Even in astronomy, where many things take millions of years to change, there are often events which last days, hours, minutes, or even seconds. Many telescope facilities have mechanisms to receive proposals for these “target of opportunities”. Currently my science focuses on the global evolution of galaxies, which occurs with timescales longer than a million years. So there isn’t much opportunity for rapid-response science.

However, two weekends ago I did have the opportunity to do some rapid-response activity related to science. Typically telescope time is allocated months in advance, often after an established proposal evaluation process. The deadlines are known with at least a few weeks notice so it doesn’t typically come as a surprise. In this case I received an email Friday morning noting that some telescope time had become available and that proposals needed to be submitted asap (i.e., that same day) and that detailed observation plans would need to be submitted a few days later. Crunch time!

From the front seat of my car (while stopped at a gas station), I fired off a quick email sketching out an idea to measure the rotation of a galaxy which has enhanced star formation. I want to know if that galaxy was just involved in a collision with a nearby galaxy or if something else has triggered the vigorous star formation. Seeing if the stars are in regular orbits versus more perturbed orbits can help answer this question.

A few days later I’d received word that I could have up to 3 hours of telescope time to answer this question and the scripts needed to be in ASAP (aka “yesterday”)! So I devoted a day to arranging all the details of the observations: which stars to use as calibrations, when would be the best time to observe the calibration stars, how to obtain the spectra I need, etc.

The good news is the scripts are submitted, have been approved by the telescope staff, and the observing run starts tomorrow night!

Not quite a rapid phenomenon, but rapid activity on my end.