Announcements

25 January 2008: The Gemini Board determined during a special session on January 24, 2008 that a recently submitted proposal from the UK’s Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) for reduced on-going participation in the Gemini partnership is not in the best interest of the observatory. As a result, the board concluded that the UK has withdrawn from the Gemini partnership. The effects of this action are immediate and are articulated in the Board resolutions which can be found here. The observatory, together with the Gemini Board, reiterates their confidence that their vision for Gemini, as a world-class astronomical research facility, will be fulfilled despite the loss of a long-time partner. The partnership, through the Board and in close consultation with the Observatory and our Gemini communities, will be looking to the future in the coming months and taking a measured and deliberate approach to the reformulation of the partnership.

16 January 2008: A “new” star appeared in the constellation of Orion in late 2003 when the young pre-main sequence star V1647 Orionis went into outburst. The eruption and huge increase in brightness of the object resulted in the appearance of a reflection nebula called “McNeil’s Nebula,” named after the amateur astronomer, Jay McNeil, who discovered the object and alerted the world. During the outburst the star and nebula remained bright for approximately 18 months before fading rapidly over a six month period. By early 2006 the star and its environment were very similar to their pre-burst stage. The event was monitored and observed with many ground- and space-based facilities and Gemini Observatory played a key role in monitoring the event during its eruptive and quiescent phases. A team led by Colin Aspin (IfA/University of Hawai‘i), Tracy Beck (STScI) and Bo Reipurth (IfA/University of Hawai‘i) spearheaded the monitoring campaign of this unique event. …

11 January 2008: Suggests Major Revisions to Concepts of Disk Structure and Luminosity. Observations of the interacting binary star using telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that the disks of hot gas that accumulate around a wide variety of astronomical objects—from degenerate stars in energetic binary systems to supermassive black holes at the hearts of active galaxies—are likely to be much larger than previously believed. Released at the 211th AAS Meeting in Austin.

8 January 2008: This page highlights a sample of Gemini related science results presented at the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin Texas from January 7-11, 2008. NIFS Characterization of a Galactic Compact H II Region Robert Blum (NOAO) and Peter McGregor (ANU) used the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer (NIFS) + AO on Gemini North to study the Galactic Ultra-Compact HII region G45.45+0.06. The NIFS data let Blum and McGregor identify several massive O-type stars which are responsible for the ionization of the region. In the paper, “The Ionizing Stars of the Galactic Ultra Compact HII Region G45.45+0.6” several sources were characterized, including two embedded sources that exhibit CO bandhead emission that is likely a signature of accretion from massive young stellar objects within the complex. Magnetic Fields of T Tauri Stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster Based on data from the Phoenix Spectrometer on Gemini South, Hao Yang …

3 January 2008: The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project is pleased to announce receipt of two major gifts: $20 million from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and $10 million from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Under development since 2000, with work on the telescope design and site being led by NOAO, the LSST is a public-private partnership. These two gifts enable the fabrication of the three large mirrors required for LSST — the first stages of production for the two largest are beginning now at the Mirror Laboratory at the University of Arizona. LSST Press Release [pdf]

21 December 2007: The 62nd General Assembly of the United Nations has proclaimed 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy. An initiative of the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO, IYA 2009 is focused completely on public outreach and science education, and includes significant leadership roles for NOAO PAEO staff. For more on the emerging US and international plans, see www.astronomy2009.org

17 December 2007: On December 8th the first-ever Gemini Staff Family Tour was held at Gemini South. This was followed on December 15th with a Staff Family tour at Gemini North. Over 75 staff and family participated (or led) the tours which gave family members of Gemini’s staff an opportunity to see the Gemini North and South telescope facilities first-hand and see where family members work. At Gemini North, Tony Matulonis (System Support Associate) put the telescope and enclosure through its motions for the group. Tony’s mom (Anna Trope) wrote that this was, “…An absolutely wonderful tour that was an inspiring learning experience!” Gemini’s Human Resources Recruiter Mahshid Albrecht said that it was an experience she will never forget, and that she “…felt like a little kid!” Finally, Dorothy Fukushima made the comment (several times) that everyone else was feeling from the snowy heights of Mauna Kea, “I am sooooo cold!” “This is …

1 December 2007: Jean-René Roy, Mike Sheehan and Pete McEvoy Gemini Observatory On December 3-4, 2007, more than 70 engineers, technicians, safety officers and coordinators, administrative personnel and astronomers from observatories around the world met in La Serena, Chile for the first Chile Observatory Earthquake Preparedness Workshop. The goal of the workshop was to develop better means to protect our staff and our valued equipment in case of a major earthquake. Chile has one of the highest rates of seismicity in the world and was in fact the location of the most intense earthquake ever recorded; the M9.5 earthquake in 1960, which, combined with its resulting tsunami, caused thousand deaths and devastation in Chile, Hawai‘i, the Philippines, Easter Island and Samoa. Astronomical Observatories in Chile will experience the effects of one or more major earthquakes in their lifetimes and we need to be prepared. About two weeks before the workshop, a magnitude 7.7 …

29 November 2007: Astronomers have discovered one of the fastest-moving stars ever seen, using a combination of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the international ROSAT satellite, and the 0.9-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. A team observed a neutron star known as RX J0822-4300 over a period of about five years. During that span, three Chandra observations clearly show the neutron star moving away from the center of the Puppis A supernova remnant and the stellar debris field created during the same explosion in which the neutron star was formed, about 3,700 years ago. By combining how far the neutron star has moved across the sky with its distance from Earth, astronomers determined the star is moving at more than 3 million miles per hour. NASA Release

16 November 2007: Statement of The Gemini Observatory Board of Directors The Board of the Gemini Observatory has concluded its meeting of November 14-16, 2007 in La Serena, Chile. In addition to its normal business, it considered the implications of the communication by the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom that it may withdraw as a (23.8%) partner in the Gemini Observatory. The Board deeply regrets the announcement that the UK will likely withdraw as a partner in the Gemini Observatory. The UK astronomical community has made substantial and very valuable contributions to the success of the Gemini partnership from its earliest days. The Board reaffirms its vision for the Observatory and resolves to address any resource problems brought on by the announced UK intentions expeditiously and with minimum impact on the current operation of the Observatory. The Board is confident that the Gemini Observatory will continue to operate efficiently …

15 November 2007: A team of US-led astronomers used the Gemini North 8-meter telescope to find evidence for the formation of young rocky planets around the star HD 23514 located in the well-known Pleiades (Seven Sisters) star cluster, which is easily visible in the current evening sky. Joseph Rhee (UCLA) and his collaborators used the infrared camera Michelle to measure heat from hot dust surrounding a 100 million year-old star in the bright cluster, one of the very few solar-type stars known to be orbited by warm dust particles. For more, see Gemini Press Release.

5 November 2007: A fossil group of galaxies is a system of several dozen galaxies with an extended and luminous X-ray halo (Lx > 1042 ergs/sec). Its striking feature is that it is dominated by one single very luminous elliptical galaxy and surrounded by low-luminosity companions. In these systems the difference in brightness between the bright dominant elliptical and the next brightest companion is 2 magnitudes or more (in optical R band). This is as if the bright galaxy had absorbed several of its smaller companions over the history of the group. Compact groups have many members but they have a better balance of bright galaxies. It has been suggested that fossil groups could be the cannibalized remains of compact groups where several of the more massive objects lost energy through tidal friction and merged. In the nearby universe compact groups which are close to the merging phase (and display a wealth of …

5 November 2007: This image of the freshly expanding cloud of gas and dust around Comet 17P/Holmes was taken at the Kitt Peak Visitor Center observatory on November 2. The comet, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, is located in the constellation Perseus and can be seen in the northeast night sky with unaided eyes.

30 October 2007: This image of the freshly expanding cloud of gas and dust around Comet 17P/Holmes was taken with the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory on the night of October 29, 2007. The image was taken by a group including a teacher and students from the NOAO Astronomy RBSE program. The comet, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, is located in the constellation Perseus and can be seen in the northeast night sky with unaided eyes.

17 October 2007: Observations that combine data from the ground-based Gemini North telescope and NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray observatory have led to the discovery of the most massive known stellar black hole. Intriguingly, the black hole orbits an exceptionally large companion star, which by an extremely fortunate coincidence also eclipses the black hole from our perspective on Earth. As the only known eclipsing binary black hole/star pair the team was able to determine fundamental parameters of the pair with high precision. The ramifications of this pairing could have a profound effect on our understanding of how the largest stars evolve. The black hole-star pair is located about 3 million light years from Earth in a neighboring galaxy named M33. The combination of X-ray data with Gemini North’s optical images and spectroscopy (see Figure 2) led the international team to conclude that the black hole is 15.7 times the mass of our Sun making …

17 October 2007: Astronomers have located an exceptionally massive black hole in orbit around a huge companion star in the nearby galaxy M33. The mass of the black hole, known as M33 X-7, was determined to be 15.7 times that of the Sun. This result, published in the journal Nature, has intriguing implications for the evolution and ultimate fate of massive stars. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Gemini North, and the 2.1-meter and WIYN 3.5-meter telescopes at Kitt Peak were combined to make this discovery, which includes contributions from NOAO astronomer Lucas Macri regarding the precise distance to M33. For more, see Chandra Press Release.

8 October 2007: A Canada-US-UK team led by David Lafrenière and René Doyon of the University of Montreal has released the first results from the Gemini Deep Planet Survey (GDPS), a near-infrared adaptive optics search for giant planets and brown dwarfs around 85 nearby young stars. The observations, made with the ALTAIR/NIRI adaptive optics system at the Gemini North telescope, are aimed at constraining the population of Jupiter-mass planets with orbits that have a semi-major axis in the range of 10-300 astronomical units (AU). This work constitutes a first step toward the detection of the population of “outer” giant planets around other stars. The use of angular differential imaging (see ADI "how-to" box below) in conjunction with NIRI/ALTAIR enabled the team to reach the best sensitivities to date for detecting giant exoplanets with projected separation above ~0.7 arcsecond. The typical detection limits (5 sigma) reached by the survey, in magnitude difference between an …

27 September 2007: In early September 2007, the 400th Gemini paper was accepted for publication in one of the main refereed astronomical journals. The last time we reported on the Gemini papers statistics was on 4 January 2006, when the 200th Gemini paper appeared. The 400th paper which is titled “SNLS Spectroscopy: Testing for Evolution in Type Ia Supernovae,” 2008, A&A, by T. J. Bronder and 21 co-authors of the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) team. The author team consists of researchers from the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Portugal, and the United States. The article reports on the supernova candidate spectra observed with the Gemini telescopes during the first 34 months of the SNLS, 87 of which have been identified as SNe Ia at a median redshift of z = 0.720. The study shows that there exists a sample at high red fist with properties similar to nearby SNe. Correlations between Type Ia SNE …

24 September 2007: Chris Willott (University of Ottawa) and a large international research team identified four new quasars at redshift greater than z = 6 from MegaCam imaging at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). Follow-up spectroscopy with GMOS at the Gemini South telescope (and the Marcario LRS at the Hobby-Ebbberly Telescope) allowed the team to determine accurate redshifts. The team found what is now the most distant known quasar, CFHQS J2329-0301 at z = 6.43 (Figures 1 and 2). Willott et al. also used the spectra to investigate constraints on the ionization sate of the intergalactic medium at that early age of the universe. Analysis of two of these quasar spectra revealed evidence that the reionization period is considerably longer than predicted by most theoretical models. From the time of recombination, (about 380,000 years after the Big Bang when protons and electrons combined into neutral hydrogen), the universe remained in this state for the …

24 September 2007: Astronomers have found evidence that stars have been forming in a long tail of gas that extends well outside its parent galaxy, using a combination of images in X-ray light from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical light from the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope in Chile. This comet-like tail of newborn stars extends more than 200,000 light years, and suggests that such "orphan" stars may be much more prevalent than previously thought. For more, see Chandra Press Release.