Press Releases: Kitt Peak National Observatory

19 October 2011: In a paper just published in Nature, Aaron Geller (Northwestern U) and Robert Mathieu (U of Wisconsin) have shown that blue stragglers are most probably formed from mass transfer or mergers in binary systems, rather than originating from stellar collisions as has also been proposed. Observations made at the WIYN 3.5m of the old open cluster NGC 188 show that blue stragglers in long period binaries have companions with masses ~ 0.5 solar mass, with very little scatter.

5 October 2011: Astronomy and optical science lost a great pioneer and innovator when Dr. Aden Meinel passed away on 2 October 2011. Meinel led the development, and became the first Director, of the Kitt Peak National Observatory, located near Tucson, AZ. He then went on to become Director of the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona, where he also founded the Optical Sciences program.

5 October 2011: The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess for their discovery of the acceleration of the Universe, one of the more surprising cosmological results in modern astronomy. The discovery was enabled in large part through use of National Science Foundation (NSF) facilities operated by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) with headquarters in Tucson, Arizona and telescopes in Arizona and Chile.

31 August 2011: This wide-field panorama of star formation was captured with the National Science Foundation’s Mayall 4-meter telescope on Kitt Peak. Located in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter), the image show a portion of one of Orion’s giant molecular clouds (known as “Orion A”) where new stars are forming.

10 August 2011: A team of astronomers, using the Spitzer Space Telescope, have reported the first extragalactic detection of the C70 fullerene molecule, and the possible detection of planar C24 (“a piece of graphene”) in space. Letizia Stanghellini and Richard Shaw, members of the team at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona describe how collisional shocks powered by the winds from old stars in planetary nebulae could be responsible for the formation of fullerenes (C60 and C70) and graphene (planar C24). The team is led by Domingo Aníbal García-Hernández of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain and includes international astronomers and biochemists.

17 March 2011: Poorly-aimed and unshielded outdoor lights are more than an annoyance. They waste more than $2 billion (17 billion kilowatt-hours) of energy in the United States each year. Poorly shielded roadway lights are also a safety and glare hazard, especially for older citizens. Under an unpolluted sky we ought to see more than 2000 stars, yet we see less than a hundred from many cities. The Milky Way is unknown to most city dwellers.

27 October 2010: Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have detected arrangements of carbon atoms known as buckyballs outside of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time. Sir Harry Kroto of Florida State University, who won a Nobel Prize for discovering buckyballs, says life may even owe its existence to the atom “cages” which resemble soccer balls. The discovery of buckyballs in the Small Magellanic Cloud suggests that these complex molecules may be present around many stars where it was predicted they would be unlikely to form. Extensive follow-up studies using ground-based telescopes will be used to establish the conditions helpful for the formation of buckyballs in our galaxy and other galaxies.

21 September 2010: New measurements of the Kitt Peak National Observatory night sky brightness by Lowell Observatory astronomers show that, despite Tucson’s rapid growth, the sky brightness has remained remarkably constant over the past 20 years. The measurements suggest that the strengthened lighting ordinances adopted by Tucson and surrounding Pima County have been effective in suppressing the sky glow caused by outdoor lighting.

21 December 2009: Astronomers have reported new observations of a remarkable binary star population in a well-known star cluster.

30 November 2009: Using NEWFIRM on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, Veilleux, Rupke and Swaters have reported the discovery of warm H2 gas in the prototypical galactic wind of M82. They report filaments extending above and below the disk, roughly coincident with the location of the galactic wind in this galaxy.

15 October 2009: Informally known as the "Soap Bubble Nebula", this planetary nebula (officially known as PN G75.5+1.7) was discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich on July 6th, 2008. It was noted and reported by Keith Quattrocchi and Mel Helm on July 17th, 2008.

4 March 2009: Finding a needle in a haystack might be easy compared to finding two very similar black holes closely orbiting each other in a distant galaxy.

7 October 2008: A deep new image of the Virgo cluster has revealed monumental tendrils of ionized hydrogen gas 400,000 light-years long connecting the elliptical galaxy M86 and the disturbed spiral galaxy NGC 4438.

22 July 2008: Astronomer Pierre Martin, director of science operations at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), has been selected as the new director of the WIYN Observatory, which operates 3.5-meter and 0.9-meter telescopes on Kitt Peak.

9 January 2008: 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.

8 January 2008: A new wide-field image of Pickering’s Triangle taken with the National Science Foundation’s Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory is being released today in Austin, Texas, at the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

16 May 2007: A dynamic image of the nearby star-forming region NGC 1333 taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory is being released today in honor of the retirement celebration for Stephen Strom, a two-time staff member of the U.S. national observatory who has led a multifaceted life in astronomy, public policy, and the arts.

21 March 2007: Astronomer Buell T. Jannuzi has been named to five-year term as the director of Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.

21 February 2007: A beautiful new image of spiral galaxy IC 342 that takes advantage of the dark night sky at Kitt Peak National Observatory is being released today in Washington, DC, at the opening of “The Night: Why Dark Hours Are So Important,” a two-day symposium hosted at the Carnegie Institution.

7 January 2007: The ghostly blue Bubble Nebula and a swan-like dark nebula known as Barnard 163 are featured in beautiful new images taken in 2006 using the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The newly released images are displayed in large format at the NOAO exhibit booth starting today in Seattle at the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.