.</p> <p>We know our future is dependent on what people call the innovation economy or the knowledge-based economy. Natural resources are obviously a huge driver of our economy in Canada but we know the world is changing and we need to invest in research so that we are on the leading edge and we in Canada are inventing that future.<br> <br> Hopefully, as chief scientist we can do something similar in Ontario to continue to invest in research and enhance that.</p> <p><strong>Any final thoughts you’d like to add?</strong></p> <p>The Killam Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts – they're really a jewel.</p> <p>I’ve served on their committees before and have an enormous amount of respect for the way they run the process. I know that it’s a very rigorous process.</p> <p>I think what we need to do more of in Canada is celebrate science and celebrate discovery and encourage curiosity. If we can get more young people pursuing careers in the STEM fields, then our future will be bright. So the Killam is just one of those bright stars.</p> <p><i>&nbsp;</i></p> <p align="center">&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Tue, 06 Mar 2018 05:00:00 +0000 noreen.rasbach 130764 at Conference brings international group of astrophysicists to U of T /news/conference-brings-international-group-astrophysicists-u-t <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Conference brings international group of astrophysicists to U of T</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-08-16-astrophysicist.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=lXUEGCSA 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-08-16-astrophysicist.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=gnIyz7C2 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-08-16-astrophysicist.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ibvXG7mC 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-08-16-astrophysicist.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=lXUEGCSA" alt> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-08-16T15:41:28-04:00" title="Wednesday, August 16, 2017 - 15:41" class="datetime">Wed, 08/16/2017 - 15:41</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Assistant Professor Hanno Rein (left) and postdoctoral fellow Daniel Tamayo (right) of U of T Scarborough’s Centre for Planetary Science are hosting a three-day conference bringing together astrophysicists from around the world (photo by Ken Jones)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/don-campbell" hreflang="en">Don Campbell</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Don Campbell</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utsc" hreflang="en">UTSC</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/space" hreflang="en">Space</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>When it comes to figuring out what’s going on in distant solar systems, astrophysicists rely on a powerful set of mathematical tools called numerical integration methods – algorithms that calculate&nbsp;the motion of objects in space.</p> <p>But even relatively small errors quickly add up with these calculations, especially when the models are run over the long-time scales involved in the life of planetary systems. Researchers have found that high precision comes at a cost, namely efficiency.</p> <p>Assistant Professor <strong>Hanno Rein</strong> and postdoctoral researcher <strong>Daniel Tamayo</strong> hosted&nbsp;<a href="https://rein.utsc.utoronto.ca/torontonbody2017/">a&nbsp;three-day conference</a>&nbsp;at U of T Scarborough’s&nbsp;Centre for Planetary Science&nbsp;this week, bringing together international experts who are using integration methods.</p> <p>“It’s exciting to bring in so many international experts,” Rein said, adding that many of those who attended&nbsp;are pioneers in the field.&nbsp;"For example, we made many references to the Wisdom-Holman Integrator. Well, Professor Jack Wisdom&nbsp;[of planetary sciences at&nbsp;MIT]&nbsp;who helped develop it is here in attendance, so that makes it very exciting.”</p> <p>Tamayo said&nbsp;the conference&nbsp;is a reflection of the quality of research taking place at the Centre for Planetary Science.</p> <p>“This definitely shows that Hanno’s research group has reached the international stature where it's able to attract the researchers who really laid the groundwork in this field,” he said. “It’s also great that U of T Scarborough has become one of those centres for this line of research.”&nbsp;</p> <p>Rein and Tamayo spoke to writer&nbsp;<strong>Don Campbell</strong>&nbsp;about numerical integrations and why they're so&nbsp;critical for current and future planetary science research.&nbsp;</p> <hr> <p><strong>What on earth are numerical integration methods?</strong></p> <p><strong>Hanno Rein:</strong>&nbsp;As astrophysicists, we use algorithms to calculate the motion of celestial objects such as stars, planets and moons as efficiently and accurately as we can.&nbsp;</p> <p>This is a very old topic in general dating back to the time of Isaac Newton. Famous mathematicians ever since have worked on it. But there’s been a renaissance over the last 50 years when computers first started being able to do these calculations efficiently. Especially over the last few years, there’s been growth in the field because of all the planets discovered outside of our own solar system.</p> <p>Where scientists in the past could only look at our own solar system exclusively when doing these calculations, we can now take the methods they’ve developed and apply them to this entirely new field of exoplanets that we’re a part of.</p> <p><strong>A significant&nbsp;part of the conference is looking at unresolved problems in these methods. Why is that important?</strong></p> <p><strong>Daniel Tamayo:&nbsp;</strong>Planetary systems live for billions to hundreds of billions of orbits, which is an incredibly long period of time, and any tiny mistake will make an entire solution invalid. In some sense, the numerical algorithms that we’re working with are like the precision experiments that people studying physics use to measure something intricate like the gravitational constant. There are plenty of things that can go wrong to mess up your measurements, so you need to ensure a high level of precision.</p> <p>We’re aiming to not just sort out how these types of precision errors can be avoided&nbsp;but also come&nbsp;up with a smart way that causes the errors to cancel each other out. We also hope to come up with creative ways to ensure consistency so we can trust the solutions we end up with.</p> <p><strong>What are some examples of where these methods are applied?</strong></p> <p><strong>Hanno Rein:&nbsp;</strong>With many exoplanets being discovered, one thing that is hard to find is their parameters&nbsp;–&nbsp;things like mass, diameter and orbital frequency. One challenge is that there are many different parameters that can produce similar results when observed, so we’re trying to find ways that ensure we know which parameters are the most probable.</p> <p>Since we need to run these numerical experiments many times, it’s important they’re as efficient as possible so when we use them to determine the parameters of other planets we can do so with certainty.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 16 Aug 2017 19:41:28 +0000 ullahnor 112590 at Peering deep into the stellar nursery of the Orion Nebula: U of T astronomers part of team /news/peering-deep-stellar-nursery-orion-nebula-u-t-astronomers-part-team <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Peering deep into the stellar nursery of the Orion Nebula: U of T astronomers part of team</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-06-15-dunlap.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=PtsMbuRq 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2017-06-15-dunlap.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=gndDVJSU 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2017-06-15-dunlap.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=AMlw8_QH 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2017-06-15-dunlap.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=PtsMbuRq" alt> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-06-15T17:01:27-04:00" title="Thursday, June 15, 2017 - 17:01" class="datetime">Thu, 06/15/2017 - 17:01</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">In this composite image, the filament of ammonia molecules appears red and Orion Nebula gas appears blue (image courtesy of R. Friesen, Dunlap Institute; J. Pineda, MPE; GBO/AUI/NSF)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/chris-sasaki" hreflang="en">Chris Sasaki</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/chris-sasaki" hreflang="en">Chris Sasaki</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Chris Sasaki</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/dunlap" hreflang="en">Dunlap</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy" hreflang="en">Astronomy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/space" hreflang="en">Space</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Astronomers have released an image of a vast filament of star-forming gas, 1,200 light-years away, in the stellar nursery of the Orion Nebula.</p> <p>The image shows ammonia molecules within a 50-light-year long filament detected through radio observations made with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.&nbsp;It accompanies the first release of results from a research&nbsp;collaboration&nbsp;published in the <em>Astrophysical Journal Supplement.</em>&nbsp;</p> <p>A team of researchers are collaborating&nbsp;on a&nbsp;survey of all the major, nearby star-forming regions in the northern half of the Gould Belt&nbsp;–&nbsp;a ring of young stars and <a href="https://phys.org/tags/gas+clouds/">gas clouds</a> that circles the entire sky and runs through the constellation Orion. The researchers hope the survey will eventually provide a clearer picture over a larger portion of the sky of the temperatures and motions of gas within these dynamic stellar nurseries.</p> <p>“We still don’t understand in detail how large clouds of gas in our galaxy collapse to form new stars,” says&nbsp;<strong>Rachel Friesen</strong>, one of the collaboration’s co-principal researchers&nbsp;who until recently was a&nbsp;fellow at U of T's&nbsp;Dunlap Institute for Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics.</p> <p>“But ammonia is an excellent tracer of dense, star-forming gas,&nbsp;and these large ammonia maps will allow us to track the motions and temperature of the densest gas. This is critical to assessing whether gas clouds and filaments are stable, or are undergoing collapse on their way to forming new stars.”</p> <p>The&nbsp;image is combined with an image of the Orion Nebula – an object familiar to amateur and professional astronomers alike – taken with NASA’s wide-field infrared survey explore (WISE) telescope.</p> <p>The collaboration’s other co-principal investigator is Jaime Pineda, from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. The team also includes Associate Professor&nbsp;<strong>Chris Matzner</strong> and graduate student&nbsp;<strong>Ayushi Singh</strong>&nbsp;from the Ƶ’s department of astronomy &amp; astrophysics,&nbsp;and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics Professor&nbsp;<strong>Peter Martin</strong>, who helped found the Dunlap Institute.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Thu, 15 Jun 2017 21:01:27 +0000 ullahnor 108422 at Three U of T scholars receive Killam awards /news/three-u-t-scholars-receive-killam-awards <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Three U of T scholars receive Killam awards</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ugfRuyuY 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=QrAzxE78 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=q-1JXGoJ 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/Killam%20composite%20B%26W%20with%20white%20borders_0.jpg?h=afdc3185&amp;itok=ugfRuyuY" alt="Photo of Killam winners"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>ullahnor</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2017-05-02T11:08:01-04:00" title="Tuesday, May 2, 2017 - 11:08" class="datetime">Tue, 05/02/2017 - 11:08</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Professors Thomas Hurka (left) and Molly Shoichet (centre) each received the $100,000 Killam Prize for their research. Astrophysics Professor Roberto Abraham (right) received a two-year Killam Research Fellowship (composite by Geoffrey Vendeville)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jennifer-robinson" hreflang="en">Jennifer Robinson</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Jennifer Robinson</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/killam" hreflang="en">killam</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/molly-shoichet" hreflang="en">Molly Shoichet</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/philosophy" hreflang="en">Philosophy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/awards" hreflang="en">Awards</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/stem-cells" hreflang="en">Stem Cells</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/regenerative-medicine" hreflang="en">Regenerative Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-applied-science-engineering" hreflang="en">Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>A world-renowned philosopher, a regenerative medicine leader and an astrophysicist are the three U of T scholars recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts’ prestigious Killam Program this year.</p> <p><a href="http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/awards/uprofessors/current-professors.htm">University Professors</a> <strong>Thomas Hurka</strong> and <strong>Molly Shoichet </strong>are each receiving the $100,000 Killam Prize for their leading research in the fields of philosophy and engineering.</p> <p>This is the second year in a row that a female U of T researcher has won the Killam Prize in engineering. <a href="/news/u-t-researchers-win-prestigious-killam-prizes">Last year, bioremediation pioneer Professor <strong>Elizabeth Edwards</strong> won</a>.</p> <p>Hurka, the Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies at U of T, is the author of many works in moral and political philosophy, including <em>Perfectionism</em>, his groundbreaking book&nbsp;<em>Virtue, Vice, and Value</em> and his 2011 book,&nbsp;<em>The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters</em>. Much of his research has concerned the human good&nbsp;or which states and activities make our lives most desirable.</p> <p>“The Killam Prize is an immense honour, especially since it's for the whole body of one's scholarly work,” said Hurka. “We all try to contribute to our disciplines, and the prize is a gratifying validation that, to at least some extent, I've done that.”</p> <h3><a href="http://news.artsci.utoronto.ca/all-news/university-toronto-philosopher-awarded-2017-killam-prize-humanities/">Read more about Hurka</a></h3> <p>Shoichet, the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Tissue Engineering and senior advisor on science &amp; engineering engagement to U of T President <strong>Meric Gertler</strong>, has published more than 500 papers, patents and abstracts, and given more than 350 lectures worldwide in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and drug delivery.&nbsp;</p> <p>“It is a great honour to be in the company of so many distinguished Canadian researchers, both past and present,” said Shoichet. “This award will accelerate our research and our efforts to improve the lives of people everywhere who are living with the effects of cancer, stroke, blindness and other currently irreversible conditions.”</p> <h3><a href="/news/molly-shoichet-awarded-2016-till-mcculloch-award">Read more about Shoichet’s research</a></h3> <p>In addition, Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics Professor <strong>Roberto Abraham</strong> is receiving a two-year Killam Research Fellowship, worth $70,000 a year, to continue his work probing the low surface universe with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, the world’s biggest all-refracting telescope.</p> <p>“This is a total godsend, coming at exactly the right time,” said Abraham&nbsp;of the award that will allow him to focus on improving Dragonfly with his research partners at Yale and Harvard, and staying ahead of the competition.</p> <p>Abraham wants Dragonfly, which is stationed in New Mexico and operated remotely by a team of students located at U of T,&nbsp;to illuminate the universe’s secrets, to show what can’t be seen&nbsp;–&nbsp;the “cosmic web” where invisible dark matter collects floating baryons, the ordinary material that acts as the building blocks of stars (and&nbsp;ultimately, human beings).&nbsp;With the&nbsp;Killam, he’ll be able to tackle whether it’s best to scale up Dragonfly to handle 10 times as many lenses or just be more clever&nbsp;about how to&nbsp;use the current 48-lens arrangement.&nbsp;</p> <p>“The universe is way more interesting than we can imagine,” said&nbsp;Abraham, who is also president of the Canadian Astronomical Society.&nbsp;“We’re finding all sorts of bizarre things. Galaxies are twice as big as we thought. There are new classes of galaxies that have dark matter but don’t have any stars. Dragonfly is revealing all sorts of unexpected and wonderful new phenomena just waiting to be discovered.”</p> <h3><a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/08/27/u-of-t-astrophysicists-dragonfly-offers-a-bugs-eye-view-of-the-universe.html">Read more about Abraham's research</a></h3> <p>This year’s Killam recipients are “outstanding scholars” who are “on a quest for excellence and innovation, taking risks, imagining better futures and turning their insatiable curiosity into discoveries that benefit us all,” said Simon Brault, director and CEO of the Canada Council.</p> <p>“Congratulations to Professors Hurka, Shoichet and Abraham for this important recognition of their significant research,” said <strong>Vivek Goel</strong>, U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation. “I’d also like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the Killam Trusts for their continuing support of our scholars.”</p> <p>In total, the Killam Program is providing $340,000 to U of T researchers this year. U of T affiliated researchers have won 33 Killam Prizes since the prize was created in 1981 and a further 128 research fellowships&nbsp;–&nbsp;the most awarded to any Canadian university.</p> <p>The Killam winners from across Canada will be honoured at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on May 30.</p> <p>Alumni interested in hearing Abraham speak on Discovering Ghostly Galaxies with Dragonfly, can sign up for his 60-minute talk on Saturday, June 3 during <a href="https://events.dua.utoronto.ca/emc00/EventSearch.htm?&amp;&amp;mid=2">Spring Reunion</a>.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Tue, 02 May 2017 15:08:01 +0000 ullahnor 107210 at Galactic game-changer receives Sloan Fellowship /news/galactic-game-changer-receives-sloan-fellowship <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Galactic game-changer receives Sloan Fellowship</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2016-02-23T09:50:50-05:00" title="Tuesday, February 23, 2016 - 09:50" class="datetime">Tue, 02/23/2016 - 09:50</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Jo Bovy is the first researcher to measure the motion of the Sun, using information from disk stars beyond our immediate stellar neighbourhood (photo by Diana Tyszko)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/peter-mcmahon" hreflang="en">Peter McMahon</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Peter McMahon</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy" hreflang="en">Astronomy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/awards" hreflang="en">Awards</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty" hreflang="en">Faculty</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/more-news" hreflang="en">More News</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Jo Bovy of astronomy &amp; astrophysics, one of two U of T scientists honoured </div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><strong>Jo Bovy</strong> looks out his office window towards the billions of stars of the Milky Way.&nbsp;It's daytime, so he can’t actually <em>see</em> those stars. At night, or even out in the pristine blackness of space, our galaxy is so vast that most of it is concealed over great distance.</p> <p>But for Bovy, it’s the distant, sometimes invisible aspects of our galaxy that fascinate him the most.</p> <p>“A lot of the most exciting new measurements being made in physics today are in the night sky,” says Bovy, who has received a prestigious Sloan Fellowship to further his investigations into the structure, formation and evolution of the Milky Way.&nbsp;</p> <p>Along with neuroscientist <strong>Christopher Honey</strong>,&nbsp;Bovy is one of two U of T&nbsp;Sloan Fellowship recipients this year&nbsp;– both in the Faculty of Arts &amp; Science.&nbsp;The Sloan Fellowships are awarded to 126 non-tenured scholars and scientists around the world annually. Sloan Fellows are expected to be at an early stage of their careers but with a strong body of independent research accomplishments.</p> <p>Among other achievements, Bovy was instrumental in making the first-ever detailed measurements of the chemical structure of the Milky Way’s disk – the relatively flat arrangement of spiral arms, spurs and other collections of gas, dust and stars beyond the glowing bulge of our galaxy's central nucleus.</p> <p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">“</span>Galaxies are just such huge, majestic structures.... It's amazing to learn how they work over cosmic time,” says Bovy, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Galactic Astrophysics.</p> <p>To map out the chemistry of the Milky Way, Bovy used data from the New-Mexico-based Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-1) survey for which he is the Science Working Group Chair.</p> <p>APOGEE uses high-resolution infrared spectroscopy to look past the dust that obscures parts of our galaxy far from the Solar System, revealing the chemistry of tens of thousands of distant stars in detail that hasn't been possible until the last few years.</p> <p>“After a single night of observing, we can find out more than we used to in years,” says Bovy.</p> <p>Using data from another instrument at Apache Point, Bovy has also been able to show that the vertical structure of the Milky Way’s disk is different than what researchers had previously thought.</p> <p>By separating populations of stars in the disk by their chemical signatures, Bovy was able to show that most of our galaxy’s mass is distributed throughout thin and thick parts of the galactic disk – a departure from the previous theory that <em>most</em> of the structure of the Milky Way’s disk is in a thin part, with a much smaller amount in a single thick component.</p> <p>Bovy has even become the first researcher to measure the motion of our own star, the Sun, using information from disk stars beyond our immediate stellar neighbourhood, as the stars travel around our galactic nucleus.</p> <p>By doing so, he discovered that the Sun's orbit around our galaxy is twice as ellipse-shaped as scientists thought. Bovy and team also found that the Sun is inching ahead of nearby stars in its orbit nearly twice as fast as was previously estimated.</p> <p>While the average speed of the stars moving around the centre of our galaxy is about 220 km/second, Bovy found that the Sun is actually moving about 25 km/s <em>faster</em> – like a person walking down a moving walkway at an airport, adding their own stride to the speed of the walkway.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Over the next two years, Bovy will use his $50,000 Sloan grant to study data from the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft, which is creating a 3D map of the locations and motions of roughly 1 billion objects throughout the Milky Way.</p> <p>Bovy intends to use the velocities of distant stars mapped out by Gaia to figure out how the mass of stars is distributed in the galactic disk, as well as searching for insights into what scientists call the dark matter halo, a hypothetical part of our galaxy that can't be seen but contains 20 times as much mass as all of the stars in the Milky Way.</p> <p>Bovy says his dream discovery would be to determine how dark matter is distributed on very small scales: “If [that matter] is cold, there should be all these tiny blobs floating around in the Milky Way,” he says. “You wouldn't be able to see them, but I'd love to figure out if it exists that way.”</p> <p>“I'd like to finish that well before retirement,”&nbsp;Bovy says, chuckling. “In the next 10 years or so would be nice.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/j bovy_600x400_1.jpg</div> </div> Tue, 23 Feb 2016 14:50:50 +0000 sgupta 7674 at U of T astrophysicists offer proof this famous image shows planets forming /news/u-t-astrophysicists-offer-proof-famous-image-shows-planets-forming <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">U of T astrophysicists offer proof this famous image shows planets forming</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-04-28T11:59:44-04:00" title="Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - 11:59" class="datetime">Tue, 04/28/2015 - 11:59</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">This image sparked scientific debate when it was released last year, with researchers arguing over whether newly forming planets were responsible for gaps in the dust and gas swirling around the young star</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/don-campbell" hreflang="en">Don Campbell</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Don Campbell</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/breaking-research" hreflang="en">Breaking Research</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy" hreflang="en">Astronomy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utsc" hreflang="en">UTSC</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research" hreflang="en">Research</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p> A recent and famous image from deep space marks the first time we’ve seen a forming planetary system, according to a study by Ƶ astrophysicists.</p> <p> The team, led by <strong>Daniel Tamayo</strong> from the <a href="http://cps.utoronto.ca/index.html">Centre for Planetary Science</a> at U of T &nbsp;Scarborough and the <a href="http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/">Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics</a>, found that circular gaps in a disk of dust and gas swirling around the young star HL Tau are in fact made by forming planets.</p> <p> “HL Tau likely represents the first image taken of the initial locations of planets during their formation,” said Tamayo. “This could be an enormous step forward in our ability to understand how planets form.”&nbsp;</p> <p> The image of HL Tau, taken in October 2014 by the state-of-the-art Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) located in Chile’s Atacama Desert, sparked a flurry of scientific debate.&nbsp;</p> <p> While those who observed the original image claimed that planets were most likely responsible for carving the gaps, some remained skeptical. It had been suggested that the gaps, especially the outer three, could not represent forming planets because they are so close together. It was argued that planets massive enough to carve such gaps should be scattered violently by the force of gravity and ejected from the system early on in its development.&nbsp;</p> <p> But Tamayo’s study is the first to suggest the gaps are evidence of planetary formation because the gaps are separated by amounts consistent with what’s called a special ‘resonant configuration.’ In other words, these planets avoid violent collisions with each other by having specific orbital periods where they miss each other, similar to how Pluto has avoided Neptune for billions of years despite the two orbits crossing one another.&nbsp;</p> <p> <img alt="photo of Daniel Tamayo with computer" src="/sites/default/files/2015-04-28-Daniel_Tamayo-25.jpg" style="width: 350px; height: 369px; margin: 10px; float: right;">“The system can be much more stable in a resonant configuration and it’s a natural state for planets in the HL Tau system to migrate to,” said Tamayo (pictured at right).&nbsp;</p> <p> The HL Tau system is less than a million years old, about 17.9 billion kilometres in radius and resides 450 light years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.</p> <p> Since young systems like HL Tau are shrouded by a thick cloud of gas and dust, they can’t be observed using visible light. ALMA resolves that issue by using a series – or an ‘array’ – of telescopes located 15 kilometres apart that use much longer wavelengths. &nbsp;The result is unprecedented access to high resolution images that Tamayo says will continue to revolutionize the study of planetary formation.</p> <p> “We’ve discovered thousands of planets around other stars and a big surprise is that many of the orbits are much more elliptical than those found in our solar system,” said Tamayo.&nbsp;</p> <p> “This and future ALMA discoveries may be the key to connecting these discovered planets to their original birth locations.”&nbsp;</p> <p> While the HL Tau system remains stable in its relatively young age, Tamayo says over billions of years it will act as a “ticking time bomb.” Eventually the planets will scatter, ejecting some and leaving the remaining bodies on elliptical orbits like the ones found around older stars. &nbsp;</p> <p> Our solar system does not seem to have undergone such a dramatic scattering event, Tamayo said. Future observations could also go a long way in determining whether our solar system is typical or an oddity ideally suited for life.</p> <p> “If further observations show these to be the typical starting conditions around other stars, it would reveal our solar system to be a remarkably special place.”</p> <p> Tamayo created <a href="http://www.dantamayo.com/hltau">two videos</a> based on computer simulations to show how HL Tau would appear in both resonant and non-resonant configurations.</p> <p> The findings are available online and will be published in the upcoming edition of <em>Astrophysical Journal</em>.&nbsp;</p> <p> <em>Don Campbell is a writer with the Ƶ Scarborough.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-04-28-planets-forming.jpg</div> </div> Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:59:44 +0000 sgupta 6984 at Thirty Metre Telescope: “amazing news for Canadian astronomy” /news/thirty-metre-telescope-%E2%80%9Camazing-news-canadian-astronomy%E2%80%9D <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Thirty Metre Telescope: “amazing news for Canadian astronomy”</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-04-07T06:07:58-04:00" title="Tuesday, April 7, 2015 - 06:07" class="datetime">Tue, 04/07/2015 - 06:07</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">An artist's concept of the TMT at night with laser guide star system illuminated (all TMT images and video courtesy TMT.org)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/terry-lavender" hreflang="en">Terry Lavender</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Terry Lavender</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/international" hreflang="en">International</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astrophysics" hreflang="en">Astrophysics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/astronomy" hreflang="en">Astronomy</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">Federal funding for world’s most powerful telescope has U of T prof “over the galaxy”</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p> The phrase “over the moon” doesn’t begin to describe Ƶ astronomy and astrophysics professor <strong>Raymond Carlberg</strong>’s feelings.</p> <p> “I was over the galaxy, well beyond the moon,” Carlberg said.</p> <p> Carlberg was describing his reaction to <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/harper-announces-243-million-contribution-for-thirty-meter-telescope-project/article23818767/">the federal government's April 6 announcement to&nbsp;commit up to&nbsp;$243 million over the next ten years</a>&nbsp;to the <a href="http://tmt.org/">Thirty Metre Telescope</a> (TMT) project, a multinational effort to build the world’s most powerful optical telescope in Hawaii.</p> <p> “It's amazing news for Canadian astronomy and for Canadian science in general,” said Carlberg, the <a href="http://lot.astro.utoronto.ca/home_2.html">TMT Canadian project </a>director.</p> <p> Canada’s contribution represents about 15 per cent of the total budget of the telescope, which will be built on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. (<a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/new-kind-planet-or-failed-star-astrophysicists-discover-category-defying-celestial-object">Read more about astronomy at Mauna Kea</a>.) The United States, China, India and Japan are also involved in the project. The telescope is expected to be completed by 2023 or 2024.</p> <p> U of T President <strong>Meric Gertler </strong>called it a “historic investment in world-leading Canadian science,” by the federal government. &nbsp;</p> <p> “As a result, astronomers and astrophysicists at U of T and their colleagues across the country are now in a position to make their full contribution to the most important discoveries of the coming decades – greater understanding of everything from how planets, stars and galaxies are formed to the very structure of the universe.</p> <p> “The government’s decision puts Canada where it should be – on the global cutting edge of advanced research and innovation in this crucial, high-technology field.”</p> <p> <img alt="head shot style photo of Ray Carlberg" src="/sites/default/files/2015-04-07-carlberg-astronomy.jpg" style="width: 225px; height: 315px; margin: 10px; float: right;">Carlberg, who has been working on the project for 15 years, said U of T has had considerable involvement in TMT.</p> <p> “During the earlier development phase I was able to hire nearly 10 undergrads every summer to work on some aspect of the telescope design,” said Carlberg (pictured at right). “One engineer designed all the access stairways and safety railings. Another did some optical modeling. Graduate students will work on bigger instrumentation projects that often involve substantial contact with industry.</p> <p> “U of T professors help shape the entire venture, guiding it towards the most important science questions and developing the right instruments to make the measurements.”</p> <p> <strong>Vivek Goel</strong>, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, said the construction of the TMT will require many years of effort across scientific disciplines and manufacturing sectors.&nbsp;</p> <p> “This investment will ensure that Canadian expertise and manufacturing capacity will be at the forefront of this ambitious effort,” Goel said.</p> <p> The TMT will have a 30-metre wide segmented mirror, giving it roughly ten times the light-collecting surface of the most powerful telescopes operating today –&nbsp;enough to peer to the very edge of the visible universe and witness the birth of the first stars and galaxies.</p> <p> <img alt="artist's image of the top view of the TMT" src="/sites/default/files/2015-04-07-top-tmt.jpg" style="width: 375px; height: 211px; margin: 10px; float: right;">Carlberg said&nbsp;it is impossible to predict the biggest discoveries that the telescope will make, “but we expect TMT will contribute to new insights into fundamental physics of black holes and the early universe, and, help us learn a lot more about extra solar planets.”</p> <p> And, he noted, the U of T astronomy students and faculty who make those discoveries may not even be at the university yet.</p> <p> “Mostly it is about people who are not even here yet who will be the big users when it is ready in 2024.”</p> <p> &nbsp;U of T is home to some of the world's leading astronomers and astrophysics at the <a href="http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/">department of astronomy and astrophysics</a>, the <a href="http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/">Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics</a> (CITA) and the <a href="http://dunlap.utoronto.ca/">Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics</a>. The university is a leading member of ACURA (the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy), which has identified the TMT project as a “highest priority.”</p> <p> <iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/8373845" webkitallowfullscreen width="500"></iframe></p> <p> <a href="https://vimeo.com/8373845">TMT Overview</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/thirtymeter">Thirty Meter Telescope</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-04-07-TMT-night.jpg</div> </div> Tue, 07 Apr 2015 10:07:58 +0000 sgupta 6937 at