Announcements

8 January 2016: Weighing in at 500 trillion times the mass of the Sun, the young galaxy cluster IDCS 1426, located 10 billion light years from Earth, is the most massive distant cluster known. Recently weighed using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, it was first identified with data from the NOAO Deep Wide-field Survey and data taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope.

22 December 2015: TW Hydrae (TW Hya) is one of the best-studied young stars in the galaxy.At just 180 light years from Earth and a ripe young age of roughly 8 million years, this nearly solar-mass star and its orbiting, circumstellar disk of dust and gas are prime targets to better understand the processes involved in star and planet formation. The most sensitive telescope systems available, accessing wavelengths from radio to X-ray, have observed the TW Hya system. Astronomers have now used the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) on Gemini South to image infrared light from TW Hya that is scattered off dust grains in its surrounding disk. The new GPI images confirm the presence of a darkened ring or gap in the disk at 23 AU (i.e., 23 times the earth-Sun distance) -- and GPI brings this gap into the sharpest focus yet. Comparison with detailed numerical simulations of planets forming in circumstellar ...

14 December 2015: A team of Australian researchers used two Maunakea-based observatories – Gemini North and W. M. Keck Observatory – to discover why some galaxies are clumpy rather than spiral in shape and it appears that low spin is to blame. The finding challenges an earlier theory that high levels of gas cause clumpy galaxies, and sheds light on the conditions that brought about the birth of most of the stars in the Universe. The finding was published today in The Astrophysical Journal. A combination of integral field spectroscopy data from Keck Observatory and Gemini Observatory was the key to obtaining measurements for a galaxy’s spin. Keck Observatory’s OSIRIS instrument collected data high spatial resolution in the galaxy centers, and the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) collected data for high surface brightness sensitivity out to large radii. The rest of the text is adapted from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research press ...

30 November 2015: Observations using the Gemini Planet Imager are featured prominently at the Extreme Solar Systems III meeting ongoing this week (Nov. 29 - December 4) in Waikoloa Hawai‘i. Below are two results from a press conference on December 1, 2015.

23 November 2015: Gemini observations provide a key scientific context for a striking new image of the gravitationally lensed galaxy group popularly known as the Cheshire Cat. The image, released by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, combines X-ray data with optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope to paint a remarkable likeness to the famously devious smiling cat in Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. Behind the scenes, Gemini played a critical role in the image’s scientific story by taking the spectral fingerprints of many of the galaxies that make up the foreground cluster which bends the distant galactic light. For more details on the image, and how gravitational lenses work, see the Chandra press release here. Gemini South astronomer Rodrigo Carrasco, a co-author on the paper which spawned the image, adds that Gemini provided the core spectroscopic data that allowed the team to fully characterize the cluster of foreground galaxies which serves as the ...

10 November 2015: The following is based on a translation of the Korean press release. A team of Korean astronomers discovered a faint quasar in the early Universe which sheds light on the main sources of illumination about 1 billion years after the Big Bang. The team used the Gemini South telescope in Chile, and several telescopes on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, to make the discovery. This is the first published scientific result from the Korean astronomical community since the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) joined in a limited partnership with Gemini at the beginning of 2015. The history of objects we see today in the Universe started when the first stars formed a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. However, it has been unclear what types of objects illuminated the intergalactic medium in order to ionize neutral atoms (called the re-ionization of the universe). Quasars, because they are so ...

2 November 2015: After 18 days of hard work during the recent scheduled maintenance shutdown, the Gemini South telescope is back on the sky! During maintenance, which took place October 13th - 30th, the 8.1-meter primary mirror received a fresh multi-layer protected silver coating - a key task for the shutdown.

29 October 2015: A team of Norwegian and US astronomers, using data from Gemini North and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), have measured the time delay in images of a quasar lensed by a foreground cluster of galaxies. The Gemini observations are the first published result obtained with the innovative Fast Turnaround (FT) mode of observing. A distant quasar may have its light split into multiple images by a foreground galaxy cluster that acts as a gravitational lens. The light travels along different paths of differing lengths to form each of these images. Quasars themselves are intrinsically variable, so the observed fading and brightening of each image happens at different observed times. Measuring these “time delays” yields tight constraints on the mass distribution in the lensing cluster, as well as the lensing geometry, and hence cosmology. The team monitored the redshift z=2.82 quasar SDSS J2222+2745 over the course of three years, using the ...

22 October 2015: Gemini Observatory kicked off its week-long program Viaje al Universo with an opening ceremony at the University of La Serena. The annual program is an immersive week of fun, hands-on learning focusing on local students and teachers. Gemini’s invited international guests also joined in the celebration, highlighting their program: The Big Van “Science on Wheels.” “We are thrilled to be able to engage local students and make them laugh, and even though they might not know it, learn science!”, said Alberto Vivó of of the three members of the Big Van troupe. More information about this group can be found at: www.thebigvantheory.com “Gemini is thrilled that we have many new partners in our effort this year,” said Gemini Deputy Director Nancy Levenson. “It is indeed a sign that we are having an impact when our community steps up to participate actively in our work.” The University of La Serena’s Deputy ...

21 October 2015: The nearest spiral galaxy with a nuclear starburst (greatly enhanced star formation near a galaxy’s center) is also the site of a long-standing astronomical mystery. Designated NGC 253, or by amateurs as the Silver Dollar Galaxy, the core of this galaxy is so shrouded by gas and dust that the exact location of its core has remained unresolved for years. Now, thanks to research by Guillermo Günthardt of the National University of Cordoba (Argentina), Gemini South infrared data appear to have unambiguously pinpointed the galaxy’s core. In the process, evidence for a lowish-mass, but rapidly growing, black hole as the starburst’s trigger is painting a new picture of this enigmatic galaxy (Figure 1). NGC 253 is the nearest spiral galaxy with a nuclear starburst. The nuclear region is so veiled by large amounts of dust associated to the star formation process that it has been unclear, until now, where this ...

30 September 2015: Expecting to resolve stars deep into the crowded field of a globular cluster is a tall order for ground-based telescopes. However, Paolo Turri (University of Victoria, Canada) and colleagues have used the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) with the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI) to do just that. Their data present the most accurate and deepest near-infrared photometry from the ground of a crowded field. It also illustrates the remarkable potential of MCAO-equipped Extremely Large Telescopes of the future. Their Ks measurements of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 1851 are combined with HST photometry and the resulting color-magnitude diagram demonstrates that the ground-based data is of an unprecedented depth and precision for crowded field observations. The delivered image quality approaches Gemini’s diffraction limit, with an average measured full-width at half-maximum (FHWM) of 0.09 arcsecond. Abstract: The Extremely Large Telescopes currently under construction have a collecting area that is ...

30 September 2015: Classify galaxies and join the quest to unravel the history of galaxy formation! The public DECaLS survey capitalizes on the wide-field imaging capability of DECam at CTIO and is led by David Schlegel (LBNL) and Arjun Dey (NOAO).

1 September 2015: The September 2015 NOAO Newsletter is online and ready to download.On the Cover An image from the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS), a public survey mapping 6700 square degrees, approximately one-sixth of the sky, using the Blanco 4-m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The image shows the interacting galaxy system UGC 12589 at a distance of 470 million light-years. The distorted morphologies and diffuse light result from the gravitational interaction between the galaxies.

27 August 2015: Eight new dwarf galaxy “neighbors” of the Milky Way discovered in recent data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). More than 20 such companions to our galaxy have been discovered this year, of which 17 were found in DES data. Dwarf satellite galaxies may provide valuable clues to the nature of dark matter and how galaxies like the Milky Way formed. The Dark Energy Survey is being carried out on the 4-m Blanco telescope at CTIO.

21 August 2015: Discovered in dwarf galaxy RGG118, the petite black hole, only 50,000 times the mass of the sun, is the smallest supermassive black hole to date. NOAO Hubble Fellow Amy Reines is a coauthor on the study.

23 July 2015: An international team of astronomers from Canada and the United States recently discovered 42 new brown dwarfs using data from the near-infrared imager and spectrograph Flamingos-2 at Gemini South and other telescopes in Chile and Hawai’i. The team used Flamingos-2’s near-infrared spectroscopic capabilities to study a total of 101 targets from 2013 to 2015. The work, led by Jonathan Gagne, from the University of Montreal, confirmed signs of low-gravity for 42 of the objects with estimated masses between 8 to 75 times that of Jupiter. Further, the team identified previously unrecognized signs of low gravity for 24 known brown dwarfs. This kind of object has an important role in explaining part of the process of star formation, as current stellar formation models include the production of a non-negligible fraction of free-floating planets. Additionally, the research shows that some objects, that were thought to be brown dwarfs, were indeed much less ...

1 July 2015: The 6th International Earth and Sky Photo Contest, co-hosted by NOAO and the founding institution “The World at Night”, highlights the natural beauty of the night sky and its growing battle with light pollution. The 10 winners of the 2015 contest, selected from among a 1000 entries taken in 54 countries, are shown in the contest video. The panel of judges included NOAO astronomer Connie Walker. This entry, “Above and Underneath” by Evgeny Trisko, was photographed in Pyatigorsk, in the Stavropol region of Russia. It is the fifth place winner from the “Against the Lights” category, which emphasizes the growing issue of light pollution and how it affects our view of the night sky. The panoramic view shows clouds illuminated by towns and villages hidden beneath the inversion layer.

5 June 2015: The public DECam Legacy Survey (DECaLS) is delivering a new dataset that will allow astronomers to probe the structure of the Milky Way, the nature of dark energy, and many other topics in astrophysics. The survey leads David Schlegel (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Arjun Dey (NOAO) recently announced the first data release from the survey. The data and catalogs can be accessed at legacysurvey.org. Dive into survey images and explore the Universe using the survey’s Sky Viewer. Future releases are anticipated at 6 month intervals. The survey capitalizes on the wide-field imaging capability of DECam at CTIO.

2 June 2015: This stunning image of the Milky Way arching over CTIO was taken from the eastern edge of the observatory, looking West (and South and North). The panorama shows the central and brightest part of the Milky Way. The bright objects on the left are the two Magellanic Clouds; the Andromeda Galaxy is visible on the right, just above the horizon. The green and red stripes in the sky are from airglow; the orange domes are from light pollution. The panorama is a composite of 9 images, taken on the night of July 31, 2014, with a Canon 6d and a Samyang 24mm lens.

27 May 2015: Using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) at the Gemini South telescope in Chile, astronomers have discovered a young, emerging planetary system that shares remarkable similarities to our own Solar System in its infancy. GPI images reveal the disk as a bright ring of dust around a star only slightly more massive than the Sun. It is located about 360 light-years away, in a region similar to that in which the Sun was formed. The disk is not perfectly centered on the star, likely sculpted by one or more Solar System-like planets. Even more remarkable, the disk is almost exactly the same distance from its host star as, and may have a composition similar to, our Solar System’s Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a region of micron-sized dust to moon-sized objects like Pluto left over from the formation of our Solar System more than 4 billion years ago. “It’s like ...