Press Releases: NOAO

22 September 1998: The National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak announces the 19th Annual International Workshop to take place in Sunspot, New Mexico, from September 28 to October 2, 1998. Titled "High Resolution Solar Physics: Theory, Observations, and Techniques", this year's workshop features the most recent high spatial and temporal resolution observations of the solar atmosphere. About 75 scientists are expected to attend, nearly half from outside the US. Contact information is listed below for media representatives interested in attending the workshop.

21 September 1998: The National Science Foundation will honor Dr. Richard B. Dunn on September 30, 1998, by renaming the Vacuum Tower Telescope of the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico, as the Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope, after its creator. This recognizes Dunns long and distinguished career and his contributions to the world's most advanced solar instrumentation, which have greatly increased our understanding of the physics of the Sun. The rededication ceremony to mark this important event will be held at the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico, and will be the centerpiece of a workshop on High Resolution Solar Physics, also dedicated to Dr. Dunn in recognition of his lifetime contributions to solar research. Scientists from all corners of the world, including Austria, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Siberia, Spain, and Sweden will attend the festivities.

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.

21 April 1998: Two teams of astronomers searching for signs of other solar systems with telescopes in Chile and Hawaii have independently discovered a disk around a nearby star that may be forming--or may have already formed--planets.

13 April 1998: The Sunspot Astronomy and Visitor Center was formally dedicated on April 13, 1998. The Visitor Center is located at the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. The list of 150 attendees ranged from Rudy Cook, the first observer at the location in 1947, to U.S. Representative Joseph Skeen and included most of the persons responsible for the successful completion of the Visitor Center.

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".