Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 9

VIEW INSIDE NEW LUX DETECTOR: MATTHEW KAPUST / SANFORD UNDERGROUND RESEARCH FACILITY; TARANTULA
NEBULA: ESO / ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO) / WONG ET AL. / ESO / M.-R. CIONI / VISTA MAGELLANIC CLOUD SURVEY;
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: CAMBRIDGE ASTRONOMICAL SURVEY UNIT
COSMOLOGY
Dark Matter Remains Elusive - for Now
THE FIRST RUN of the most sensitive
dark matter detector in the world has
come up empty. Sixty days' worth of
data-taking by the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ)
experiment failed to show evidence
for a type of particle thought to make
up dark matter, scientists shared in a
July 7th webinar.
Even though dark matter represents
85% of all gravitating matter in the universe,
the particles are extremely difficult
to catch because they barely interact
with " normal " material. One weakly
interacting massive particle (WIMP)
could pass unhindered through 10
million light-years of solid lead before
hitting an atomic nucleus, explains LZ
spokesperson Hugh Lippincott (University
of California, Santa Barbara).
Then again, if these particles are
relatively heavyweight then a billion of
them should pass through your body
BLACK HOLES
Black Hole Lurks in Nearby
Galaxy
ASTRONOMERS HAVE FOUND a
dormant stellar-mass black hole around
a massive blue star in the Large Magellanic
Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of
the Milky Way. The black hole seems to
have formed without throwing off an
accompanying supernova, opening the
door to our understanding of direct collapse
scenarios.
A team led by Tomer Shenar (University
of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
trawled through almost 1,000 stars in
the LMC's Tarantula Nebula in search
of dormant black holes. They found
exactly one, known as VFTS 243, by
analyzing six years of non-consecutive
data from the Very Large Telescope.
Showing that a binary system contains
a dormant black hole is notoriously
difficult, because the system could
contain another dim object (or two)
with equivalent mass. In fact, the team
behind this discovery is among those
known for pouring cold water on the
pThe researchers trawled through nearly
1,000 stars in the Tarantula Nebula, the starforming
region shown here, to find a dormant
black hole.
every second, so an extremely sensitive
detector might succeed in registering
rare interactions every now and then.
LZ, located in the Sanford Underground
Research Facility (SURF) near
Lead, South Dakota, uses seven tons of
liquid xenon to look for dark matter.
The purified xenon is carefully shielded
from all possible sources of background
noise, such as cosmic rays and radioactive
decay. Almost 500 photomultiplier
tubes on the bottom of the inner
chamber are on the lookout for the tiny
flashes of light that would result should
a WIMP crash into a xenon nucleus.
In a paper posted on the LZ website,
the collaboration of some 250 researchers
from 35 institutes in four countries
(U.S., UK, Portugal, and Korea) present
This view looks up into the LZ Outer Detector,
which is used to veto radioactivity that can
mimic a dark matter signal.
claims of other astronomers (S&T: Aug.
2020, p. 8).
The evidence in this case is twofold:
First, by measuring the orbital period of
the binary pair and the orbital speed of
the massive star, Shenar's team concludes
that its hidden companion has a
mass between 7.2 and 10.1 Suns - black
hole territory.
The astronomers also took a spectrum
of the system. After carefully
removing the light from the massive
star, they were left with the spectrum
of the star's companion. It shows no
features characteristic of ordinary stars,
helium stars, or low-mass binaries.
Coupled with the object's high mass,
the spectrum suggests that this light
comes from bits of material falling into
a black hole. The results appeared July
18th in Nature Astronomy.
There's no sign of the supernova that
ought to have accompanied the black
hole's birth, though. The near-circular
orbit the blue star takes around its
invisible companion suggests that when
the black hole collapsed, it did so without
the " kick " that supernovae typically
give collapsed cores.
While most models suggest stars
need masses of more than 20 Suns to
collapse without a supernova, that scenario
remains plausible for this lowermass
black hole.
" If we find more of this type of
binary with circular orbits, " says Roger
Blanford (Stanford University), who
was not involved in the research, " then
it does suggest that direct collapse is a
common way for a heavy star to end its
natural life. "
¢COLIN STUART
sk yand tele scope .o r g * NOVEMBER 2022
9
their analysis of the first 60-day science
run, which commenced late last year.
The bottom line: Everything works as
expected, but the instrument didn't
detect any WIMPs.
Not yet, that is. " We plan to collect
about 20 times more data in the coming
years, " Lippincott said in a press statement,
" so we're only getting started.
There's a lot of science to do and it's
very exciting! "
¢GOVERT SCHILLING
http://skyandtelescope.org

Sky & Telescope - November 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - November 2022

Contents
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - Cover1
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - Cover2
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 1
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - Contents
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 3
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 4
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 5
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 6
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 7
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 8
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 9
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 10
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 11
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 12
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 13
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 14
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 15
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 16
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 17
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 18
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 19
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 20
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 21
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 22
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 23
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 24
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 25
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 26
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 27
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 28
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Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 30
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 31
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Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 33
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 34
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 35
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Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 37
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 38
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Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - 40
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Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - Cover3
Sky & Telescope - November 2022 - Cover4
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