Comunicados de Prensa

14 Agosto 2019: Supernovae, neutron star mergers, black holes at the center of galaxies, erupting young stars — these are all examples of objects in the night sky that change their brightness over time. In the coming years, astronomers expect to discover millions of these variable astronomical events with new sensitive telescopes like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). But to characterize these objects and to understand them better, they need to be observed with other, different telescopes soon after they are discovered.

24 Julio 2019: Observations made with a new instrument developed for use at the 2.1-meter (84-inch) telescope at the National Science Foundation’s Kitt Peak National Observatory have led to the discovery of the fastest eclipsing white dwarf binary yet known. Clocking in with an orbital period of only 6.91 minutes, the rapidly orbiting stars are expected to be one of the strongest sources of gravitational waves detectable with LISA, the future space-based gravitational wave detector.

27 Junio 2019: Gemini Observatory provides critical observations that confirm the distance to a mysterious, very short-lived, radio outburst from a galaxy billions of light years away.

11 Junio 2019: Based on preliminary results from a new Gemini Observatory survey of 531 stars with the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), it appears more and more likely that large planets and brown dwarfs have very different roots.

6 Junio 2019: An international team of researchers led by astronomer Jong-Hak Woo obtained deep spectroscopy from Gemini, combined with light echo measurements from multiple observatories, to confirm a black hole “missing link.”

4 Junio 2019: El 2 de julio de 2019, un eclipse solar total se producirá sobre Chile y Argentina, y gracias a un golpe de suerte astronómico, el camino de la totalidad cruzará directamente sobre el Observatorio Interamericano de Cerro Tololo de la Fundación Nacional de Ciencias (NSF) ubicado en las laderas de los Andes a 7,241 pies (2200 metros) sobre el nivel del mar en la región de Coquimbo en el norte de Chile. Cinco equipos de ciencia elegidos por el Observatorio Solar Nacional de la NSF realizarán experimentos en Cerro Tololo durante el eclipse; cuatro de ellos tendrán su equipo entrenado en la esquiva corona del Sol y uno estudiará los efectos del eclipse en la Tierra.

29 Mayo 2019: El 2 de julio de 2019, un eclipse total de sol barrerá el Océano Pacífico Sur antes de bloquear el Sol a lo largo de una estrecha franja de Chile y Argentina. Este eclipse pasará directamente sobre el Observatorio Interamericano de Cerro Tololo (CTIO) de la Fundación Nacional de Ciencia (NSF) en Chile. Durante el breve lapso de dos minutos de totalidad cuando la Luna cubra totalmente al Sol, un equipo de astrónomos del Observatorio Nacional de Astronomía Óptica y estudiantes de la Universidad de La Serena intentarán detectar la diminuta desviación de la luz de las estrellas causada por la gravedad del Sol y volver a recrear un experimento hecho originalmente hace 100 años que convirtió a Albert Einstein en un nombre familiar.

20 Mayo 2019: Astronomers using the Gemini Observatory explore Neptune’s largest moon Triton and observe, for the first time beyond the lab, an extraordinary union between carbon monoxide and nitrogen ices. The discovery offers insights into how this volatile mixture can transport material across the moon’s surface via geysers, trigger seasonal atmospheric changes, and provide a context for conditions on other distant, icy worlds.

27 Marzo 2019: Atrapadas en una danza cósmica, nuestras más próximas galaxias vecinas, las Nubes de Magallanes, están haciendo volteretas y girando entre ellas mientras caen hacia nuestra galaxia, la Vía Láctea. La interacción gravitacional entre las Nubes generan estallidos cósmicos como fuegos de artificio durante la formación de nuevos cúmulos estelares flameantes. Cuantos y que clase de cúmulos estelares han nacido de esta manera a través de la historia de las Nubes? Un nuevo proyecto, Exploración del Grupo Local de Cúmulos, invita a los científicos ciudadanos para que ayuden a encontrarlos!

21 Marzo 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.

15 Marzo 2019: The 8.4-meter Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has begun its journey from Tucson to north-central Chile, where it will be integrated with the telescope on Cerro Pachón. The M1M3, in its secure storage container, was loaded onto a Precision Heavy Haul, Inc. transport vehicle outside the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab at The University of Arizona in Tucson early Friday morning. It is now on a 10-day trip to the Port of Houston in Texas, where it will be loaded onto a BBC Chartering ship for a 5-week ocean voyage to Chile.

19 Febrero 2019: The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project re-launches this week, with a call to volunteer citizen scientists to join the search for cold worlds near the Sun. With its newly revamped online interface and equipped with twice as much data as before, the project offers new opportunities to discover planets lurking yet unseen in the outer reaches of the Solar System (e.g., Planet 9, Planet X) as well as cold nearby “failed stars” (a.k.a. brown dwarfs). The re-launch coincides with the publication of the project’s latest discovery: a record-setting white dwarf star encircled by mysterious dusty rings that challenge astronomers to rethink the long-term evolution of planetary systems.

22 Enero 2019: After slowly forming stars for the first few billion years of their lives, the Magellanic Clouds, near neighbors of our own Milky Way galaxy, have upped their game and are now forming new stars at a fast clip. This new insight into the history of the Clouds comes from the first detailed chemical maps made of galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

10 Enero 2019: An unusual supernova studied by multiple telescopes, including the SOAR telescope and other telescopes at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) and NSF’s Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), is thought to herald the birth of a new black hole or neutron star, caught at the exact moment of its creation. Observations made with facilities ranging from X-rays to optical and radio wavelengths were used to understand this remarkable event. These multi-messenger observations give astronomers a rare glimpse into the physics at play during the creation of a black hole or neutron star.

9 Enero 2019: Observations from Gemini Observatory identify a key fingerprint of an extremely distant quasar, allowing astronomers to sample light emitted from the dawn of time. Astronomers happened upon this deep glimpse into space and time thanks to an unremarkable foreground galaxy acting as a gravitational lens, which magnified the quasar’s ancient light. The Gemini observations provide critical pieces of the puzzle in confirming this object as the brightest appearing quasar so early in the history of the Universe, raising hopes that more sources like this will be found.

8 Enero 2019: On the night of 9 January 2019, the V. M. Blanco 4-meter telescope at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), high in the mountains of Chile, will close the camera’s shutter on the final image from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) – a survey that has mapped 5,000 square degrees of the heavens, almost one-quarter of the southern sky. Although the survey is ending, both the camera used in the survey and the survey data itself are expected to continue to yield abundant new discoveries.

11 Noviembre 2018: Cerro Pachón, Chile - The Coating Chamber for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) arrived on the summit of Cerro Pachón today, safely completing a 15 week journey from Deggendorf, Germany, where it was constructed. The 128-ton Coating Chamber is the largest single piece of equipment to arrive at the LSST observatory site to date, and will soon be joined by the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA), from Spain, and the 8.4-meter Primary/Tertiary (M1M3) Mirror, from the United States, which are expected to arrive in 2019.

1 Noviembre 2018: Astronomers use the Gemini Observatory to investigate a tiny star that is likely the oldest known star in the disk of our galaxy. The diminutive star could have a disproportionate impact on our understanding of the age and history of our Milky Way Galaxy. It also provides a unique glimpse into the conditions present in the young Universe shortly after the Big Bang.

25 Septiembre 2018: A new $4.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been awarded to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) for the development of a new “Windows on the Universe Center for Astronomy Outreach” at NSF’s Kitt Peak National Observatory. Located in the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope facility, an iconic structure that was once the world’s largest solar observatory, the center will provide the public with a new way to experience the cutting-edge research being carried out at Kitt Peak and NSF’s other astronomy facilities around the globe, including ground-based optical, radio, solar, and gravitational wave facilities.

20 Septiembre 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.