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Stars Around the Milky Way: Cosmic Space Invaders or Victims of Galactic Eviction?
Maunakea, Hawaii – An international team of astronomers led by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) has made a surprising discovery about the birthplace of groups of stars located in the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. These halo stars are grouped together in giant structures that orbit the center of our galaxy, above […]
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Astronomers Discover S0-2 Star is Single and Ready for Big Einstein Test
No companion found for famous young bright star orbiting Milky Way’s supermassive black hole Maunakea, Hawaii– Astronomers have the “all-clear” for an exciting test of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, thanks to a new discovery about S0-2’s star status. Up until now, it was thought that S0-2 may be a binary, a system where two […]
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Amateur Astronomer Captures Rare First Light of Massive Exploding Star
Maunakea, Hawaii – Thanks to lucky snapshots taken by an amateur astronomer in Argentina, scientists have obtained their first view of the initial burst of light from the explosion of a massive star. During tests of a new camera, Víctor Buso captured images of a distant galaxy before and after the supernova’s “shock breakout” – […]
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Planets around Other Stars are like Peas in a Pod
Maunakea, Hawaii – An international research team led by Université de Montréal astrophysicist Lauren Weiss has discovered that exoplanets orbiting the same star tend to have similar sizes and a regular orbital spacing. This pattern, revealed by new W. M. Keck Observatory observations of planetary systems discovered by the Kepler Telescope, could suggest that most […]
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W. M. Keck Observatory Achieves First Light with NIRES
Near-Infrared Echellette Spectrometer Designed to Find the Faintest, Most Violent Objects in the Universe Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers at W. M. Keck Observatory have successfully met a major milestone after capturing the very first science data from Keck Observatory’s newest instrument, the Caltech-built Near-Infrared Echellette Spectrometer (NIRES). The Keck Observatory-Caltech NIRES team just completed the […]
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Astronomers Shed Light on Formation of Black Holes and Galaxies
Maunakea, Hawaii – Stars forming in galaxies appear to be influenced by the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, but the mechanism of how that happens has not been clear to astronomers until now. “Supermassive black holes are captivating,” says lead author Shelley Wright, a University of California San Diego Professor of […]
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A New Spin to Solving Mystery of Stellar Companions
Researchers Measure the Spin Rates of Bodies Thought to be Either Planets or Tiny “Failed” Stars Maunakea, Hawaii – Taking a picture of an exoplanet—a planet in a solar system beyond our sun—is no easy task. The light of a planet’s parent star far outshines the light from the planet itself, making the planet difficult […]
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Newly Discovered Twin Planets Could Solve Puffy Planet Mystery
Maunakea, Hawaii – Since astronomers first measured the size of an extrasolar planet seventeen years ago, they have struggled to answer the question: how did the largest planets get to be so large? Thanks to the recent discovery of twin planets by a University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy team led by graduate student Samuel […]
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Astronomers Discover A Star That Would Not Die
Supernova Discovery Challenges Known Theories of the Death of Stars Maunakea, Hawaii – An international team of astronomers led by Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) has made a bizarre discovery; a star that refuses to stop shining. Supernovae, the explosions of stars, have been observed in the thousands and in all cases they marked the death […]
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NASA Awards New Cooperative Agreement to W. M. Keck Observatory
Maunakea, Hawaii – NASA has awarded a five-year Cooperative Agreement with the California Association for Research in Astronomy to continue the science program at the W. M. Keck Observatory. “The Keck Observatory has unique, world-class capabilities that we consider essential to realize the scientific potential of many NASA missions, both ongoing and planned,” said Paul […]
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