Press Releases: Gemini Observatory

23 Julio 2009: Jupiter is sporting a glowing bruise after getting unexpectedly whacked by a small solar system object, according to astronomers using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai'i. A spectacular new mid-infrared image is available for download on this page.

30 Abril 2009: The Gemini Observatory has released the first color image of what astronomers are calling the most distant object ever seen in the universe. The object is what is known as a Gamma-ray burst (GRB) which are the most energetic single events known in the universe.

1 Abril 2009: On the nights of April 2-3 (3-4 UT) both Gemini telescopes participated in the “Around the World in 80 Telescopes” live, around the world control room webcast. Gemini was honored to be the first control room visit for the event when at 11:00 pm (HST) on April 2nd (9:00 am UT on April 3rd) Gemini presented a new video introduction to Gemini followed by a live visit to the Gemini North control room on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea hosted by Gemini’s Scott Fisher. Nineteen hours later, Gemini South participated in the event at Midnight (Chile time) on the night of April 3-4 (4:00 am UT on April 4th) when Gemini South astronomer Etienne Artigau hosted a visit to the Gemini South control room in Chile.

9 Noviembre 2008: Astronomers using the Gemini and Keck observatories obtain first direct images of a planetary family around a normal star

14 Septiembre 2008: Astronomers have unveiled what is likely the first picture of a planet around a normal star similar to the Sun.

10 Septiembre 2008: Astronomers have been puzzling over the engine behind the historical 1843 outburst of Eta Carinae since it happened, but new observations with the Gemini South and the Blanco telescopes in Chile add a startling new clue.

26 Junio 2008: In what appears to be a masterful illusion, astronomers at Gemini Observatory have imaged two nearly identical spiral galaxies in Virgo, 90 million light years distant, in the early stages of a gentle gravitational embrace. The new image was obtained at the Gemini South telescope in Chile using GMOS, the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph.

21 Mayo 2008: Astronomers have observed the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but until now no one has witnessed a star dying in real time. While observing supernova 2007uy with the Swift X-ray Telescope, Alicia Soderberg and Edo Berger (Princeton University) discovered a mysterious X-ray flash elsewhere in the galaxy NGC 2770 located about 90 million light years away (Figure 1). Within a few hours observatories around the world scrambled to study its light. In a rapid sequence of events the Gemini North telescope was able to capture and dissect the object’s light in a set of optical spectra that contains the earliest spectrum ever obtained of a massive star ending its life in a supernova explosion outside of our galaxy’s neighborhood.

2 Abril 2008: The well-known naked-eye star cluster Omega Centauri may be home to an elusive intermediate-mass black hole. Observations made using Gemini Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope provide convincing evidence that such black holes do exist and could even lead to an understanding of how they might evolve into larger supermassive black holes like the ones found at the cores of many galaxies.

8 Enero 2008: The Gemini South Multi-Object Spectograph (GMOS) recently captured a dramatic image of a vast cloud complex named DEM L316 located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The peanut-shaped nebula appears to be a single object, but the latest research indicates that it is really comprised of two distinct gas and dust clouds formed by different types of supernova explosions.

28 Noviembre 2007: A dwarf star with a surprisingly magnetic personality and a huge hot spot covering half its surface area is showing astronomers that life as a cool dwarf is not necessarily as simple and quiet as they once assumed.

14 Noviembre 2007: Astronomers have found evidence for the formation of young rocky planets around the star HD 23514 located in the well-known Pleiades (Seven Sisters) star cluster that is easily visible in the current evening sky.

17 Julio 2007: Frigid geysers spewing material up through cracks in the crust of Pluto’s companion Charon and recoating parts of its surface in ice crystals could be making this distant world into the equivalent of an outer solar system ice machine.

30 Mayo 2007: The coolest-known star-like object beyond the solar system is giving astronomers a new look at the differences between massive planets and the smallest brown dwarfs. This newly discovered object, called ULAS J0034-00 and located in the constellation Cetus, has a record-setting surface temperature of 600-700 K, cooler than any known solitary brown dwarf. In addition, it’s a relative lightweight, with an estimated mass of only 15-30 times that of Jupiter (although they both have about the same diameter).

4 Abril 2007: Astronomers have serendipitously discovered a record-breaking pair of low-mass objects with an extreme orbital separation. The petite objects, each of which has a mass less than 100 times that of Jupiter and could be either stars or brown dwarfs, are separated by more than 5,000 times the distance between the Sun and Earth – a value that breaks the previous record by a factor of three and leaves the duration of their future together uncertain.

22 Marzo 2007: An image released today by the Gemini Observatory brings into focus a new and remarkably detailed view of supersonic "bullets" of gas and the wakes created as they pierce through clouds of molecular hydrogen in the Orion Nebula. The image was made possible with new laser guide star adaptive optics technology that corrects in real time for image distortions caused by Earth's atmosphere.

8 Enero 2007: Astronomers have announced the discovery of huge quantities of an unusual variety of oxygen in two very rare types of stars. The finding suggests that the origin of these oddball stars may lie in the physics behind the mergers of white dwarf star pairs.

8 Enero 2007: Fundamental to theories describing active galactic nuclei (AGN) is the prediction that a doughnut-shaped ring of material (a torus) surrounds a supermassive black hole in these energetic galactic cores. Yet, understanding an AGN's torus, or indeed seeing one directly, has proved to be extremely frustrating, and has spurred an ongoing debate about their extent and physical properties.

20 Julio 2006: A high-resolution image released today by the Gemini Observatory shows Jupiter's two giant red spots brushing past one another in the planet's southern hemisphere.

8 Junio 2006: Massive star supernovae have been major "dust factories" ever since the first generations of stars formed several hundred million years after the Big Bang, according to an international study to be published in Science magazine on July 14, 2006.