http://keckobservatory.org/index.php en ayeager@keck.hawaii.edu Copyright 2010 2010-03-09T08:00:25+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/keck_telescope_confirms_smallest_known_star_duo/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/keck_telescope_confirms_smallest_known_star_duo/#When:08:00:25Z Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory have identified the smallest known binary system to date. The system, called HM Cancri, consists of two dead stars that revolve around each other in 5.4 minutes, by far the shortest known orbital period of any pair of stars. The team, led by Gijs Roelofs of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics, used the 10-meter Keck I telescope with its Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph to study the velocity changes in the spectral lines in the light of HM Cancri. They observed that as the stars orbited each other, the system’s spectral lines shifted… 2010-03-09T08:00:25+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/new_tidal_streams_found_in_andromeda_reveal_history_of_galactic_mergers/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/new_tidal_streams_found_in_andromeda_reveal_history_of_galactic_mergers/#When:18:48:31Z WASHINGTON D.C.—The Andromeda galaxy has two previously unknown tidal streams, according to data recently taken at the W. M. Keck Observatory and Subaru Telescope. The coherent flows of stars are remnants of dwarf galaxies that Andromeda has been consuming over the last one to two billion years. The Andromeda galaxy is a unique test bed for studying the formation and evolution of a large galaxy, said Puragra Guhathakurta, of the University of California, Santa Cruz. He leads the Spectroscopic and Photometric Landscape of Andromeda’s Stellar Halo (SPLASH), an international collaboration conducting a large survey of red giant stars in Andromeda.… 2010-01-07T18:48:31+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/second_smallest_exoplanet_to_date_discovered_at_keck/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/second_smallest_exoplanet_to_date_discovered_at_keck/#When:13:11:12Z WASHINGTON D.C.— Planet hunters using Keck Observatory have detected an extrasolar planet that is only four times the mass of Earth. The planet is the second smallest exoplanet ever discovered and adds to astronomers’ growing cadre of low mass planets called super-Earths. “This is quite a remarkable discovery,” said astronomer Andrew Howard of the University of California at Berkeley, or UCB. “It shows that we can push down and find smaller and smaller planets.” He announced the discovery at the 215th American Astronomical Society meeting held Jan. 4-7, 2010 in Washington D.C. Dubbed HD156668b, the planet orbits its parent… 2010-01-07T13:11:12+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/waltzing_black_holes_take_center_stage_at_astronomy_meeting/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/waltzing_black_holes_take_center_stage_at_astronomy_meeting/#When:14:46:36Z WASHINGTON D.C.—Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory have discovered 33 pairs of black holes in distant galaxies. The new results verify that these waltzing black holes are more common than previously observed. Nearly every galaxy has a central, supermassive black hole, typically with a mass of a million to a billion times the mass of the Sun. Galaxies also commonly collide and merge to form new, more massive galaxies. Astronomers therefore expect that many “waltzing” supermassive black holes exist in the Universe. The new results provide some confirmation of this expectation, said Julia Comerford of the… 2010-01-04T14:46:36+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/keck_telescopes_take_deeper_look_at_planetary_nurseries/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/keck_telescopes_take_deeper_look_at_planetary_nurseries/#When:14:00:47Z MAUNA KEA, HI—Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory have peered far into a young planetary system, giving an unprecedented view of dust and gas that might eventually form worlds similar to Jupiter, Venus or even Earth. “Because the gas, dust and debris that orbit young stars provide the raw materials for planets, probing the inner regions of those stars lets us learn about how Earth-like planets form,” said astronomer Sam Ragland of Keck Observatory. He and his collaborators recently measured the properties of a young planetary system at distances closer to the star than Venus is to the… 2009-12-23T14:00:47+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/first_super-earths_discovered_around_sun-like_stars/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/first_super-earths_discovered_around_sun-like_stars/#When:20:59:57Z MAUNA KEA, HI—Planet hunters using the W. M. Keck Observatory have identified at least six low-mass planets around two nearby, Sun-like stars. Two of the planets are five and 7.5 times the mass of Earth. These “super-Earths” are the first low mass planets found orbiting stars similar to the Sun. The latest discoveries probe a new class of planets that are somewhat more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune, which suggests that low mass planets are quite common around nearby stars, said expert planet hunter Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). … 2009-12-14T20:59:57+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/keck_observatorys_interferometer_takes_closer_look_at_supermassive_bh/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/keck_observatorys_interferometer_takes_closer_look_at_supermassive_bh/#When:19:00:23Z MAUNA KEA, HI—Astronomers at the W. M. Keck Observatory are using a technique called interferometry to provide new information about central black hole systems in galaxies. Makoto Kishimoto, of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, and an international team of collaborators successfully observed four active galactic nuclei systems with the Keck Interferometer in May 2009. For the first time, the team resolved a QSO (or quasi-stellar object), an energetic galaxy with an active galactic nucleus that lies at a distance of more than a billion light years from Earth. Being able to observe the… 2009-12-08T19:00:23+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/first_of_its_kind_superbright_supernova/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/first_of_its_kind_superbright_supernova/#When:18:28:17Z Berkeley, Calif. – A discovery of an extraordinarily bright, extraordinarily long-lasting supernova named SN 2007bi turns out to be the first known example of the earliest types of stars that populated the Universe. The unusually luminous supernova could provide astronomers with clues about the earliest stars in the cosmos and could be the first of many similar events soon to be discovered. SN 2007bi was found in 2007 by the Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory) based at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Over the next 18 months, observations of the exploding star were made by an international… 2009-12-02T18:28:17+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/a_galactic_fossil_in_the_core_of_the_milky_way/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/a_galactic_fossil_in_the_core_of_the_milky_way/#When:20:43:44Z KAMUELA, HI—Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope have identified two distinct groups of stars within the Milky Way Galaxy’s globular cluster Terzan 5. The two stellar populations have different ages and iron abundances, which are rare features among globular clusters, suggesting that Terzan 5 could be a surviving remnant of pre-existing galaxy. Orbiting the Milky Way’s Galactic Center, Terzan 5 is among the brightest star clusters and would easily be seen through binoculars were it not for the veil of dust between the Earth and this cluster.  It was thought to… 2009-11-25T20:43:44+00:00 http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/rapid_supernova_could_be_new_class_of_exploding_star/ http://keckobservatory.org/index.php/news/rapid_supernova_could_be_new_class_of_exploding_star/#When:03:51:38Z BERKELEY, CA—An unusual supernova rediscovered in seven-year-old data taken at the W. M. Keck Observatory and Lick Observatory may be the first example of a new type of exploding star, possibly in a binary star system where helium flows from one white dwarf onto another and detonates in a thermonuclear explosion. In a paper first published online Nov. 5 in Science Express, astronomer Dovi Poznanski, of the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and his colleagues describe supernovae SN 2002bj and review the data that suggest it is a new type of stellar explosion. The… 2009-11-10T03:51:38+00:00