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10 January 2006: New Spitzer Space Telescope observations of an unusual class of interacting binary stars detected excess amounts of infrared radiation, suggesting that these odd objects are surrounded by large disks of cool dust.

10 January 2006: Strong darkening observed around the equator of Vega suggests that the fifth brightest star in Earth’s sky has a huge temperature difference of 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit from its cool equatorial region to its hot poles.

9 January 2006: In a feat resembling an intergalactic autopsy, astronomers have used the Gemini South telescope in Chile to obtain a detailed spectrum of an echo of light from an ancient supernova that enables them to identify the original star’s cause of death.

9 January 2006: The glowing gas of the interstellar medium (ISM) is the breeding ground for the formation of new stars, and the cemetery where the ashes of dead stars ultimately return.

21 December 2005: A team of astronomers has found faint visible echoes of three ancient supernovae by detecting their centuries-old light as it is reflected by clouds of interstellar gas hundreds of light-years removed from the original explosions.

6 December 2005: More than half of the largest galaxies in the nearby universe have collided and merged with another galaxy in the past two billion years, according to a new study using hundreds of images from two of the deepest sky surveys ever conducted.

4 November 2005: A growing slate of public programs and related outreach activities has spurred the Visitor Center at Kitt Peak National Observatory to offer its first-ever membership program for the general public.

12 September 2005: Fulfilling one of its central operational goals in a big way, the SOuthern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) on Cerro Pachón in Chile made the first observations of the glowing remains of the most distant explosion ever seen in the Universe. The international telescope then provided the first accurate measurement of just how incredibly far away this explosion appears to be.

30 August 2005: A comprehensive survey of more than 4,000 elliptical and lenticular galaxies in 93 nearby galaxy clusters has found a curious case of galactic “downsizing.”

8 July 2005: High school teachers making observations with the research telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory as part of an intensive professional development workshop obtained some of the earliest multicolor imaging and spectra of a newly exploded massive star in a nearby galaxy.

30 June 2005: How can you watch the planned first-of-its-kind collision between a comet and a spacecraft from Earth this weekend, even if your night skies don’t allow a direct view?

23 June 2005: All of the major telescopes of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) on Kitt Peak are observing comet Tempel 1 for several nights before and after the planned Deep Impact event. Indeed, by the night of July 8, Kitt Peak National Observatory will have been used for 43 nights in 2005 in scientific support of the planned collision at approximately 10:52 p.m. local time on July 3 between the icy comet and a special probe released from the main Deep Impact spacecraft.

7 June 2005: The Kitt Peak Visitor Center will host a special public program on July 3, 2005, the night of the expected encounter between the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft and Comet Tempel 1.

15 February 2005: Advance reservations are required for this free daytime program, which includes: a special tour of the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope (normally closed to public visitors), solar viewing, hands-on science activities, and talks by the director of Kitt Peak National Observatory and a leading cosmologist from the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory about Einstein’s continuing influence on astronomy. Einstein was born 126 years ago in Germany on March 14, 1879, so we will be having some early birthday cake in his honor as well!

11 January 2005: A significant number of red giant stars whose output varies on timescales as short as 10 minutes has been found in the nearby Ursa Minor dwarf galaxy by an astronomer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and a summer undergraduate student. This surprising variability occurs on a much shorter timescale than previously thought possible for such mature, giant stars.

10 January 2005: The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) has teamed with the Spitzer Science Center (SSC) to offer a dozen graduates from NOAO’s advanced teacher professional development program a unique chance to make research-quality observations with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

16 September 2004: For more than 400 years, astronomers both professional and amateur have taken a special interest in observing Mira stars, a class of variable red giants famous for pulsations that last for 80-1,000 days and cause their apparent brightness to vary by a factor of ten times or more during a cycle.

3 June 2004: New observations from the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope on Kitt Peak show striking visual evidence for a galaxy being stripped bare of its star-forming material by its violent ongoing encounter with the hot gas in the center of a galaxy cluster.

2 June 2004: Astronomers have peered into the fog of the early universe and discovered a young and extremely distant galaxy at a time when the Universe was only about six percent of its present age. When compared with other recent findings about the “dark ages” of the early universe, this discovery suggests that this murky era could have lasted the better part of a billion years.

25 May 2004: This image of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was taken at the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ, on May 7, 2004.