Magnetic stars responsible for LIGO’s “heavy” stellar-mass black holes?
RMC research assistant (and Queen’s PhD candidate) Zsolt Keszthelyi, in collaboration with RMC Professor of Physics and Space Science Gregg Wade and an international team of collaborators, propose a novel mechanism - strong magnetic fields at the surfaces of hot stars - leading to the formation of “heavy” stellar-mass black holes as detected by the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) collaboration in the source GW150914. Their results were recently featured in the popular press.
- Nanosats of the BRITE space mission reveal the origins of fundamental structures in the wind of the supergiant star Zeta Puppis
- Novel diffraction grating based biosensor
- Can-X 7 Satellite Mission
- Can-X 7 Story in the Kingston Whig-Standard
- Space Science featured in MacLean's summary of RMC programs
- RMC Space Science Education and Research featured in Frontline Defence
- Physics at RMC, The First 125 Years (1876 to 2001)
ADS-B receiver launch
The Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) is leading the way in research for tracking aircraft from space. The reception of aircraft-generated Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) signals by satellites in low Earth orbit will allow surveillance of aircraft over regions not covered by radar such as oceans and the high Arctic. An RMC ADS-B receiver is scheduled for launch on the CanX-7 nanosatellite (10 × 10 × 30 cm, 3.5 kg) in 2016 as a technology demonstrator for space-based monitoring of air traffic. Read article "Tracking Planes Over the Ocean Is About to Get Easier"
CanX-7 nanosatellite
CanX-7 with drag-sail deployed
ADS-B data from CanX-7 showing aircraft over the North Atlantic, 28 Sept 2016 (map © 2016 Google, data © Government of Canada)