Announcements

14 May 2007: An Australian team, led by Sarah Brough of the Swinburne University of Technology used the Gemini South Telescope to find that the most massive galaxies evolve through a variety of mechanisms which are dependent on the mass of their cluster environment. These observations are not consistent with any single model of galaxy formation, presenting a challenge for theorists. Brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) are the most massive galaxies known. They are generally red, elliptical type galaxies with remarkably similar brightnesses that are only found near the centers of galaxy clusters. To understand how galaxies form and evolve it is vitally important to understand the formation of these massive galaxies. The uniformity of BCGs suggests that they have experienced similar evolutionary histories and their position at the centers of clusters suggests that their histories must be connected to their environment. Current models of galaxy formation predict that the stars in these most …

7 May 2007: Letters of Intent to propose for the 2007 Telescope System Instrumentation Program funding cycle are due May 11, 2007. See the TSIP web site for the current Program Announcement and Proposal Solicitation.

3 May 2007: May 4 is the registration deadline for this conference in Tucson to be held from June 4-7. The interdisciplinary agenda covers technology, methods and experimental design for the detection and rapid follow-up observations of celestial transients, as well as data fusion to create knowledge about the underlying astronomical phenomena.

27 April 2007: This fresco painting-like image of the Carina Nebula was made by combining numerous images in Hydrogen-alpha light from the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope with color data from CTIO taken by Nathan Smith. For more, see The Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme

23 April 2007: Proof that certain double-star systems can erupt in full-blown explosions and then continue to flare up with smaller bursts has been spotted by the ultraviolet eyes of NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer, with help from data including narrowband images taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory. For more, see http://www.galex.caltech.edu/

18 April 2007: Analysis of nine short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed with Gemini, Magellan, and the Hubble Space Telescope reveals that the progenitors of these GRBs may reside in faint host galaxies at redshifts of z = 1.1 and beyond (geminiann07004a). Unexpectedly, the host galaxies of these short GRBs (with R ~ 23-27 mag) can be more than a 100 times fainter than those of previously known short GRBs (brighter than R ~ 22 mag) (geminiann07004b). Therefore the hosts of the recently observed short GRBs are starkly different from the first few short GRBs hosts, which were all at z < 0.5. It seems that our understanding of the nature of GRB progenitors may be undergoing a paradigm shift. Although initial observations suggested that short GRBs occur at significantly lower redshifts than long GRBs (which occur at z ~ 3), the recent observations establish for the first time that a third or more …

17 April 2007: Come to Kitt Peak National Observatory on Saturday, April 21st, to celebrate Astronomy Day, an annual celebration since 1973. The Kitt Peak Visitor Center will host a series of presentations covering various aspects of astronomy by professional and amateur astronomers, along with hands-on activities and solar telescope viewing of the Sun.

2 April 2007: This image of a distorted barred spiral galaxy located 50 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Volans was taken in early 2007 by the SSRO/PROMPT telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. For more information, see Star Shadows Remote Observatory.

27 March 2007: BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A telescope used by Indiana University astronomers and their colleagues at Kitt Peak National Observatory is about midway through a major improvement — the addition of a new kind of camera that will allow scientists to record the telescope's entire exceptionally wide field of view for the first time. For more, see Indiana University Press Release.

22 March 2007: Astronomer Buell T. Jannuzi has been named to five-year term as the director of Kitt Peak National Observatory. Buell joined the NOAO scientific staff in Tucson in 1995. His main scientific interests are the formation and evolution of galaxies, the large-scale structure of the Universe, and the physical processes that produce active galactic nuclei. For more, see NOAO Press Release 07-05.

19 March 2007: Worldwide measurements for GLOBE at Night 2007 have now exceeded the 4,591 measurements reported in the first global dark skies campaign 2006, with more than 5,000 measurements by citizen-scientists from 61 countries now being reported at the public Web site! Data collection for 2007 ends on March 21. For more, see NOAO Press Release 07-04.

15 March 2007: Astronomers using data from the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey have captured an image of more than a thousand supermassive black holes. These results give astronomers a snapshot of a crucial period when these monster black holes are growing, and provide insight into the environments in which they occur.

9 March 2007: There have been more than 2446 observations from 51 countries since the start of GLOBE at Night 2007 on March 8! This international star-counting activity comes in two flavors: the “classic” GLOBE at Night exercise that anyone can have fun doing with their unaided eyes, and a new effort to obtain precise measurements of urban dark skies using digital sky-brightness meters. For more, see NOAO Press Release 07-04.

2 March 2007: High Spectral Resolution in the Mid-Infrared with TEXES on Gemini, as illustrated by the above image, is one of the Science Highlights from the March 2007 issue of the NOAO/NSO Newsletter. Other stories include NEWFIRM first light, a progress report on how NOAO is implementing the Senior Review, and a new section on the NOAO Data Products Program.

2 March 2007: Mapping Gas Jet Velocities in the Molecular Cloud W51 IRS2 A team led by John Lacy of the University of Texas at Austin recently used the instrument TEXES on Gemini North to map the star-forming region IRS2 located deep within the molecular cloud associated with the giant H II region W51. The spatial and spectral performance of TEXES on Gemini allowed the team to separate the ionized gas into several components for the first time. These include: an extended HII region on the front surface of the molecular cloud, several embedded compact HII regions, and a streamer of high velocity gas. The team interpreted the high velocity streamer to be a precessing or fan-like jet that has emerged from the molecular cloud into an OB star cluster where it is being ionized. The source of the jet is unknown. The presence of such a jet coming from within the molecular …

21 February 2007: This beautiful new image of spiral galaxy IC 342 that takes advantage of the dark night sky at Kitt Peak National Observatory was released last week in Washington, DC, at the opening of “The Night: Why Dark Hours Are So Important,” a two-day symposium hosted at the Carnegie Institution. More in NOAO Press Release 07-03.

12 February 2007: The BNKL Nebula in the constellation Orion was one of the first targets of the initial science verification runs for the NOAO NEWFIRM infrared imager at the Mayall 4-meter telescope. This image is a portion of one full image, selected to show the fine detail that is already apparent.

5 February 2007: The NOAO Users Committee has submitted their 2006 report (login required).

31 January 2007: As seen from Cerro Pachón on 20 January 2007, with planet Venus and the Moon at lower right, and the Gemini South telescope.

23 January 2007: Register now for the Gemini Science 2007 meeting to be held June 11-13 in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. Circular fisheye lens image of Gemini North, with the Milky Way above. Credit: Gemini Observatory