IU astronomer studies galaxy formations, stars

Science is responsible for how we understand the world, and through scientific discoveries we have come to know the complexities of nature and the earth. While many scientists make their discoveries on earth, some researchers are looking beyond, into the vastness of space. IU astronomer Liese van Zee is one of those people.\n"(I love) being at a telescope, having the first look at the data as it comes in," she said. \nVan Zee said she has always been interested in science. During her undergraduate studies at Haverford College, she participated in a trip to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico that solidified her interest in astronomy. Astronomy, she said, is one of those topics about which everyone wonders and asks questions. Van Zee's personal goal is to understand dwarf galaxies and galaxy formation and evolution.\nVan Zee is interested in how galaxies are made, and while studying a small dwarf galaxy about 16 million light years away from Earth, she found one feature that could lead to more insight about how galaxies form and how gas and stars within galaxies are related in this process. \nVan Zee found that a huge disk of hydrogen gas surrounds the galaxy, named UG 5288. The catch is that the gas is undisturbed and has not been involved in the normal process of star formation. She said it's a "counter-example to everything we know about galaxy formation." The galaxy was actually discovered in 1972, but van Zee, however, discovered the anomaly. She made this discovery using the Very Large Array in New Mexico, a set of 27 telescopes all aimed at the same point in space.\nFor her work, van Zee has received the IU 2004-2005 Outstanding Junior Faculty Award. She was also the recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation Career Grant.\n"She's doing fundamentally important work that could tell us how galaxies formed," said Catherine Pilachowski, an astronomer at IU. "The gas in this huge disk could be a relic of the early universe that's preserved here in relatively near space."\nCurrently, van Zee is active in the Indiana Extragalactic Research Group, a group of Indiana researchers who research, study and publish information about extragalactic topics. She also is the head of SMUDGES, or the Survey for Star Forming Dwarf Galaxies, a large optical imaging/spectroscopic survey which aims to understand fractions of dwarf galaxies that go through a starburst phase. With imaging and spectroscopy it allows researchers to obtain information about typical star formation in low-mass galaxies. SMUDGES uses the Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, where IU is partial owner of two telescopes. She is also a part of the Alf Alfa Survey at Arecibo, which looks at neutro-hydrogen content gas. Through this, extended gas disks like the one in UGC 5288 can be identified.\nA colleague of van Zee's, IU astronomy professor Stewart Mufson, expounded on the importance of van Zee's work.\n"She's a fine young astronomer whose research is on the cutting edge of the evolution of the universe," he said.\n-- Contact Staff Writer Nathan Tomlanovich at ntomlano@indiana.edu.