University of Florida Astronomer Calls on Congress to Support Investments in Research and Development

by Reba Bandyopadhyay

Reba Bandyopadhyay, Assistant Scientist at the University of Florida, traveled to Washington, DC, to express thanks and appreciation to Congress for recent appropriations actions in the FY2010 spending bill in support of science, engineering, and technology research and development (R&D).
Dr. Bandyopadhyay joined with more than 250 scientists, engineers, and business leaders who made visits on Capitol Hill as part of the 15th annual Congressional Visits Day, sponsored by the Science-Engineering-Technology Work Group (www.setcvd.org), on April 28-29. She was one of 16 members of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) who traveled to Washington for the event.

While visiting congressional offices, CVD participants discussed the importance of the nation’s broad portfolio of investments in science, engineering, and technology to promoting U.S. prosperity and innovation. Most importantly, they provided a constituent perspective on the local and national impact of these programs and their significance to Florida. Dr. Bandyopadhyay visited the offices of Senators Bill Nelson and George LeMieux and Representatives Corrine Brown and Cliff Stearns, speaking to staffers for each Congressperson about the importance of federal funding for science R&D. She spoke specifically about ground- and space-based astronomical instrumentation development currently underway at UF, and how such work can help to build Florida’s “knowledge economy”.

“I was very pleased to participate in Congressional Visits Day. I believe that discussing the benefits of federal science and technology programs in person with our elected legislators is critical to securing the ongoing support of agencies such as NSF and NASA. The technology arising from the research in these federal agencies is central America’s competitiveness in the world economy.”

More than 50% of all industrial innovation and growth in the United States since World War II can be attributed to advances pioneered through scientific research, with publicly funded R&D the vital foundation for today’s scientific and technological progress. Achievements from federally funded science, engineering, and technology include global environmental monitoring, lasers, liquid crystal displays, the Internet, and many other scientific and technical advances.

The federal government supports a unique research and education enterprise that fuels the American economy. This enterprise provides the underpinning of high-technology industries and expands the frontiers of knowledge in every field of science. Much of this research is carried out at academic institutions across the country, ensuring knowledge transfer to future generations of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicians, and teachers. Additionally, technology transfer from academic research adds billions of dollars to the economy each year and supports tens of thousands of jobs.

Dr. Bandyopadhyay said that her most memorable experience was visiting the offices of Florida’s two Senators. “I was impressed with the interest in and knowledge about science and technology research shown by the staff members of both Senators Nelson and LeMieux. They clearly understood the importance of R&D to Florida, and how federal funding is vital to such research in our public universities and NASA.”

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The Science-Engineering-Technology Work Group is an information network comprising professional, scientific, and engineering societies, institutions of higher learning, and trade associations. The sponsors represent more than a million researchers and professionals in science and engineering. The Work Group is concerned about the future vitality of the U.S. science, mathematics, and engineering enterprise.

More information about 2010 Congressional Visits Day can be found at on the Web: http://www.setcvd.org

Astronomers plan second look at mega star birthing grounds

via University of Florida News

Astronomers this summer will take a close look at a rare cosmic cradle for the universe’s largest stars, baby bruisers that grow up to have 50 times the sun’s mass.

The international team of astronomers headed by University of Florida scientist Peter Barnes used an Australian radio telescope to find the cloud of gas and dust 8,000 light years away in the Southern sky constellation Carina. The cloud is in the early stages of collapsing in on itself, offering astronomers an unusual vista on the first contractions of behemoth star birth.

“We understand some of it, but we really don’t have a clear picture of what’s important,” Barnes said. “This should help us learn a lot more about the process.”

Although our sun has far less mass than the incipient stars in the gas cloud, studying their formation could help astronomers understand how our solar system formed, Barnes said. That is because many stars the size of our sun are thought to have formed in clusters that dispersed into space over millions of years. It’s possible, Barnes said, that our sun traces its origin to such a cluster, and in fact chemical anomalies on meteorites suggest that’s the case.

The latest findings, which appeared in the monthly journal Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, have spurred the team to plan a closer look with another Australian telescope in August. The team will also use the Gemini South telescope, equipped with a mid-infrared camera designed and built at UF, to observe the cloud from the telescope’s location in Chile.

Stars at least 10 times the mass of our sun are rare, comprising only about 4 percent of those in the universe. Most are also at least 1,000 light years away and hard to study. It’s exceptionally rare for astronomers to encounter clouds of gas and dust early in the process of collapsing into large stars because the stars tend to destroy their natal origins.

“They’re rather nasty tykes,” Barnes said. “They make a big mess.”

The astronomers discovered the gas cloud as part of a survey of 300 large gas clouds using the Australia Telescope National Facility’s 22-meter Mopra radio telescope in southeastern Australia. The telescope’s world-class spectrometer allows astronomers to identify and image carbon monoxide and other molecules in large gas clouds. Even with that technology, the mega star birthing cloud was the only one of its kind among the 300 surveyed.

The cloud is also unusual in its rapid pace of collapse and the amount of dust and gas, an amount so large it eclipsed the large stars that had already coalesced inside the cloud. “It is a few light years across, and it has maybe 20,000 times the sun’s mass worth of gas and dust, and most of that is participating in the collapse,” Barnes said.

The Formation of Stars

University of Florida professor Jonathan Tan gave recently a science symposium at the Space Telescope Science Institute on the formation of stars. For an up to date description of the field and professor Tan's past, present, and future research, follow this link.

Stars to Galaxies Conference

The Stars to Galaxies conference was held in Gainesville, FL from the 7th to the 10th of April. The conference, which was chaired by University of Florida professor Jonathan Tan, was a complete success. Scientific posters and talks are now available online for the scientific community.