Clipsheet

The Clean Lakes Alliance has been monitoring the Madison-area lakes for cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in an effort to provide season-ahead algal bloom forecasting. Blue-green algae was responsible for at least eight of the 22 beach closures last summer. Beaches have been closed by the public health department in recent weeks due to high bacteria readings, though all are open now.

Dr. Paul Block, an associate professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UW-Madison, has been conducting research to gauge the predictability of Lake Mendota’s water quality and hopes to apply his research to other area lakes as well. His research is the basis for the algal bloom forecast in the lakes of Madison.

To human eyes, the night sky between the stars appears dark, the void of space. But X-ray telescopes capture a profoundly different view. Like a distant fireworks show, our images of the X-ray sky reveal a universe blooming with activity. They hint at yet unknown cosmic eruptions coming from somewhere deeper into our galaxy.

To help find the source of these mysterious X-rays, University of Wisconsin, Madison astronomer Dan McCammon and his team are launching the X-ray Quantum Calorimeter or XQC instrument. XQC will make its seventh trip to space aboard a NASA suborbital rocket. This time, XQC will observe a patch of X-ray light with 50 times better energy resolution than ever before, key to revealing its source. The launch window opens at Equatorial Launch Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre in Northern Territory, Australia, on June 26, 2022.