Press Releases: Kitt Peak National Observatory

14 November 2000: Astronomers studying how elements heavier than iron were produced in the early Milky Way have identified a distinct series of epochs of galaxy-wide chemical formation.

21 September 1999: Students in Susie Townsend's multi-age classroom at Miles Exploratory Learning Center, 1400 E. Broadway Blvd., will work with local astronomers and noted authors Joni Chancer and Gina Rester-Zodrow this Friday, September 24, at 10:00 am. Students will safely observe the Sun and then interpret their observations through art and writing invitations. Townsend's class will be studying the Sun and its impact on Earth throughout the school year using a multi-disciplinary, inquiry approach to learning. The Sun is entering the peak of an 11-year cycle of activity, making this a particularly exciting time to investigate solar behavior.

1 June 1999: Dr. Mark Giampapa of the National Science Foundation's National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, has determined that the Sun is in a relatively moderate state of activity. Giampapa's observations of Sun-like stars in M67 suggest that about 40% of the time the Sun is likely to be either significantly more, or significantly less, active. A change to either of these states is likely to cause significant changes in the Earth's climate. These same observations also indicate excursions in the luminosity of the Sun from about 0.2% - 0.5% are possible, compared with the 0.1% variations that have been measured with modern satellite instruments during the 1980s and 1990s. Any variation in what is considered typical or normal solar activity must be taken into account in the study of long-term behavior of the global climate.

31 May 1999: Dr. Samuel Barden, astronomer at the National Science Foundation's National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, Arizona, has partnered with Mr. Willis Colburn and Mr. James Arns at Kaiser Optical Systems, Inc. (KOSI), Ann Arbor, Michigan for the development of large format spectroscopic gratings using holographic technology for astronomical applications funded by the National Science Foundation through the Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation Program in the division of Astronomy. These new technology gratings can provide information at multiple regions of the spectrum simultaneously, with higher efficiency, less cost, and greater durability than the conventional grating technology that astronomers have relied on for over a hundred years.

31 May 1999: The National Science Foundation's National Solar Observatory is preparing for the upcoming solar maximum with SOLIS, a new suite of ground-based solar telescopes that will increase our understanding of solar activity and its effect on Earth's climate and atmosphere.

31 May 1999: The Sun is known to exhibit a maximum of activity, including solar flares and an increased number of sunspots and coronal mass ejections, approximately every 11 years. Dr. Richard C. Altrock announces today his prediction that the next solar maximum will occur between January and April of 2000 based on a new method employing daily observations of high latitude coronal activity. Dr. Altrock, an Air Force Research Laboratory astronomer at the National Science Foundation's National Solar Observatory (NSO) at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico, will present his result today to the American Astronomical Society meeting in Chicago, Illinois. This prediction is of interest to solar astronomers and others who design and operate satellites.

25 March 1999: Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), near Tucson, Arizona, contributed important optical observations of a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) discovered on 23 January 1999. The KPNO observations of this particularly powerful and well-observed GRB are included in articles appearing in current issues of the journals Science and Nature. This event was the first GRB detected simultaneously at optical and gamma-ray wavelengths, and may provide the first clear evidence that GRBs emit a stream, or jet, of photons directed out into space like a searchlight.

6 January 1999: Astronomers George H. Jacoby and Taft E. Armandroff of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Tucson, Arizona, and James E. Davies of The Johns Hopkins University announced today their discovery of a new galaxy in The Local Group, the group of galaxies within 4 million light-years of our own Milky Way. The new galaxy is the second one that the team has found in the past year by using new computer enhancement techniques applied to 10-year old photographs of the sky. Small galaxies of the type found by Jacoby and collaborators are the most common type of galaxy in the universe, yet the region around the Milky Way Galaxy's big brother, the spiral galaxy in Andromeda, had been thought to be highly deficient of these "dwarf" galaxies before the team began their search. The census of the Local Group, though, is now as high as 43 galaxies, meaning that our neighborhood may not be as unusual as was previously thought.

24 September 1998: October of 1998 marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), the first astronomy observatory in the U.S. available to all qualified astronomers regardless of institutional affiliation. Kitt Peak today is home to the world's largest collection of optical telescopes, under skies which continue to be some of the finest in the world for astronomical observations. Historical images and information on the excellence of scientific research at Kitt Peak can be found through a link on the KPNO Home Page at http://www.noao.edu/kpno/40th/.

17 June 1998: Samuel Barden, National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) , has been awarded the 1998 Maria and Eric Muhlmann Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific . The Muhlmann Award is given for innovative advances in astronomical instrumentation, software, or observational infrastructure that enable significant astronomical discoveries. The award to Dr. Barden recognizes his pioneering use of optical fibers with astronomical spectrometers.

26 February 1998: The National Solar Observatory (NSO) announces the start of SOLIS, a state-of-the-art project to investigate space weather and further our understanding of how changes in the Sun affect the Earth's climate and atmosphere. Can we learn to predict when giant explosions will occur on the Sun? Prediction is important because these explosions, which are called "flares" and "coronal mass ejections", propel high-speed particles toward Earth, disrupting radio communication and causing spectacular auroral displays. Understanding and predicting solar activity such as flares is a major goal of SOLIS. The six-million dollar SOLIS project is funded by the National Science Foundation.

7 January 1998: Astronomers are announcing today the discovery of an extraordinary number of the most massive stars yet known, all concentrated within a single cloud of gas in a nearby galaxy. A conservative estimate by astronomers Dr. Phil Massey of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO) in Tucson, AZ, and Dr. Deidre Hunter from Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, places over a dozen stars more massive than 100 times the mass of the Sun within this one cluster. The most massive star may be 150 times the mass of the Sun, making it the most massive star yet found. In addition, the processes that control starbirth in this young, dense star cluster seem to be identical to star formation processes ongoing in more common, less dense star forming regions. The discovery leads astronomers to postulate we haven't yet encountered a physical limit to how massive a star can form in nature.

6 January 1998: Dr. Richard Dunn, astronomer at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico, has been awarded the prestigious George Ellery Hale Prize in recognition of his "outstanding contributions to the field of solar astronomy over an extended period of time". The Hale Prize will be awarded to Dr. Dunn at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Washington, D.C. on the morning of January 10, 1998. Dr. Dunn is being recognized for "his bold and imaginative innovation of instrumentation for solar physics, his discovery of important new phenomena on the Sun, and the impact of his contributions on solar physicists world wide".