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1 Mayo 2015: A University of Rochester scientist has discovered a new comet – the first to be discovered by an astronomer associated with the University of Rochester or the Rochester area in over a century, his colleagues believe. David Cameron, a visiting scientist in Eric Mamajek’s research group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, recently discovered a new short-period comet named Comet P/2015 PD229 (ISON-Cameron). Cameron discovered the comet last August while analyzing images taken in May 2015 by Mamajek with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. “We were looking not for comets, but objects in the outer solar system called Kuiper Belt objects, which orbit the Sun far beyond the orbit of Neptune,” said Cameron. “The former planet Pluto is the most well known Kuiper Belt object. In our images, these objects appear as little dots of light …

15 Abril 2015: NGC 7000 is a giant nebula in the constellation of Cygnus. Also known as the North America Nebula, this image shows only the southern tip, or the “Mexico”, part of the nebula. Emission nebula, like this one, are energized by the light from stars embedded within. The image was generated by combining data from observations in Hydrogen alpha (red), Oxygen [OIII] (green) and Sulfur [SII] (blue) filters. In this image, North is up, East is to the left.

2 Abril 2015: Astronomers using the Gemini South telescope in Chile have discovered striking new evidence for planet formation in a dusty disk surrounding a pair of stars in Sagittarius. The team took advantage of an offering for Early Science using the Gemini Planet Imager to study infrared light scattered off dust grains in the disk around the binary system V4046 Sgr. "The Gemini Planet Imager allows us to study nearby planet forming disks in sufficient detail that we can obtain direct-image evidence for young planets in orbits similar to those of the giant planets in our own solar system," says Valerie Rapson of the Rochester Institute of Technology, who led the research team. Indeed, the GPI imaging reveals an intriguing double ring structure around the V4046 Sgr binary that is most likely due to the formation of a giant planet (or planets) at some 4-12 times the Earth-Sun distance (approximately between Jupiter …

25 Marzo 2015: Changes in the universe don’t often happen on human timescales. In the cosmic “blink of an eye,” astronomers have detected rapid changes in brightness and appearance of a restless stellar nursery in Orion. The luminous cloud of gas, going by the designation Re50, first appeared about half a century ago in the constellation of Orion. Now, astronomers using the Gemini South telescope, and other telescopes around the world, have discovered that the chaotic caldron has once again brightened further. According to team member Bo Reipurth, of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, “This most recent brightening, happened, I believe in 2014, when unfortunately we weren’t able to look since Orion was in the Sun’s glare.” Reipurth adds that areas of stellar birth, in this case called a Class I protostar, are extremely dynamic places and change on human timescales, “… while we missed the initial brightening event, we can …

12 Marzo 2015: The Orion Nebula, probably the most well-known deep sky object in the night sky, also offers rare glimpses into catastrophic episodes in the lives of stars. Widespread, high-velocity outflow points to an explosive origin of the region known as the “Orion Fingers.” With new observations using adaptive optics imaging from Gemini South, John Bally of the University of Colorado and colleagues find over 120 high-velocity outflows in this region. Direct comparisons with earlier observations reveal the motion of these fingers. Measurements of their properties, and comparison with simulations, are evidence that an explosive event drives the outflows, which may be connected to the birth of “runaway,” massive stars. Abstract: Aims. Adaptive optics images are used to test the hypothesis that the explosive BN/KL outflow from the Orion OMC1 cloud core was powered by the dynamical decay of a non-hierarchical system of massive stars. Methods. Narrow-band H2, [Fe II], and broad-band …

12 Marzo 2015: This photo was taken in the 0.9-m control room during the last night of the REU/PIA student observing run on Feb. 13, when just by chance all of the observers on the mountain were women. The group included DES observers, the DECam community observer, and the REU and PIA students. From left to right, the people in the photo are:DECam community observer: Claudia Belardi, DES observer: Marcelle Soares-Santos, DES observer: Chihway Chang, CTIO postdoc: Catherine Kaleida, 0.9-m observer: Pia Amigo, 0.9-m observer: Sanzia Alves, CTIO PIA student: Pamela Soto, CTIO REU student: Brittany Howard The picture first appeared on the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Facebook page, and is one of the most popular DES posts on Facebook: 11.2K people reached, 1.5K post clicks, 472 likes and shares.

10 Marzo 2015: Scientists on two continents have independently discovered a set of celestial objects that seem to belong to the rare category of dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Dwarf galaxies are the smallest known galaxies, and they could hold the key to understanding dark matter and the process by which larger galaxies form. A team of researchers with the Dark Energy Survey, headquartered at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and an independent group from the University of Cambridge jointly announced their findings today. Both teams used data taken during the first year of the Dark Energy Survey, all of which is publicly available, to carry out their analysis. “The large dark matter content of Milky Way satellite galaxies makes this a significant result for both astronomy and physics,” said Alex Drlica-Wagner of Fermilab, one of the leaders of the Dark Energy Survey analysis. …

1 Marzo 2015: The discovery was a special treat for the students, who accompanied Dr. Brad Barlow, assistant professor of astrophysics, on the trip to study several pulsating stars related to NASA’s Kepler satellite mission. For seven nights, Barlow and the students stayed awake observing and collecting data with the telescope. Despite weather that kept them from collecting data the first few nights, their hard work paid off in the form of this exciting breakthrough. “The moment of discovery was quite fulfilling for me. Everything that made possible the discovery of this new pulsating white dwarf was led by students,” says Barlow. “Alan and Eugene were the ones who moved the telescope in place, obtained a series of images over several hours, and analyzed the data with code they themselves had written.” Barlow adds that his goal in mentoring students is to equip them to make their own discoveries through research. During SuRPS …

26 Febrero 2015: The March 2015 NOAO Newsletter is online and ready to download. On the Cover NOAO unveiled the first chapter of its graphic novel, “Tales of the Modern Astronomer: ANTARES Rising,” at the January 2014 American Astronomical Association (AAS) meeting to highlight the ANTARES project. The cover image for this Newsletter issue is the first panel of the graphic novel’s second chapter,“First Bytes: Dawn of the Data.” The story line for this new chapter was presented as the backdrop of the NOAO booth at the January 2015 AAS meeting. Read more starting on page 24 of this month's Newsletter.

25 Febrero 2015: Infrared observations with the Gemini North telescope have confirmed a 12 billion solar mass black hole in an exceptionally bright quasar in the very early universe. The finding, led by a Chinese team, used Gemini, as well as telescopes from around the world, to discover and characterize an extremely massive black hole from a period when the universe was very young (about 900 million years after the Big Bang). This observation requires extremely rapid growth of the black hole. While black holes of comparable mass have been observed after they have had billions of years to gradually gain mass over cosmic history this quasar challenges astronomers to figure out how such a huge object could exist so early in the history of the universe. Abstract: So far, roughly 40 quasars with redshifts greater than z=6 have been discovered. Each quasar contains a black hole with a mass of about one …

1 Febrero 2015: That’s the distance to GJ 1132b, a newly discovered rocky planet about 1.2 times as large as Earth that orbits a small, dim star in the constellation Vela. The planet is almost certainly too hot to support life, but it is about 90 light-years nearer to us than the next-closest known Earth-sized planets. The discovery could herald the era of probing the atmospheres of nearby small worlds for signs of life. GJ 1132b is “arguably the most important planet ever found outside the solar system,” Drake Deming, an astronomer at the University of Maryland in College Park, writes in a review that accompanies the study in the Nov. 12 Nature. The MEarth-South Observatory, an array of eight automated, 40-centimeter telescopes in Chile, spotted the shadow of GJ 1132b as it crossed in front of its star once every 1.6 days. The researchers claim that the Hubble Space Telescope could determine …

26 Enero 2015: The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) project has delivered major optical elements to Arizona Optical Science and L3-Brashear for figuring and polishing. Above is an image of the largest corrector lens, C1 measuring 1.15m in diameter. The homogeneity of the fused silica glass came in at an astounding 1ppm (exceeding the 3ppm spec). DESI will be conducted on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory starting in 2018.

15 Enero 2015: As of January 2nd, 2015, Gemini’s Fast Turnaround (FT) program is open for business. Following the first proposal deadline on January 31st, the Gemini community is now able to submit proposals every month for the duration of this open-ended trial. The intent of the FT scheme - which is initially being run as a pilot at Gemini North only - is to greatly shorten the time between having an idea and acquiring the supporting data. Proposals will be reviewed in the 14 days following each deadline, and principal investigators (PIs) will be notified of the outcome by the 21st of the month. A small support team at Gemini will work with successful PIs to quickly prepare their observations, which will then be available for execution on three dedicated nights each month for the following three months. The proposal review process differs from anything that Gemini (or, as far as we …

2 Enero 2015: For release at 11:00am PST on Monday, January 5, 2015 A compelling new image from Gemini Observatory peers into the heart of a group of galaxies (VV166) traveling through space together. The variety of galactic forms range from a perfect spiral, to featureless blobs and present, at a glance, a sampling of the diversity and evolution of galaxies. Galaxy groups are the most evident structures in the nearby universe. They are important laboratories for studying how galaxies form and evolve beyond our own Local Group of galaxies, which includes the Milky Way and the Great Spiral in Andromeda. Exploring the nature of these extragalactic “herds” may help to unlock the secrets to the overall structure of the universe. Herd Dynamics Unlike animal herds, which are generally the same species traveling together, most galaxies move through space in associations comprised of myriad types, shapes, and sizes. Galaxy groups differ in their …

17 Noviembre 2014: New Gemini Observatory images show an Earth-based perspective of the comet targeted by the Rosetta spacecraft. The images capture the comet about nine hours before the Philae probe landed on the “dirty snowball’s” surface. A series of images released today by the Gemini Observatory reveal Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P, the comet currently being explored by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft) as it glides against a starry background. The images were obtained over a 26-minute period -- and only nine hours prior to the successful landing of the washing-machine sized probe, called Philae, which bounced to a safe landing on the comet’s surface. Images, like these from Gemini, and other telescopes, allow the Rosetta team to monitor the total activity level of the comet. In addition, they provide scientists with the data needed to study how the large-scale coma (the comet’s atmosphere) and its tails develop. Meanwhile, Rosetta's instruments concentrate on …

13 Noviembre 2014: The prize, for the unexpected discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than slowing as had been long assumed, is a shared honor with Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess leading a collaboration of 51 total prize recipients splitting $3 million. Significant work on this project was done at the CTIO Blanco 4-meter telescope by current NOAO staff members Chris Smith and Tom Matheson, and former NOAO employees Bob Schommer, Nick Suntzeff, Mark Phillips, and Alejandro Clochiatti along with various other current and former AURA employees.

5 Noviembre 2014: For Scientists: The paper is accepted for publication in the The Astrophysical Journal and can be accessed at http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/796/1/65/ (subscription required) or at astro-ph. Scientific Abstract(from the paper): We investigate the velocity versus position phase space of z ∼ 1 cluster galaxies using a set of 424 spectroscopic redshifts in nine clusters drawn from the GCLASS survey. Dividing the galaxy population into three categories: quiescent, star-forming, and poststarburst, we find that these populations have distinct distributions in phase space. Most striking are the poststarburst galaxies, which are commonly found at small clustercentric radii with high clustercentric velocities, and appear to trace a coherent “ring” in phase space. Using several zoom simulations of clusters we show that the coherent distribution of the poststarbursts can be reasonably well-reproduced using a simple quenching scenario. Specifically, the phase space is best reproduced if these galaxies are quenched with a rapid timescale (0.1 < τQ …

21 Octubre 2014: For Scientists: The paper is accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters and can be accessed at arXiv.org. Scientific Abstract (from the paper): We report the discovery of the first millisecond pulsar with a pulsating white dwarf companion. Following the recent discoveries of pulsations in extremely low-mass (ELM, <0. 3 M⊙ ) white dwarfs (WDs), we targeted ELM WD companions to two millisecond pulsars with high-speed Gemini photometry. We find significant optical variability in PSR J1738+0333 with periods between roughly 1790− 3060 s, consistent in timescale with theoretical and empirical observations of pulsations in ≈ 0.17 M⊙ He-core ELM WDs. We additionally put stringent limits on a lack of variability in PSR J1909− 3744, showing this ELM WD is not variable to < 0.1 per cent amplitude. Thanks to the accurate distance and radius estimates from radio timing measurements, PSR J1738+0333 becomes a benchmark …

2 Octubre 2014: On Saturday evening, July 19th, Gemini Observatory, in a partnership with the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center shared with Hawai'i residents "The Adventures of gAstronomy!" Dr. Steve Howell, Project Scientist for NASA's Kepler Planet Finding Mission, and Chef Bill Yosses, former White House Executive Pastry Chef, wowed the audience with their speculation about the conditions on selected exoplanets -- which inspire recipes for chefs like Yosses. Numerous samples of exoplanet-inspired culinary delights, from mango spheres, to exotic foams, and polymers, titillated audience's taste buds throughout the evening. “The excitement of discovering thousands of exoplanets can be brought right into your kitchen,” said Howell, who added that, “The same science principles astronomers use to understand alien worlds are used to create marvels of culinary delight.” Together, Howell and Yosses have combined modern molecular gastronomy methods, and basic physics, to teach a little of both, and provide exotic taste treats. “We believe the enthusiasm …

9 Septiembre 2014: In a recently published paper, NOAO astronomer Joan Najita was part of a team that has shown evidence for a planet forming in the disk around a young star. The results provide perhaps the first evidence that planets are surrounded by a circumplanetary disk at birth. This figure is an artist’s conception of the young massive star HD100546 and its surrounding disk. A planet forming in the disk has cleared the disk within 13AU of the star, a distance comparable to that of Saturn from the sun. As gas and dust flows from the circumstellar disk to the planet, this material surrounds the planet as a circumplanetary disk (inset). These rotating disks are believed to be the birthplaces of planetary moons, such as the Galilean moons that orbit Jupiter. While they are theoretically predicted to surround giant planets at birth, there has been little observational evidence to date for circumplanetary …