News
News
Hawaii’s Coldest, Steepest Job
Imagine scanning the Help Wanted ads and finding this: ?MEN WANTED for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.? Yes, this was a real employment ad, but not for any job in Hawaii. It was published in England a […]
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Black Hole Eats Star, Belches Gamma Rays
Berkeley — A bright flash of gamma rays discovered on March 28 by the Swift satellite and studied in other wavelengths by Keck, Gemini North and other telescopes, may have been the death rattle of a star falling into a massive black hole and being ripped apart, according to a team led by astronomers at […]
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Light Sabers on Mauna Kea
What?s old is new again. First the old: The iconic sci-fi image of port and starboard phasers firing on a hostile foe, as seen from the bridge of the starship Enterprise. And here?s what makes it new again: a strikingly similar image (minus the enemy spacecraft) caught by photographer and Keck electronics engineer Andrew Cooper […]
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Nature’s Best Magnifying Glass Views Early Spiral Galaxy
Kamuela, HI – Astronomers in Hawaii have plucked unprecedented details from the life of an early galaxy using an unusually lucid gravitational lens coupled with the powerful 10-meter Keck II Telescope on Mauna Kea. Gravitational lenses are Nature’s largest telescopes, created by colossally massive clusters of thousands of galaxies that bend and magnify the light […]
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Children’s Astro Haiku Contest Winners
Kamuela, HI – The W. M. Keck Observatory’s mission is to advance the frontiers of astronomy and share our discoveries with the world. Today that mission extends to sharing the creativity of some of tomorrow’s explorers who recently sat down to write their thoughts about space and astronomy as haiku poems for the Keck Observatory […]
Read More >“I Am Oz, The Great and Powerful…”
When the Wizard of Oz roared that line, he was hidden behind a curtain. He knew all too well that he was not particularly great nor very powerful, and wanted no one to find out (a scheme foiled by that heroic terrier Toto). The opposite problem exists at the W. M. Keck Observatory. There is […]
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Keck’s Twin Telescopes Fire Dual “Phasers”
The plucky few who work near the chilly summit of Mauna Kea were witnesses this week to a sight straight out of sci-fi movies: The first dual laser launches by the W. M. Keck Observatory’s twin 10-meter telescopes. The new laser system on Keck I uses the latest Free Space Transport mirror technology to fire […]
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Keck & NASA Telescopes Reveal Surprisingly Young Galaxy
WASHINGTON—Astronomers have uncovered one of the youngest galaxies in the distant universe, with stars that formed 13.5 billion years ago, a mere 200 million years after the big bang. The finding addresses questions about when the first galaxies arose, and how the early universe evolved. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was the first to spot the […]
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Super Luminous Stars, Deep Dark Skies & Super Moons
The Keck I Telescope has played a key role in unraveling the mysteries of one of the brightest supernovas ever discovered. Supernova 2008am is 3.7 billion light-years away from Earth. At its peak luminosity, it was over 100 billion times brighter than the Sun. It emitted enough energy in one second to satisfy the power […]
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Keck Telescope Images Super-Luminous Supernova
Austin, Texas – The Keck I Telescope has played a key role in unraveling the mysteries of one of the brightest supernovas ever discovered. The supernova, called Supernova 2008am, is 3.7 billion light-years away from Earth. At its peak luminosity, it was over 100 billion times brighter than the Sun. It emitted enough energy in […]
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