I greatly appreciated having the opportunity to give a talk on astronomy to high-school students at Tsukuba Space Center of JAXA last week. They were on a Tsukuba science tour, coming from Kanazawa Izumigaoka Senior High School in Ishikawa Prefecture. I graduated from the school in 1977 March, and the school was awarded Super Science High School (SSH) status by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2003: an SSH prioritizes science, technology, and mathematics.

My talk covered interesting topics from the Big Bang to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in one hour. Particularly, I focused on why and how a star/planet system forms, a major topic in our research group. During the lecture, the young students hung on my every word and tried to take notes of everything. I was deeply impressed with their sincere attitude toward learning. I hope some of them will get jobs in astronomy.

I was optimistically talking about the Drake Equation to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way. (2009/10/15)

We made training observations for undergraduate students with the 45-m radio telescope in the Nobeyama Radio Observatory (NRO) of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) from 6 and 9 May. The training includes everything required to do an observational study. The students determine a target source, make observation tables to operate the telescope, do the observations of the radio emission from interstellar molecules, analyze the observed data, and finally summarize their results as a report.

On the first day, we taught the undergraduate students how to operate the telescope and they tried to make observation tables. On the 2-nd and 3-rd days, they carried out the planned observations. Unfortunately, it rained during the observations, but they succeeded in detecting the radio emission from ammonia molecules in an interstellar cloud where new stars are forming. The ammonia signal can penetrate the rain cloud. They enjoyed the observations and newly found that the ammonia molecules have a wider distribution than previously reported. As for me, I enjoyed the night session with alcohol, which exists also in the interstellar cloud, every night! On the last day, it was a fine day. The students summarized their observations as a report.

The training observations were hard works for the undergraduate students, but we believe that they will make good use of this experience in their future researches.

Dr. Ikeda was teaching a student how to receive radio signal using his MacBook Air. (2009/5/6)

They were discussing how to observe a target source with the 45-m telescope on the white board in the data-analysis room. (2009/5/6)

Mr. Tatei was explaining how to use the spectrometers in the observation building. (2009/5/7)

They had started the observations with the SUN workstation to control the telescope system in the observation building. (2009/5/7)

They were checking the received ammonia signal on a PC for quick look. (2009/5/7)

They were going into the lower cabin of the 45-m telescope in the rain. Their helmets were for safety, not for keeping out the rain. (2009/5/8)

They were learning the receiver systems in the lower cabin of the 45-m telescope. (2009/5/8)

The elevation gear of the 45-m telescope and the detected ammonia signal on a display. (2009/5/8)

A summary of the two-day observations. An Afro dog, the mascot of the data-anaslysis room, celebrated the success! (2009/5/8)

The Nobeyama Millimeter Array (six 10-m dishes) and Mount Aka, the highest peak (2899 m) in Yatsugatake, a volcanic group. (2009/5/9)

The Nobeyama 45-m telescope, the world's largest radio telescope for millimeter wavelengths. (2009/5/9)

The 45-m telescope and Mount Aka. (2009/5/9)

The radioheliograph (84 80-cm dishes) dedicated to observe the SUN, the 45-m telescope, and Yatsugatake. (2009/5/9)

The undergraduate students were very busy making a summary report. (2009/5/9)

Long time no see!
Spring has come and I have just come out of two-month hibernation.

The visible universe mainly consists of stars, and the life of a star highly depends on its mass (weight). Then what determined the stellar mass? It is one of the most important problems in modern astronomy. As one of promising approaches to the answer, we are intensively studying how and why a new star is born in a dark nebula with radio and infrared telescopes. We believe that a key to the origin of stellar mass should be found in the physical nature of a dark nebula. We are searching for a glittering key in the dark!

Oh, today is April Fools’ Day, but this blog is not a fiction.

A half-day discussion about the origin of stellar mass on the blackboard in my room. Of course, with coffee and rice cracker. As mentioned above, a BLACKboard is superior to a WHITEboard. (2009/03/31)

A cherry blossom tree in our institute will soon be in full bloom. A retired M-V rocket is seen behind the tree. (2009/04/01)

Wow! The tree is in full bloom. (2009/04/06)

We have a half-day seminar in our laboratory every Thursday, to discuss the details of master and doctor theses by graduate students. But today, we concentrated on how to observe the L1551 dark nebula with the Nobeyama 45 m radio telescope with a 25-pixel radio camera in Nagano, Japan. Sure! We never forget to take a break with coffee and cookies around three in the afternoon.

Coffee and cookies. The energy source for our research activities!

A heated battle on the whiteboard in our laboratory.

Today I went to Tokyo Institute of Technology in Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, and introduced our research activities to undergraduate students in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. In my laboratory, three graduate students are tackling several problems in the star/planet formation processes. I also give a lecture about radio astronomy in the department every Tuesday. It seems hard for graduate students to intuitively understand how star/planet systems form in dark nebulae, because the radio emission cannot be seen by the naked eye. So I always make an effort to communicate with the students by using visual (colorful) supporting materials.

A beautiful sunset in Enoshima Island (2009/01/04).

Today was the first work day of the new year, but we had a partly cloudy sky. Before the work, I have updated the operating softwares of my computers. The next thing in my to-do list was to process large amounts of data accumulated in my e-mail folder during the New Year holidays. It was half a day of hard work. What a long way to the beginning of my research work! Oh, it’s time to sleep. Good night.
 

Snowcapped Mt. Fuji seen from Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan (2008/12/27).

Kakizome, the first writing of the New Year by my wife. The central kanji character means "Love" in English. The illustration at the bottom right-hand corner shows that 2009 is the Year of the Ox in the Chinese astrological calendar.

Happy New Year!

Congratulations on the start of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

The weather is fine today in Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan. We visited a nearby Shinto shrine, Sume Gami no Miya to pray for good health and happiness of the year. I hope to hear great news of the discovery of the second Earth sometime this year. I’m going to start my work next Monday. Now I am enjoying the New Year holidays with my family. Drink, drink, and drink! Of course, we gave New Year’s money, otoshidama to our children.

Mount Fuji in a red sky at sunset seen from Enoshima Island in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan (2008/12/27).

Hello, universe!
This is the first light from me.
Now we have a clear sky here in Japan. I’m just tackling an analysis of the infrared images of the Chamaeleon I cloud obtained with AKARI, a Japanese infrared satellite.

Fourier analysis of an AKARI image by using an IDL software tool.