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ANDROMEDA GALAXY THREE TIMES BIGGER IN DIAMETER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
206th AAS MEETING (May 30th, 2005) The lovely Andromeda galaxy appeared as a warm fuzzy blob to the ancients. To modern astronomers millennia later, it appeared as an excellent opportunity to better understand the universe. In the latter regard, our nearest galactic neighbor is a gift that keeps on giving. Scott Chapman, from the California […]
Read More >FIRST-EVER INFRARED FLASH CHALLENGES OLD NOTION OF NATURE’S BIGGEST BANG
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (May 11th, 2005) The W. M. Keck Observatory has helped confirm a big discovery by an unassumingly small robotic telescope in Arizona. The first infrared flash found during a gamma-ray burst, one of nature’s brightest explosions, looked much like a low energy version of the burst itself suggesting a common origin between […]
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KECK AND SPITZER FIND FIRST STARS IN DISTANT GALAXIES
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (April 2nd, 2005) Astronomers have used the Keck, Spitzer and Hubble telescopes to catch the light coming from the first stars to form in some of the most distant galaxies yet seen. Dr. Andrew Bunker of the University of Exeter announced the results show the formation of the first galaxies may have […]
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KECK IMAGES OF TITAN BEFORE THIRD CASSINI FLY-BY
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (February 16th, 2005) Images of Titan taken February 15, 2005 just 23 minutes before the Cassini spacecraft’s third flyby of the moon. In this near-infrared color composite image taken with the Keck II telescope and adaptive optics system, Titan’s surface appears red, while haze layers at progressively higher altitudes in the atmosphere […]
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SATURN’S STRANGE HOT SPOT
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (February 4th, 2005) Astronomers using the Keck I telescope in Hawaii are learning much more about a strange, thermal “hot spot” on Saturn that is located at the tip of the planet’s south pole. In what the team is calling the sharpest thermal views of Saturn ever taken from the ground, the […]
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HUYGENS PROBE ARRIVES AT TITAN
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (January 14th, 2005) The Huygens probe impacted Titan’s atmosphere at 09:06 GMT Friday morning, with an expected landing on Titan’s mysterious surface three hours later. This near-infrared image shows Titan at the moment Huygens reached its target. “Although no disturbances in Titan’s atmosphere were detected, the observations provide the best images that […]
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DIVINING THE SOURCE OF THE WATER-FOUNTAIN NEBULA
SAN DIEGO, California (January 13th, 2005) New, very high-resolution (false-color) images of a dying star IRAS16342-3814 (hereafter the Water-Fountain Nebula) taken with the Keck II Telescope equipped with adaptive optics, at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, are helping astronomers understand the extraordinary deaths of ordinary Sun-like stars. These results are being […]
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KECK LASER CAPTURES NEW VIEW OF DISTANT COLLIDING GALAXIES
SAN DIEGO, California (January 12th, 2005) For the first time, astronomers have been able to combine the deepest optical images of the universe, obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope, with equally sharp images in the near-infrared part of the spectrum using a sophisticated new laser guide star system for adaptive optics at the W. M. […]
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NEW CLOUDS ADD TO TITAN’S MYSTERY
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (December 15th, 2004) Using adaptive optics on the Keck II and Gemini North telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawai’i, a U.S. team has discovered a new phenomenon in the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Unlike previous observations showing storms at the south pole, these new images reveal atmospheric disturbances at Titan’s temperate […]
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POLARIZED SUNGLASSES LET ASTRONOMERS TAKE CLOSER LOOK AT BLACK HOLES
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (November 11th, 2004) An international team led by an Edinburgh astronomer have discovered that by studying polarised light from black holes they can focus much more closely on what exactly is going on around them. The work is published this week in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on November […]
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