News
News
BIGGEST, BRIGHTEST, HOTTEST STAR-FORMING REGION FOUND
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (October 30th, 2003) A serendipitous discovery has given astronomers, for the first time, the ability to study an enormous star-forming region from the very early days of the Universe, when it was less than 2 billion years old, or about 15 percent its current age. The discovery was made possible by an […]
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LASER GUIDE STAR AVAILABLE FOR ADAPTIVE OPTICS
KAMUELA, Hawaii (October 7th, 2003) A major milestone in astronomical history took place last month at the W.M. Keck Observatory when scientists, for the first time, used a laser to create an artificial guide star on the Keck II 10-meter telescope to correct the blurring of a star with adaptive optics (AO). Laser guide stars […]
Read More >KECK INTERFEROMETER BREAKS GALACTIC BARRIER
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (October 1st, 2003) A galaxy far beyond our own Milky Way, with a monstrous, churning black hole in its center, has been observed by two optical telescopes working in unison as an interferometer. These observations reveal the finest level of detail in a galaxy ever produced at infrared wavelengths. Two linked telescopes […]
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UCLA OBTAINS MOLECULAR FINGERPRINTS FOR CELESTIAL BROWN DWARFS
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (September 3rd, 2003) Elusive brown dwarfs, the missing link between gas giant planets like Jupiter and small, low-mass stars, have now been “fingerprinted”by UCLA astronomy professor Ian S. McLean and colleagues, using the Keck II Telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. McLean and his research team will publish the most […]
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HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGES OF ASTEROID (511) DAVIDA
MONTEREY, Calif. (September 1st, 2003) A team of scientists from the W.M. Keck Observatory and several other research institutions have made the first full-rotational, ground-based observations of asteroid (511) Davida, a large, main-belt asteroid that measures 320 km (200 miles) in diameter. These observations are among the first high-resolution, ground-based pictures of large asteroids, made […]
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Keck Interferometer MAKES DEBUT DISCOVERY
KAMUELA, Hawaii (July 1st, 2003) Astronomers have observed a young star ringed by a swirling disc that may spin off planets, marking the first published science observation using two linked 10-meter (33-foot) telescopes in Hawaii. The linked telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, known as the Keck Interferometer, comprise the world’s largest […]
Read More >NEW EVIDENCE FOUND ABOUT UNIVERSE’S HEAVIEST PHASE OF STAR FORMATION
PASADENA, Calif. (April 16th, 2003) New distance measurements from faraway galaxies further strengthen the view that the strongest burst of star formation in the universe occurred about two billion years after the Big Bang. Reporting in the April 17 issue of the journal Nature, California Institute of Technology astronomers Scott Chapman and Andrew Blain, along […]
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KECK OBSERVATORY’S PREMIER PLANET-HUNTING MACHINE IS GETTING EVEN BETTER
SEATTLE, Washington (January 6th, 2003) The world’s best planet-hunting machine, the Keck High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer, will be getting even better this year with an advanced imaging array that will improve efforts to detect extra-solar planets, examine distant quasars, measure extragalactic stars and do other research requiring very precise wavelength measurements of thousands of color […]
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METHANE CLOUDS DISCOVERED AT THE SOUTH POLE OF TITAN
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (December 18th, 2002) Teams of astronomers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley have discovered methane clouds near the south pole of Titan. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, larger than the planet Mercury, and is the only moon in our solar system with a thick atmosphere. […]
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EXCEPTIONALLY BRIGHT ERUPTION ON IO RIVALS LARGEST IN SOLAR SYATEM
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (November 13th, 2002) Routine monitoring of volcanic activity on Jupiter’s moon Io, now possible through advanced adaptive optics on the Keck II telescope in Hawaii, has turned up the largest eruption to date on Io’s surface or in the solar system. The eruption took place in February 2001, though image analysis was […]
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