Astronomy & Astrophysics

For 10 weeks during the summer of 2025, Jacob H. Crawford (UNCA Physics major / Astronomy minor) participated in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, studying the H-alpha emissions from HII regions surrounding O stars. Jacob created a python notebook that utilized data from the Wisconsin H-alpha Mapper (WHAM) survey to calculate the number of Lyman continuum photons coming from each HII region and compared them to the expected photon amount for each region’s O star(s). Future work on the project will provide dust and photon leak corrections to better refine the Lyman photon calculations, and final results will be presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in January 2026.

More about WHAM from https://noirlab.edu/public/programs/ctio/wisconsin-h-alpha-mapper/

The Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (WHAM) was installed at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile in March of 2009 (previously operating from Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona). WHAM is a completely remote and robotic observing facility.

The WHAM project is funded primarily through grants from the National Science Foundation with additional support provided by the University of Wisconsin Graduate School, the UW Department of Physics, and the UW Department of Astronomy. Much of the hardware was built and assembled by the University of Wisconsin Space Astronomy Laboratory and the Physical Sciences Laboratory.

The Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (WHAM) group is studying one important component of the interstellar medium (ISM) in our own Milky Way to help answer important questions about how galaxies work.

By Will Kinley, UNCA Physics & Astronomy Class of 2026

This summer I had the amazing opportunity to visit the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) as a part of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Astronomy Summer Intern Program. I spent 10 weeks researching jetted supermassive black holes – more specifically, blazars – whose jets are aligned towards the Earth giving them interesting and unique observational properties.

Blazars provide a means to study fainter jetted AGN compared misaligned jetted AGN and thus let us see how these hugely massive objects exist in the early universe and evolve over time. Interestingly, previous works have reported conflicting blazar space density evolutions over time (i.e. how many of these objects existed per volume of the universe over time?). This discrepancy arises from different observation and cataloging methods for blazars. In order to examine why this discrepancy exists I was tasked with generating a new sample of X-ray detected blazars under the guidance of CfA Postdoctoral Research Fellow Luca Ighina and Faculty Astrophysicist Thomas Connor. I used the newest all sky X-ray data from the eROSITA All-Sky Survey (eRASS) which provided the largest sample of X-ray detected sources to begin generating a sample of blazars. Joined with data from the Very Large Array (VLA) FIRST Survey and VLA Sky Survey, I identified objects that had both strong radio and X-ray emissions, something characteristic of blazars. We identified 48 high luminosity blazars and reported a blazar space density evolution that does not confirm any of the previous work’s interpretations. This left me with more questions than the beginning of the summer and plenty more ideas to explore! At the end of the summer I presented my findings in the Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates Symposium. 

Being at the CfA I was surrounded by leading astrophysicists and I was grateful to attend research talks, PhD defenses, and more (pestering who I could). Additionally, CfA also has a rich history in astronomy as it has been a home to prominent figures like Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Annie Jump Cannon, and more influential people. All of this came together to inspire me to continue pushing in the field and exposed me to exciting new opportunities and topics.

Outside of my specific project, I enjoyed spending time around the most wonderful people who were also in the Astro REU. We spent time exploring Cambridge and Boston and even made our way up to Portland, Maine, for Portland Pride. Spending time in a new city and meeting such amazing people is truly an experience I will not forget and I am deeply thankful to have gotten this opportunity.