Spotlight
Prof Yancy Shirley is 2016 Recipient of UA's Blitzer Award
Associate Professor Yancy Shirley has been selected the 2016 recipient of the “Professor Leon and Pauline Blitzer Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Physics and Related Sciences."
The Blitzer award is made possible through an endowment set up by the children and friends of Leon and Pauline Blitzer, and is given each year to a faculty member in one of the following departments: Atmospheric Sciences, Astronomy, Planetary Sciences, and Physics.
Professor Leon Blitzer began his nearly 70 year association with the University of Arizona in 1936 as a Physics undergraduate student. After receiving his PhD from CalTech in 1943, he returned to the UA in 1946 as an Assistant Professor of Physics. He officially retired in 1986, but continued his active association with the University.
Professor Blitzer was devoted to teaching, advising, and mentoring. The Blitzer award recognizes the recipient’s devotion to these aspects of being a professor, in addition to sustaining an active research career. Yancy, a skilled advisor both within the Department, but also through Space Grant and the Honors College, has successfully introduced many undergraduates (and graduate students) to astronomical research.
Yancy will give the 2016 Blitzer Lecture on March 2nd (location details and time to be provided).
Congratulations, Yancy!
Buell Jannuzi, Chairman
Time Lapse of Casting of GMT's 4th Mirror
The technology blog Gizmodo reported on the casting of the fourth GMT segment this year. Highlights are a time lapse of glass melting and a photo of the glass and mold just before the top is placed on the furnace. The story can be found HERE. Further GMTO information can be found HERE.
Steward Observatory Astronomers Discover Ultra-rare Two-Armed Spiral in Planet Forming Disk
First year Steward Observatory graduate student Kevin Wagner and his advisor Dr. Daniel Apai were hunting for exoplanets in the Lower Centaurus Crux association when they discovered a brilliant two-armed spiral structure around the young Herbig Ae star HD 100453A. Spiral arms in protoplanetary disks are extremely rare, with only two other similar known objects. The team's images also reveal for the first time a large gap extending to ~21 au from the star, or to about the orbit of Uranus. Both features are seen as a "smoking gun" of planets or other massive bodies interacting with their parent disks. The details of how these planets interact with their host system is an important piece of the planet formation theory that still has relatively few observational constraints. It is still unclear whether the spiral arms are driven by the medium separation binary HD 100453 B at 120 au, and/or by yet unseen planets inside of the spiral arms that are also likely to be responsible for clearing the gap. So far, this newly discovered intricate and puzzling system has raised more questions than it has provided answers, and the team at Steward Observatory can't wait for their next more detailed images.
The UA press release can be found HERE. A blowup of the figure can be found HERE.
Ozel and Thompson Become APS Fellows
Buell Jannuzi announced the good news that the American Physical Society's Council of Representatives, at its September 2015 meeting, acted favorably on the nominations of Professor Feryal Ozel and Professor Rodger Thompson for Fellowship in the American Physical Society upon the recommendation of the Division of Astrophysics. Election to the Fellowship is limited to no more than one half of one percent of the membership of the APS and is awarded in recognition of their outstanding contributions to physics. Their individual citations are as follows:
Dr. Feryal Ozel, "For pathbreaking theoretical and observational contributions to understanding the behavior of high energy astrophysical systems in the universe, including neutron stars, magnetars and black holes; and for her leadership in the astrophysics community."
Dr. Rodger Thompson, "For work in infrared instrumentation and studies of stellar nucleosynthesis, star formation, and active galactic nuclei; his pivotal role as principal investigator for NICMOS on the Hubble Space telescope; and his use of that instrument to pursue high redshift cosmology, AGNs, and star formation."
Congratulations, Feryal and Rodger.
Arizona Stadium Is More Than A Home To Football
ESPN reports on an interesting aspect of the UA Football Stadium, namely, the Richard F Caris Mirror Lab of Steward Observatory. This lab has made, among others, the mirrors for the 6.5m MMT, the twin 8.4m LBT, the two 6.5m Magellan Telescopes, the LSST, and 3 (soon 4) mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope. You can find the article HERE and the Mirror Lab website HERE.
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