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3 May 2023: Astronomers using the Gemini South telescope in Chile, operated by NSF NOIRLab, have observed the first evidence of a dying Sun-like star engulfing an exoplanet. The “smoking gun” of this event was seen in a long and low-energy outburst from the star — the telltale signature of a planet skimming along a star’s surface. This never-before-seen process may herald the ultimate fate of Earth when our own Sun nears the end of its life in about five billion years.

20 January 2022: Sinuous stellar jets meander lazily across a field of stars in new images captured from Chile by the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. The gently curving stellar jets are the outflow from young stars, and astronomers suspect their sidewinding appearances are caused by the gravitational attraction of companion stars. These crystal-clear observations were made using the Gemini South telescope’s adaptive optics system, which helps astronomers counteract the blurring effects of atmospheric turbulence.

5 October 2020: Astronomers using the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab, have captured the western wall of the Carina Nebula in unprecedented detail in a compelling image released today. The image reveals a number of unusual structures in the nebula. The exquisite detail revealed in the image is in part due to a technology known as adaptive optics, which resulted in a ten-fold improvement in the sharpness of the research team’s observations.

21 March 2019: Using high-resolution adaptive optics imaging from the Gemini Observatory, astronomers have uncovered one of the oldest star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. The remarkably sharp image looks back into the early history of our Universe and sheds new insights on how our Galaxy formed.

20 September 2018: New funding from the National Science Foundation will enable the international Gemini Observatory to advance its position at the forefront of the new era of “multi-messenger astronomy” by enhancing its scientific capabilities in high-resolution and rapid-response astronomy.

12 October 2016: An international team of astronomers, using the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) and the high resolution camera GSAOI, brought the ancient globular cluster NGC 6624 into razor-sharp focus and determined its age with very high accuracy － a challenging observation even from space. In addition to producing a beautiful image, this work ultimately helps astronomers to better understand the formation and evolution of our Galaxy during its earliest development when the Universe was less than two billion years old.

17 June 2016: The world’s most advanced adaptive optics system reveals “shocking” details on star formation in a new image released today by the Gemini Observatory.

9 July 2015: NOAO scientists, using the Gemini Observatory 8-meter telescope in Chile, have obtained the highest resolution image ever obtained for the planetary nebula NGC 2346. Shaped like a butterfly, or an hourglass, but known scientifically as a bipolar planetary nebula, this object is at a distance of 2,300 light-years from our Sun in the constellation Monoceros.

15 June 2015: Using the advanced adaptive optics system GeMS, on the Gemini South telescope, astronomers have imaged a beautiful stellar jewel-box – a tightly packed cluster of stars that is one of the few places in our galaxy where astronomers think stars can actually collide.

8 January 2013: A new image released today reveals how Gemini Observatory's most advanced adaptive optics (AO) system will help astronomers study the universe with an unprecedented level of clarity and detail by removing distortions due to the Earth’s atmosphere. The photo, featuring an area on the outskirts of the famous Orion Nebula, illustrates the instrument's significant advancements over previous-generation AO systems.

6 January 2012: Gemini’s next-generation adaptive optics system produces highest-resolution with largest field-of-view ever captured from the ground using laser guide star technology.

28 April 2005: LGS lasers have a total power output that is less than a refrigerator light bulb; Laser Guide Stars on Mauna Kea can not be used for any military-related activities; LGS lasers produce an artificial star that is invisible to the naked eye; Atmospheric scattering of LGS light is only dimly visible within a few hundred feet of an observatory; LGS are formed in a 6 mile (10 kilometer) thick layer of sodium in the atmosphere about 50 miles (90 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. The high-altitude sodium is delivered by meteors burning up in our atmosphere.