Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory
 

Upcoming Events

Thursday, March 28, 2024
08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
No Meeting Week
All are encouraged to cancel or reschedule their meetings between 3/25/24 and 3/29/24.
Read more about this event
Thursday, March 28, 2024
03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
AGN Seminar (Hybrid)
Painting the Cosmos Red: JWST Insights into Red Super Massive Black Holes
Vasily Korkorev (University of Groningen)

Deep observations with JWST have revealed an emerging population of red point-like sources that could provide a link between the postulated supermassive black hole seeds and observed quasars. In this talk I present a JWST/NIRSpec spectrum from the JWST Cycle 1 UNCOVER Treasury survey, of a massive accreting black hole at z = 8.50, displaying a clear broad-line component as inferred from the Hβ line. Combining the derived black hole mass with the detailed modeling of the spectral energy distribution in the optical and near-infrared, together with constraints from ALMA we find an unprecedented ratio of black hole to host mass of at least ∼ 30%. This is orders of magnitude higher compared to the local QSOs, but is consistent with recent AGN studies at high redshift with JWST. In conjunction with other literature works on high-z quasars this finding suggests that a non-negligible fraction of supermassive black holes either started out from massive seeds and/or grew at a super-Eddington rate at high redshift. It is clear that these objects play an important role in the story of black hole growth at early times, however so far a systematic review of these enigmatic AGN across multiple fields has not been undertaken. To this end, I will present my most recent work which explores deep JWST photometry in blank fields, covering ~0.2 deg^2, to select and study a statistical sample of these enigmatic red compact objects.

Read more about this event
Friday, March 29, 2024
08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
No Meeting Week
All are encouraged to cancel or reschedule their meetings between 3/25/24 and 3/29/24.
Read more about this event
Hubble, TESS, and James Webb Mission Posters.

Mission Posters

Please check out these awesome mission posters for the Hubble Space Telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the James Webb Space Telescope missions.

Featured Video

Celebrating 30 years in orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed astonishing secrets about our universe. Yet, while its most famous pictures may reveal galaxies and nebulas across the cosmos, it’s also unlocked secrets here in our own solar system.

Local News

 

Ken Carpenter (667) and his team have been awarded a prestigious and highly competitive NIAC grant to perform a study for an optical-UV interferometry...

Thursday, January 04, 2024