{"id":60675,"date":"2020-09-01T03:35:29","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T07:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=60675"},"modified":"2020-08-28T09:40:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T13:40:47","slug":"utoledo-astronomer-awarded-nsf-grant-to-study-role-of-galactic-winds-in-galaxy-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/09_01_2020\/utoledo-astronomer-awarded-nsf-grant-to-study-role-of-galactic-winds-in-galaxy-evolution","title":{"rendered":"UToledo Astronomer Awarded NSF Grant to Study Role of Galactic Winds in Galaxy Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An astronomer at The University of Toledo is combining several techniques to take a high-precision look at how our Milky Way and other galaxies formed and changed after the Big Bang billions of years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The National Science Foundation awarded Dr. Anne Medling, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, a three-year, $332,964 grant to study the way gas \u2014 the fundamental building blocks of stars \u2014 gets blown out of galaxies by strong winds.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_60677\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?attachment_id=60677\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-60677\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-60677\" src=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Medling.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"540\" class=\"size-full wp-image-60677\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Medling.jpg 360w, https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Medling-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-60677\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Medling<\/p><\/div>The scientist will use resolved spectroscopy \u2014 splitting the light from a galaxy into many different colors \u2014 to track the causes and effects of galactic winds, which are driven by black holes and star formation.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the project, Medling\u2019s team also will use their research to develop a public show for the UToledo Ritter Planetarium, titled \u201cThe Secret Lives of Galaxies,\u201d which also will be available to other planetariums around the world in both English and Spanish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExtreme winds driven by bursts of star formation or active supermassive black holes can eject gas from a galaxy, but weaker galactic winds are more prevalent and their long-term impacts on galaxy evolution may be significant,\u201d Medling said. \u201cOur method allows us to detect those weaker winds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medling will use the Sydney-Australian Astronomical Observatory Multi-Object Integral-Field Spectrograph Galaxy Survey data to identify gas outflows and quantify the effects of winds on their host galaxies using a 3D shock diagnostic that can trace gas outflows up to two orders of magnitude weaker than standard methods. <\/p>\n<p>Those data will be linked with near-infrared observations using the Rapid Infrared Imager Spectrometer on the Lowell Discovery Telescope in Arizona and molecular gas observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter\/Submillimeter Array in Chile. <\/p>\n<p>The combined datasets will provide three independent tracers of shocked gas: optical emission, near-infrared molecular hydrogen lines and carbon monoxide emission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy looking at so many galaxies at this level of detail, our team will study how galaxies move from youth \u2014 blue and star-forming \u2014 into their old age \u2014 red and no longer able to form new stars,\u201d Medling said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Anne Medling, UToledo assistant professor of astronomy, has received a $332,964 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the way gas \u2014 the fundamental building blocks of stars \u2014 gets blown out of galaxies by strong winds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,1,3,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60675"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60680,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60675\/revisions\/60680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}