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November 14, 2006
Twenty New Stars in the Neighborhood | Astronomers have identified 20 new stellar systems in our local solar neighborhood, including the twenty-third and twenty-fourth closest stars to the Sun. When added to eight other systems announced by this team and six by other groups since 2000, the known population of the Milky Way galaxy within 33 light-years (10 parsecs) of Earth has grown by 16 percent in just the past six years. NOAO Press Release 06-14 Press Coverage:
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Mercury Transit, November 8, 2006 | This image shows planet Mercury in transit across the face of the Sun. It was taken on November, 8, 2006, using the west auxiliary feed of the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Sunspot 923 is visible to the upper right. This photograph in white light was taken at about 12:22 p.m. MST, 10 minutes after first contact. : : : : : : November 3, 2006NOAO in the NSF Astronomy Senior Review | The National Science Foundation’s Astronomy Senior Review report, released today, contains a variety of recommendations related to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. “NOAO welcomes the recommendations to maintain Kitt Peak National Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory as world-class observatories. We are committed to developing new instruments, and welcome instruments built in the university community,” said NOAO Director Jeremy R. Mould. “The Senior Review also explicitly recognizes and praises the programs that NOAO manages for delivering observing time to the community over the complete ‘system’ of U.S. telescopes, including the Gemini Observatory.” NOAO Press Release 06-13 Press coverage:
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Optical illusions draw preteens into science | Flying pigs, a tiny room inside a shoebox, dizzying 3-D pictures of Mars and disappearing pennies: It was all part of the magic of trying to turn kids from one of Tucson's poorer areas into scientists. “The best way to get them interested in science is to get them when they’re young,” said Carolyn Peruta, a University of Arizona physics and astronomy major. Peruta and two other UA science majors have been whipping out some optical magic for pre-teens at an after-school program at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tucson Inc.’s Holmes Tuttle Club House, 2585 E. 36th St. The program, Hands On Optics, was created and operated by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s education unit in Tucson. “I’ve been doing this for three years,” said Peruta. “I want to be a professional astronomer (and) I plan to do outreach throughout my career.” She said it’s not an entirely unselfish act. “I want people to be interested in what I do,” said Peruta, as she helped an 8-year girl look through red and blue plastic filters so she could see a Mars orbiter’s photo in 3-D. It was only one of dozens of “wows” Peruta and her cohorts earned late Friday afternoon. Arizona Daily Star article Photo Credit: David Sanders / Arizona Daily Star : : : : : : Astronomy Picture of the Day | SH2 136: A Spooky Nebula : : : : : : October 26, 2006
Watch Mercury Transit the Sun on November 8 Live from Kitt Peak National Observatory | The National Science Foundation’s Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Exploratorium are joining forces to present a live view of an unusual celestial event: the transit of planet Mercury across the face of the Sun, as seen from Earth. This five-hour transit occurs on Wednesday, November 8, 2006, beginning at 12:12 p.m. local MST in Tucson, Arizona (11:12 a.m. PST) and ending at 5:10 p.m MST (4:10 p.m. PST). The coverage from Kitt Peak, broadcast on the Web by a mobile multimedia team from the Exploratorium, will include a live image of the transit as seen through a white-light filter on a Meade 16-inch telescope operated by the national observatory for public outreach, plus live voiceover commentary at the top of every hour and interviews with astronomers on Kitt Peak. NOAO Press Release 06-12 : : : : : : October 10, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | Reflection Nebulas in Orion : : : : : : October 5, 2006
‘Super-LOTIS’ Telescope on Kitt Peak Helps Catch Exploding Stars | University of Arizona astronomers are using NASA’s Swift satellite and the Kitt Peak telescope called “Super-LOTIS” to see stars almost as they explode. Until very recently, astronomers saw supernovae explosions after a lag time of days or weeks. And until very recently, they didn’t see the fast-fading X-ray emission or ultraviolet light that comes with these cosmic blasts. Astronomers from Goddard Space Flight Center, Penn State University and the UA collaborate in using the new space-based “Swift” telescope. Swift, which is named for a very fast bird, and Super-LOTIS are primarily used together to study gamma-ray bursts, the most energetic explosions in the universe. Most gamma-ray bursts last no longer than about ten seconds, so speed is essential in this research. For more, see the University of Arizona Press Release. : : : : : : September 20, 2006
Spitzer Sees a Dim Star and Big Bright Black Hole | Data from the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey and the MARS optical spectrometer on the National Science Foundation’s Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory were combined with observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope to discover an extremely cold star called a T-type brown dwarf. Currently, less than 100 T-type brown dwarfs are known and the first was discovered only in the past decade. Many astronomers refer to brown dwarfs as “failed stars” because these puny orbs never acquired enough mass to visibly “light up,” or ignite nuclear fusion in their cores. The T-type brown dwarf is the puniest and coldest class of failed stars. “A crucial aspect of our survey has been deep, ground-based images obtained by our stalwart colleagues in Arizona, observing the same patch of sky in light that is bluer than Spitzer sees,” said lead researcher Daniel Stern of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “They spent more than 200 nights obtaining their data.” For more, see the Spitzer Release. : : : : : : September 14, 2006
New Transportation Service to Kitt Peak: Adobe Shuttle of Tucson to Provide Shuttle To/From Kitt Peak | Kitt Peak National Observatory boasts the greatest number of research telescopes on one mountain anywhere in the world. In addition to the twenty-five optical and two radio telescopes, Kitt Peak also offers an attractive visitor center complete with exhibits, and a gift shop, daily telescope tours, and world-renowned nightly public observing programs by reservation. However, until now, there was no shuttle transportation available for those people who would prefer not driving up the winding mountain road to the observatory. NOAO Press Release 06-11 : : : : : : September 13, 2006
Tucson-based astronomer vies for dark-energy role | A proposed space telescope program led by a Tucson-based astronomer is in a three-way race to answer the era’s biggest cosmological question: What is causing the expanding universe to accelerate? Tod R. Lauer, an astronomer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, is the principal investigator—the lead scientist—on Destiny, the Dark Energy Space Telescope. Arizona Daily Star Story : : : : : : August 31, 2006
The Eternal Life of Stardust | A new image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, featured in the September 4, 2006, issue of TIME magazine, is helping astronomers understand how stardust is recycled in galaxies. They combined hundreds of thousands of Spitzer Space Telescope images into a map of the entire Large Magellanic Cloud. The team of astronomers (called the Spitzer SAGE Legacy Survey) sees features throughout the galaxy in such sharp detail that they can count newly formed stars, determine how much dust old stars are pumping into the galaxy and, for the first time, to sensitively map the rate at which stars are forming across an entire galaxy. “We can use this amazing map to really start to understand in detail how a galaxy evolves,” said Karl Gordon of the University of Arizona Steward Observatory. Gordon heads the UA group who processed 600,000 images that Spitzer’s Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) took of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way about 160,000 light years away. This galaxy is an ideal astrophysical laboratory for studying the lifecycle of galaxies. Members of the SAGE team from NOAO include Robert Blum, Jeremy Mould, Knut Olsen and Sean Points. Margaret Meixner (STScI) is the principal investigator. For more, see the Spitzer News Release. : : : : : : August 6, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | A Cerro Tololo Sky : : : : : : August 3, 2006
NASA Funds Development of Destiny: The Dark Energy Space Telescope | A team led by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has been selected by NASA to develop a concept for a space mission to characterize the mysterious “Dark Energy” that permeates the Universe and causes its expansion to accelerate. Known as Destiny, the Dark Energy Space Telescope, the small spacecraft would detect and observe more than 3,000 supernovae over its two-year primary mission to measure the expansion history of the Universe, followed by a year-long survey of 1,000 square-degrees of the sky at near-infrared wavelengths to measure how the large-scale distribution of matter in the Universe has evolved since the Big Bang. Used together, the data from these two surveys will have 10 times the sensitivity of current ground-based projects to explore the properties of Dark Energy, and will provide data critical to understanding the origin of Dark Energy, which is poorly explained by existing physical theories. NOAO Press Release 06-10 Press Coverage:
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Astronomers Crunch Numbers, Universe Gets Bigger | NOAO Goldberg Fellow Lucas Macri is part of a team led by Kris Stanek of Ohio State University who determined that the Triangulum Galaxy, also known as M33, is actually about 15 percent farther away from our galaxy than previously measured. This finding represents a direct (i.e., geometric) distance, free from many of the systematic errors and assumptions that affect other approaches to the distance scale of the Universe. The team used data from several NOAO-related telescopes, including the Kitt Peak 2.1-meter, WIYN 3.5-meter and Gemini. For more information, see the Ohio State Press Release. : : : : : : August 1, 2006
Discovery of the Nearest L Dwarf: The Intrinsically Faintest Object at Visual Wavelengths Known Beyond Our Solar System | As part of an ongoing search for Earth’s nearest stellar neighbors, astronomers have determined the distance to a stellar-like body known as DEN 0255-477 and discovered that it is the nearest-known L dwarf. This body is now also the faintest object outside our solar system for which its intrinsic visual brightness has been measured. The new record holder is nearly 100 million times fainter than the Sun. It is located only 16.2 light-years (4.97 parsecs) from Earth, making DEN 0255-4700 the 48th nearest known system of stars or brown dwarfs. This very reddish object is a third closer to Earth than the next known L dwarf, which is 24 light-years away. The discovery by a team led by Edgardo Costa and Rene Mendez of the Universidad de Chile in Santiago will be published in the September 2006 issue of the Astronomical Journal. NOAO Press Release 06-09 : : : : : : July 24, 2006
PLANET-FORMING DISKS MIGHT PUT THE BRAKES ON STARS | Astronomers including Steve Strom of NOAO used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to find evidence that dusty disks of planet-forming material tug on and slow down the young, whirling stars they surround. Young stars are full of energy, spinning around like tops in half a day or less. They would spin even faster, but something puts on the brakes. While scientists had theorized that planet-forming disks might be at least part of the answer, demonstrating this had been hard to do until now. “We knew that something must be keeping the stars’ speed in check,” said Dr. Luisa Rebull of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center, Pasadena, CA. “Disks were the most logical answer, but we had to wait for Spitzer to see the disks.” Rebull, who has been working on the problem for nearly a decade, is lead author of a paper in the July 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. The findings are part of a quest to understand the complex relationship between young stars and their burgeoning planetary systems. Ultimately, the question of how a star’s rotation rate is related to its ability to support planets will fall to planet hunters. So far, all known planets in the Universe circle stars that turn around lazily. And, due to limits in technology, planet hunters have not been able to find any extrasolar planets around zippy stars. “We’ll have to use different tools for detecting planets around rapidly spinning stars, such as next-generation ground and space telescopes,” according to Strom. JPL Press Release. : : : : : : July 10, 2006SDSC Manages Data for National Optical Astronomy Observatory | The traditional picture people have of an astronomer standing at a telescope and taking photographs of heavenly objects has been dramatically transformed by advancing technologies. Observers now use a wide range of instruments that gather immense volumes of data in digital form, not only from visible light but also in wavelengths from very short gamma rays to long radio waves, opening multiple new windows on the Universe. Read the rest of the story at Grid Today. : : : : : : June 21, 2006Space.com Image of the Day | Skywatcher’s Paradise : : : : : : June 5, 2006
Astronomers Find Ancient ‘Cities’ of Galaxies | A team of astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered a grand total of nearly 300 clusters of galaxies. Almost 100 of these are as far as 8 to 10 billion light-years away, which means they date back to a time when our universe was less than one-third its present age. While galaxy clusters have previously been found at similar distances, this is the first time that so many clusters have been detected so far away. In December of 2005 and March of 2006, the team reported finding two galaxy clusters located 9.1 and 8.2 billion light-years away, respectively. Today, they announced the discovery of 290 clusters of varying distances, some of which are referred to as galaxy “groups” because they contain fewer members. The nearly 100 distant clusters and groups belonging to this sample represent a six-fold increase over what was previously known. According to the astronomers, the key to their success was a combination of infrared and optical imaging from Spitzer and Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The distant galaxies making up the clusters light up in the infrared images, but they cannot be distinguished from other galaxies lying between us and them. By combining the Spitzer images with those from Kitt Peak showing mainly the intervening galaxies, the scientists were able to isolate the distant ones. Team members include Buell Jannuzi and Arjun Dey of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory For more, see the Spitzer Release. : : : : : : 
Most Distant Galaxy Cluster Found 10 Billion Light Years Away | Astronomers at the 208th American Astronomical Society meeting in Calgary announced today the discovery of the most distant cluster of galaxies ever found. The cluster may also be the most massive one yet seen at such an early era in the Universe. Almost 10 billion light-years from Earth, at a redshift z=1.45, cluster XMMXCS 2215-1738 contains hundreds of galaxies surrounded by superheated, X-ray-emitting gas at more than 10 million degrees. The XMM Cluster Survey (XCS) team used observations from the European X- ray Multi Mirror (XMM) Newton satellite to discover the cluster and then determined its distance using the 10-meter W. M. Keck telescope in Hawaii. The XCS is embarked on a long-term observing program lead by Chris Miller of the National Science Foundation's National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) to find more clusters like XMMXCS 2215-1738 using the 4-meter telescopes at both the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. For more, see: http://www.astro.livjm.ac.uk/~xcs/aas, and the UC Davis Press Release. : : : : : : 
Gemini Probes the Center of Andromeda Galaxy with Unprecedented Clarity | Two studies featured today at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Calgary, Canada, bring into focus the core and evolution of our nearest large galaxy neighbor. High-resolution infrared observations of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) made at Gemini Observatory reveal an intriguing dust-enshrouded star near the core of the galaxy, while extremely sharp adaptive optics images allowed the analysis of thousands of individual stars that indicates a long-stable environment around the galaxy’s core. One of the two teams was led by astronomer Knut Olsen of NOAO; he was also a team member on the second study, led by Canadian researcher Tim Davidge. Gemini Press Release Press Coverage: : : : : : : June 4, 2006Oil City kids chalk up some out-of-this-world discoveries | Tim Spuck made two discoveries recently. The first involved his high school science classroom in Oil City. The second involved a patch of stars some 800 light years away. Mr. Spuck made the first discovery because he’s something of an iconoclast, at least when it comes to education. Want to really get him talking? Ask him if he sees any problems with how science is taught to teenagers. “Something is missing,” he said. “The inspiration.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article : : : : : : June 1, 2006Thirty Meter Telescope Passes Conceptual Design Review | The detailed design for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) developed by a U.S.-Canadian team is capable of delivering on the full promise of its enormous light-collecting area, according to the findings of an independent panel of experts. TMT Press Release 06-01 Press Coverage : : : : : : May 31, 2006Black Hole—Galaxy Link Extended | Over the past decade, astronomers have established the remarkable fact that supermassive black holes have a scaling relationship with their host galaxies. The more massive the black hole, the more massive is the galaxy's spheroidal component (either an entire elliptical galaxy or the central bulge of a spiral galaxy). This M-sigma relation tells astronomers that the evolution of galaxies and their supermassive black holes are intertwined. Sky and Telescope article : : : : : : May 25, 2006
NSF Partnership Funds Instrument for World’s Largest Telescope | The W. M. Keck Observatory and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that $5 million of NSF funding has been granted over the next four years to design and construct a major new capability for the Keck I telescope. It was also announced that a matching gift of $5 million from philanthropists Gordon and Betty Moore has been received to complete full funding for the project to build an infrared, multi-object spectrograph to measure phenomena at the farthest reaches of the universe. The spectrograph will be operational by late 2009. The new instrument, known as the Multi-Object Spectrograph for InfraRed Exploration (MOSFIRE), is being developed through a collaborative team of scientists and engineers representing the Keck Observatory, University of California at Los Angeles, California Institute of Technology, and University of California at Santa Cruz. By simultaneously measuring up to forty infrared spectra, or cosmic “fingerprints,” of distant galaxies, the instrument will be capable of undertaking ambitious sky surveys in a fraction of the time currently possible, surveys currently far too time consuming to even consider with today’s technology. The NSF funding for MOSFIRE was provided under the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) which aims to provide access for U.S. astronomers to privately funded observatories such as Keck through a competitive application process. In exchange for funding for new instrumental capabilities under TSIP, observing time is made available to any U.S. astronomer whose project is approved by a panel of peers. “Our past funding of instruments at Keck has enabled just the kind of ‘system’ of observatory collaborations that we envisaged when the TSIP program was inaugurated in 2002,” said Dr. Todd Boroson, deputy director of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, AZ, which administers the TSIP program for NSF. “Astronomers who would otherwise not have access to the world’s largest telescopes have benefited greatly from this program and have made U.S. astronomy much stronger as a whole.” For more information, please visit the Keck Observatory web site. : : : : : : May 17, 2006
Cerro Pachón Chosen for LSST | Cerro Pachón, an 8,800-foot (2,682-meter) mountain peak in northern Chile, has been selected as the site for the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The mountain is already home to the Gemini South telescope and the SOAR telescope. Scheduled to see “first light” in 2012, the 8.4-meter LSST will be able to survey the entire visible sky every three nights with its three-billion pixel digital camera, probing the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move on rapid timescales: exploding supernovae, potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids, and distant Kuiper Belt Objects. LSST Press Release News coverage from:
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GLOBE at Night Reaches More Than 18,000 Participants on Six Continents | More than 18,000 citizen-scientists in 96 countries submitted 4,591 observations of the darkness of their local night skies during the 10-day GLOBE at Night event last month. The GLOBE at Night Web site received data from all 50 U.S. states and from every continent except Antarctica (where the constellation used for the project was not visible!) At least 399 of the participants were under age 12, with another 949 between the ages of 12-14 years old. NOAO Press Release 06-08 | Analysis Summary [pdf] News coverage from: : : : : : : April 23, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | The Solar Spectrum : : : : : : April 19, 2006Space.com Image of the Day | Lit Cigar Galaxy : : : : : : April 18, 2006
Rating scientists: Brains, yes, but what about their hair? | Dr. Steve B. Howell, 50, is an astronomer at the WIYN Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. His shoulder-length gray hair compares favorably with the Pinker stud mullet. Howell has found practical advantages to luxuriant hair: “Working with telescopes, you could be observing all night. It gets cold. Long hair keeps you warm.” Columbia News Service story : : : : : : Astronomy Picture of the Day | NGC 246 and the Dying Star : : : : : : April 3, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | Stars and Dust Across Corona Australis : : : : : : March 28, 2006
Students watch for brighter skies | Shalina Aguirre sits at a table amid the toys and clutter in the back yard of her Midtown home, her eyes straining to find three famous stars in the sky. It doesn't take long to find the twinkling lights that make up the "belt" in the constellation Orion, and she points out the mythological hunter to her father, Randy, who's been looking in the wrong direction. Arizona Daily Star story : : : : : : March 22, 2006In this Scientific American podcast NOAO astronomer Stephen Pompea speaks about the GLOBE At Night worldwide science project taking place the week of March 22. Other topics are also covered. Download podcast [9.97 MB MP3] : : : : : : March 16, 2006
Huge Hidden Halo! | This image composite compares a visible-light view (left) of Messier 82 (the “Cigar galaxy”) from NOAO to an infrared view of the same galaxy from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. While the visible image shows a serene galaxy looking cool as a cucumber, the infrared image reveals a smokin’ hot “cigar.” The visible-light picture of the galaxy shows only a bar of light against a dark patch of space. Longer exposures of the galaxy (not pictured here) have revealed cone-shaped clouds of hot gas above and below the galaxy’s plane. It took Spitzer’s three sensitive instruments to show that the galaxy is also surrounded by a huge, hidden halo of smoky dust (red in infrared image). The infrared image above was taken by Spitzer’s infrared array camera. The dust particles (red) are being blown out into space by the galaxy’s hot stars (blue). Spitzer’s infrared spectrograph told astronomers that the dust contains a carbon-containing compound, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon. This smelly molecule can be found on Earth in tailpipes, barbecue pits and other places where combustion reactions have occurred. Messier 82 is located about 12 million light-years away in the Ursa Major constellation. It is viewed from its side, or edge on, so it appears as a thin cigar-shaped bar. The galaxy is termed a starburst galaxy because its core is a fiery hotbed of stellar birth. Spitzer Media release News coverage from:
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Magnificent Failures: Brown Dwarf Pair Measured by Gemini Observations | A team of astronomers led by Keivan Stassun of Vanderbilt University has used the Gemini South telescope and NOAO’s high-resolution infrared spectrograph Phoenix to uncover the dynamics of a pair of brown dwarfs whose mutual orbit causes them to occasionally block the light of each other, as seen from Earth . The observations of the eclipsing pair, located in the Orion Nebula, enabled the team to directly weigh and measure the brown dwarfs. The infrared Gemini data complemented data the team gathered from the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory and the 0.9-meter, 1.0-meter and 1.3-meter SMARTS telescopes at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The findings show that the radii of the “failed stars” are quite large (as models predict), but that [contrary to expectations] the least massive one of the pair is hotter than its larger partner. The Gemini data consists of a suite of high-resolution spectra made from eight observations between December 2002 and January 2003, which allowed the team to sample the velocities of the two objects throughout their entire orbital phase. This is the first direct, accurate measurement of the physical properties of young brown dwarfs. By measuring the radii, masses and luminosities, Stassun et al. have provided a unique and fundamental contribution to our understanding of brown dwarfs.
: : : : : : Space.com Image of the Day | Batting 1,000 : : : : : : March 14, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | CG4: A Ruptured Cometary Globule : : : : : : March 12, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | Globular Cluster M3 from WIYN : : : : : : March 8, 2006
Image of Cometary Globule Marks 1,000 Online at NOAO | A dramatic new image of cometary globule CG4 marks the one-thousandth image posted to the online gallery hosted by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. The flower-like image of this star-forming region in Earth’s southern skies was taken by Travis Rector and Tim Abbott using a 64-megapixel Mosaic imaging camera on the National Science Foundation’s Victor M. Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. NOAO Press Release 06-07 News coverage from:
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Go Star Hunting with the “GLOBE at Night” Program—March 22- 29 | What does it mean to REALLY see the stars? When you look at the night sky, are you awed by an endless swath of glittering jewels set against a deep velvet-black sky? Or do you see only a dozen or so pinpricks of light doggedly shining through the soft amber glow of streetlamps? How can light “pollution” make such a difference in the way the sky looks? Classrooms, museums, and observatories in Tucson and elsewhere in Arizona will be joining thousands of other students, families, educators, and citizen-scientists by participating in “GLOBE at Night”—an international event designed to observe and record how the constellation Orion looks from different locations as a means of measuring the brightness of the sky at a variety of urban and rural sites. Participation is open to anyone—anywhere in the world—who can get outside and look skyward in the evening during the week of March 22-29, 2006. This week was chosen because the Moon does not rise until after midnight. NOAO Press Release 06-06 Press Coverage:
: : : : : : Scope out starry, starry nights | Local stargazers are some of the luckiest in the world. Not only does Tucson's consistently clear weather and low light pollution make it a great place for professionals to peer deep into the heavens, but it's also getting easier for the average person to learn more about our extraterrestrial surroundings. Arizona Daily Star story : : : : : : Astronomy Picture of the Day | Messier 101 : : : : : : February 28, 2006
Hubble’s Largest Galaxy Portrait Offers a New High-Definition View | NOAO Director Jeremy Mould is one of a group of astronomers whose data from the Hubble Space Telescope were used to create the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy that has ever been released from Hubble. This portrait of M101 (the Pinwheel Galaxy) is actually composed of 51 individual Hubble exposures, in addition to elements from images from ground-based photos, including data from the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The final composite image measures a whopping 16,000 by 12,000 pixels. The giant spiral disk of stars, dust, and gas is 170,000 light-years across or nearly twice the diameter of our galaxy, the Milky Way. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. The disk of M101 is so thin that Hubble easily sees many more distant galaxies lying behind the galaxy. M101 lies in the northern circumpolar constellation, Ursa Major (The Great Bear), at a distance of 25 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy fills a region in the sky equal to one-fifth the area of the full moon. Hubble Image Release : : : : : : February 26, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | Inside the Eagle Nebula : : : : : : February 21, 2006Kitt Peak installing telescope to expand its public programs | Kitt Peak National Observatory is installing a new telescope exclusively for public viewing, expanding its popular nightly observing program by nearly half. The 16-inch optical telescope, built in Flagstaff, will be installed this week and be online by the middle of March, said Rich Fedele, manager of public outreach for the Kitt Peak National Observatory, part of NOAO National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Arizona Daily Star story : : : : : : February 19, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy in Dust and Stars : : : : : : February 2, 2006Space.com Image of the Day | Inevitable Collision : : : : : : February 1, 2006
Taft E. Armandroff Appointed Director for W. M. Keck Observatory | Dr. Taft Armandroff, director of the NOAO Gemini Science Center in Tucson, has been appointed as the next director of the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, starting June 30. Taft has been a member of the NOAO scientific staff for nearly 19 years. Keck Observatory Press Release | Tucson Citizen Article : : : : : : January 25, 2006
NOAO Astronomer Sidney Wolff Awarded Education Prize by American Astronomical Society | The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has awarded its 2006 Education Prize to Dr. Sidney Wolff, an astronomer and former director of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. The AAS Education Prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the education of the public, students and/or the next generation of professional astronomers. NOAO Press Release 06-05 | Local Astronomer Honored with Prize : : : : : : Astronomy Picture of the Day | The Expanding Light Echoes of SN 1987A : : : : : : January 23, 2006Astronomy Picture of the Day | The LMC Galaxy in Glowing Gas : : : : : : January 17, 2006Pre-Supernova White Dwarf Uncovered by Hubble Team, Led by Villanova University Astronomer Edward Sion | Steve Howell of NOAO/WIYN is part of a team reporting the first detection of direct radiation from the surface of a white dwarf star in a pre-supernova binary star system, using the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a major step forward in identifying the type of star that will become a Type-Ia supernova. These pre-supernova binary objects, called AM Cvn stars, have virtually pure helium in their outer layers, and are considered among the strongest progenitor candidates for the occurrence of Type-Ia supernovae, the kind of supernova which are used as “standard candles” to measure the size of our Universe, and being used to show that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up instead of slowing down. Villanova Press Release : : : : : : January 13, 2006Space.com Image of the Day | Unexpected Disk Revealed Around Interacting Stars : : : : : : January 12, 2006
Hubble Panoramic View of Orion Nebula Reveals Thousands of Stars | NOAO astronomer Joan Najita was part of a team that has obtained a dramatic new image of the Orion Nebula in visible and infrared light using three instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in the image, some of them never seen before in visible light. HST Press Release : : : : : : January 11, 2006
Exoplanet Tracker Discovers Young Star with Planetary Companion | An artist’s rendition shows a planet orbiting an very young, active star pocked with dark star spots and speckled with flares and other surface activity. A team led by a University of Florida astronomer announced on Wednesday the discovery of the planet orbiting a star just 600 million years old, one of the youngest stars ever found with a planetary companion. NOAO Image Release 06-01 | University of Florida Press Release : : : : : : January 10, 2006
Rapidly Spinning Star Vega has Cool Dark Equator | Strong darkening observed around the equator of Vega suggests that the fifth brightest star in Earth’s sky has a huge temperature difference of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit from its cool equatorial region to its hot poles. Models of the star based on these observations suggest that Vega is rotating at 92 percent of the angular velocity that would cause it to physically break apart, an international team of astronomers announced today in Washington, DC, at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. NOAO Press Release 06-03 : : : : : : 
Spitzer Reveals Unexpected Disks Around Interacting Stars | New Spitzer Space Telescope observations of an unusual class of interacting binary stars detected excess amounts of infrared radiation, suggesting that these odd objects are surrounded by large disks of cool dust. The results reported today in Washington, DC, at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) were produced by one of six teams of professional astronomers and high school teachers participating in a unique program co-sponsored by the Spitzer Science Center and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). NOAO Press Release 06-04 : : : : : : Space.com Image of the Day | Magellan’s Clouds : : : : : : January 9, 2006
Huge Images Show Majestic Beauty and Violence of Large and Small Magellanic Clouds | The glowing gas of the interstellar medium (ISM) is the breeding ground for the formation of new stars, and the cemetery where the ashes of dead stars ultimately return. A team led by astronomers from the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) has conducted a new study called the Magellanic Cloud Emission Line Survey (MCELS) that focused expressly on the ISM in the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud—the nearest major galaxies to the Milky Way. Hundreds of individual images from MCELS have been assembled into large mosaics of each nearby galaxy being released to the public in Washington, DC, at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, in anticipation of presentations today and on Wednesday, January 11. NOAO Press Release 06-01 : : : : : : 
Dissecting Light from Ancient Stellar Explosions | In a feat resembling an intergalactic autopsy, astronomers have used the Gemini South telescope in Chile to obtain a detailed spectrum of an echo of light from an ancient supernova that enables them to identify the original star’s cause of death. Beyond confirming that the team’s basic interpretation of the light echo was correct, the spectrum suggests strongly that the explosion was a Type-Ia supernova that originated with a compact white dwarf star in the Large Magellanic Cloud. NOAO Press Release 06-02 : : : : : : 2005 News... |
Douglas Isbell |
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NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. |
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