Announcements

16 June 2014: Einstein's Theory of General Relativity predicts that accelerated masses emit gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. Even though gravitational waves have yet to be detected directly, we expect that there are more than hundred million gravitational wave sources in our own galaxy. However, as of today, we know of only a few such sources. A team of researchers, led by Dr. Mukremin Kilic of the University of Oklahoma and Dr. Warren Brown of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, have recently identified one of the best (and perhaps the most powerful) gravitational wave sources currently known using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini North telescope and the Blue Channel spectrograph on the 6.5-meter MMT Telescope. Known as WD 0931+444, the object was first identified in 1982, and classified as a white dwarf with a low-mass M-dwarf stellar companion. This new data from Gemini and MMT reveal that the white dwarf …

10 June 2014: Observations using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on Gemini South reveal that galaxy-wide high-velocity outflows are extremely common among galaxies that host luminous quasars. These outflows may represent a crucial stage in a galaxy’s evolution when the supermassive black hole at its center begins injecting vast amounts of mass and energy into the galaxy. Supermassive black holes reside at the center of all massive galaxies and they grow through mass accretion, taking on material from their surroundings. During the most active periods they become luminous quasars. The most successful models of galaxy evolution predict that quasars play an integral role in the formation and evolution of massive galaxies by injecting mass and energy into their host galaxies. Without such feedback mechanisms, models are unable to accurately reproduce the properties of local massive galaxies such as the distributions of colors, star formation rates and stellar masses. A popular idea for a feedback …

15 May 2014: The following is duplicated from the Subaru press release, distributed on May 20, 2014. An international team of astronomers, led by Dr. Tae-Soo Pyo (Subaru Telescope, NAOJ), has revealed a complicated outflow structure in the binary UY Aur (Aurigae). The team observed the binary using the Gemini North's NIFS (Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer) with the Altair adaptive optics system (Note 1). The team found that the primary star has a wide, open outflow, while the secondary star has a well-collimated jet. Because many stars form together as companions in binary or multiple systems, investigating these systems is essential for understanding star and planet formation. Although jets (i.e., narrow bright streams of gas) and outflows (i.e., less collimated flows of gas) from single young stars are ubiquitous, only a few observations have shown jets or outflows from multiple, low-mass young stars. Therefore, the current team chose to examine the outflow structure …

15 May 2014: The following text is duplicated from the Lawrence Livermore National Labratory (LLNL) press release, distributed on May 15, 2014. Also, see the Stanford University news release on this result. See the original Gemini press release for the Gemini Planet Imager's first light from January 7, 2014. Using one of the world's largest telescopes, a Lawrence Livermore team and international collaborators have tracked the orbit of a planet at least four times the size of Jupiter. The scientists were able to identify the orbit of the exoplanet, Beta Pictoris b, which sits 63 light years from our solar system, by using the Gemini Planet Imager's (GPI) next-generation, high-contrast adaptive optics (AO) system. This approach is sometimes referred to as extreme AO. The Gemini Planet Imager snapped an amazingly clear and bright image of the gas giant Beta Pictoris b after an exposure of just one minute. By using a series of …

6 May 2014: This new image of NGC 896, a region of energetic star formation in a cloud of gas and dust, represents one of the many beautiful images that Dr. Travis Rector has produced using NOAO telescope data over the years. Rector has now released a total of 150 images; more than 100 of these can be found in the NOAO image gallery. If all of Rector’s images were combined into a single image, it would contain more than five billion pixels – or 5 Gigapixels. Remarkably, this still covers only about 0.1% of the entire sky!

1 May 2014: Our solar system just got a little more crowded, thanks to discoveries from a huge digital camera designed to study dark energy. Last week astronomers reported the discovery of 2012 VP113 – nicknamed "Joe Biden" after the vice president, or VP, of the US. This potential dwarf planet was spotted on the outer fringes of the solar system, in a region called the inner Oort cloud. Days later, the same team reported two more potential dwarfs, known as 2013 FY27 and 2013 FZ27. Both of these objects are in the Kuiper belt, a grouping of relatively small bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune that is also home to Pluto and three other known dwarf planets. Astronomers suspect the Kuiper belt is littered with dwarfs, but many either reflect too little light or are too distant to have been visible in previous sky surveys. Dark eye The fresh haul of discoveries …

1 April 2014: The Cerro Tololo Ohio State Multi Object Spectrograph (COSMOS) arrived at CTIO on 2014-03-14. COSMOS was re-assembled in the Blanco Coude room by a team led by J. Elias (NOAO-N), S. Points (NOAO-S) and Mark Derwent (OSU). The COSMOS team re-installed the collimator and camera optics, slit masks, dispersers, and blocking filters. They found that the delivered image quality of COSMOS, using a pinhole mask, is the same as that which was measured in the Tucson lab prior to shipment. The photo above shows COSMOS fully assembled in the Blanco telescope coude lab. Considerable credit is due to the CTIO TelOps, ETS, and CISS staff for their support and help. More information about COSMOS can be found at http://www.noao.edu/nstc/kosmos We look forward to a successful first run on the Blanco telescope in April.

26 February 2014: The March 2014 NOAO Newsletter is online and ready to download. This issue includes information pertaining to the 2014B Call for Proposals, which are due March 31, 2014. On the Cover NOAO is embarking on a path to better serve the community in the use and analysis of big data. The cover image is the beginning panel of "Tales of the Modern Astronomer: ANTARES Rising," which tells the story of one young researcher in the near future benefiting from such development to exploit "open access to data and real-time astronomy tools" in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Era (read the full story about ANTARES in the Science Highlights section of this Newsletter). Development is starting now to establish this expertise at NOAO on behalf of the community.

20 February 2014: Though there are now many hundreds of confirmed exoplanets known, the number of exoplanet host stars that also have stellar companions is not well known. It is important to understand such binarity (or multiplicity) because this can have a profound effect on the way in which planets form and interact with one another. It is particularly important to examine the binarity of host stars that harbor a giant planet in a highly eccentric orbit since these are more likely to have had a dramatic dynamical history where the other star may have disrupted the orbit. New research by Stephen Kane (San Francisco State University) and collaborators shows that planets on highly eccentric (very non-circular) orbits are not necessarily explained by the presence of an additional star still present in the system. The observations that lead to this conclusion used the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI) on the Gemini North telescope …

18 February 2014: On December 27, 2013 technicians at Gemini North identified that one of the top shutter’s drive units had a critical failure with its spherical bearing system. The system, not designed for in-situ repairs, is a complex mechanism used to open and close the 22-ton shutter system via large chains, and is located within the Gemini dome shutter. To perform repairs it requires an involved process of stabilizing the shutter, releasing the drive chains, and removing the 2-ton+ drive unit. Even under ideal conditions this work would require multiple weeks of effort. Due to this premature failure of the drive’s bearing system (which keeps the drive sprockets aligned to the drive chain) it was determined that in order to protect the shutter and telescope from potential risk, a shutdown was necessary. The shutdown was turned into a high-priority project and resources were made available to repair the drive unit -- located …

14 February 2014: Nearly every "star" in this image is actually a galaxy. The SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM), built by CTIO/NOAO-S, is mounted on the SOAR 4.1 meter telescope: it creates an artificial laser guide star which enables the exquisite resolution seen here. The dark shadow on the left ( as seen in the full image) is produced by the SAM guide probe. Data were taken in September 2013 for the SAM science verification proposal by D. Caminha et al.

6 February 2014: The recent supernova explosion (named SN2014J) in the galaxy M82 is particularly exciting because this galaxy is relatively close ("only" about 12 million light years distant). This enables astronomers to independently measure the distance of this type Ia supernova, and thus calibrate the distance to other type Ia supernovae. The image shows SN2014J (arrow) in M82 as it was observed by the WIYN 3.5m telescope on January 28, a few days before reaching maximum brightness. The observation used WIYN’s newest camera, the One Degree Imager. The WIYN aperture and spatial resolution will be essential as the team follows the fading supernova during the months ahead.

7 January 2014: Visit the NOAO Booth (space 520) at the AAS Meeting this week to see Tales of the Modern Astronomer: ANTARES RISING on the booth's backdrop, or, if you can't make it to the meeting.

21 November 2013: The Kitt Peak Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph (KOSMOS) and the Cerro Tololo Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph (COSMOS) are nearly identical spectrographs being developed simultaneously. The position of the long slit of the spectrograph is shown superimposed on the image of the planetary nebula M 57.

14 November 2013: Gemini's powerful new instrument for studying planets beyond the Solar System, the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), has successfully received its first starlight for engineering and testing on the night of November 11-12. On-sky observations are currently ongoing for technical integration with the Gemini South telescope. The GPI team (geminiann13015a) began the 7-night observing run began with a head start, since preliminary pupil and pointing alignments were completed early, due to extensive preparatory work and smooth integration since the instrument arrived at Gemini South in August. “We locked the AO system on the first try with the first star we looked at. Watching the starlight smooth out on the wavefront sensor was amazing,” said GPI Principal Investigator Bruce Macintosh. “GPI is a complex instrument with many subsystems, so integration is a complicated process. For now we’re deep in engineering tests verifying interactions throughout the entire system with real starlight – getting …

7 November 2013: This image of Hartl-Dengel-Weinberger 3 (HDW 3) was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The distinctive braided shape of this large, ancient planetary nebula is the result of the planetary nebula colliding with the interstellar gas around it as the nebula moves through the galaxy.

7 October 2013: Gemini’s flagship local outreach program in Chile, Viaje al Universo, blasted off early last week when Gemini South’s Nancy Levenson addressed nearly 800 students at Colegio San Joaquin. The celebration set into motion a week of fun and educational activities for students, teachers and families from across the region of Coquimbo (including the communities of La Serena, Coquimbo and Combarbalá). During the week many hands-on activities engaged students of all ages, from pre-school to senior citizens, with talks on astronomical research done at Gemini and other Chilean observatories, teacher workshops, rocket building and launching, classroom activities and much more. Participants, from students to local community leaders joined in the fun as Gemini’s portable StarLab planetarium wowed audiences with programs on the beautiful dark Chilean skies. Local Almirante Latorre student Alondra Torres had never been inside a portable planetarium before and described it for a national TV station like this, “This …

7 October 2013: Observations using the Gemini Near-Infrared Imager (GNIRS) at the Gemini North telescope have confirmed one of the lowest mass free-floating planet known, perhaps the very lowest. The discovery team, led by the University of Hawaii’s Michael Liu, discovered this reddest known field dwarf using the Pan-STARSSS1 survey telescope on Maui’s Haleakala. The team's follow-up observations on Gemini were made over three nights in late June and early July of this year. From the Gemini (and other observations) the object, known as PSO J318.5-22, appears to have a mass only six times that of Jupiter and likely formed about 12 million years ago at a neighborly distance of about 80 light-years away. In a UH Institute for Astronomy (IfA) press release issued on October 9, 2013, Liu is quoted: "We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that looks like this. It has all the characteristics of young planets …

24 September 2013: Occultations are one of the best ways to determine the size of a Solar System object. The events occur when bodies orbiting the Sun pass between the Earth and a star, blocking out the star’s light for a brief period of time. Since astronomers know the speeds of Solar System bodies very precisely from their orbits, the time that the starlight is blocked directly tells us the size of the occulting object. In addition, an occultation can uncover information about the Solar System body’s atmosphere, if it exists. A rocky body without an atmosphere will very suddenly extinguish the starlight, while one with an atmosphere will create a "fuzzy" event with a slow dimming and eventual blocking of the starlight. For example, one of the reasons we know so much about Pluto, including that it has an atmospheric pressure about a million times lower than the Earth's, is from studies …

9 September 2013: The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), Gemini’s next-generation instrument for characterizing new worlds, has seen a frenzy of activity over the past month. In late July the instrument’s cryogenics were warmed up, the instrument’s primary components parsed into shippable pieces (geminiann13011a), and seemingly overnight the instrument arrived at Gemini South (geminiann13011b). “For the past 2.5 years GPI has called the labs at the University of California Santa Cruz home,” said Stephen Goodsell, who manages the project for Gemini. “Now, the fun begins as GPI arrives home and, before the end of this year, gets mounted on the back of the Gemini South telescope and collects light, from real planets!” However, before that can happen the instrument needs to be fully tested and integrated on the Gemini South telescope in Chile. Currently, the instrument is fully assembled in the Gemini South instrument lab on Cerro Pachón in Chile (geminiann13011c). According to the …