News
News
Zooming in on the Origins of Fast Radio Bursts
Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers have peered into the home galaxies of fast radio bursts, ruling out supermassive black holes as a cause and bringing us a step closer to understanding the origins of these mysterious signals from outer space. Fast radio bursts – the hottest topic in astronomy right now – were first detected in […]
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Astronomers Find Cosmic Golden Needle Buried for Two Decades; Discovery Sheds New Light on Famous Einstein Ring
Social Distance Science Made Possible with Public W. M. Keck Observatory and NASA Archive Data Maunakea, Hawaii – Determined to find a needle in a cosmic haystack, a pair of astronomers time traveled through archives of old data from W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii and old X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray […]
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The ‘Cow’ Mystery Strikes Back: Two More Rare, Explosive Events Captured
Discoveries Reveal New Class of Fast Blue Optical Transient Events Maunakea, Hawaii – The ‘Cow’ is not alone; with the help of W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered two more like it – the ‘Koala’ and a similar mysterious bright object called CSS161010. This trio of fast blue optical transients […]
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Astronomers See ‘Cosmic Ring of Fire,’ 11 Billion Years Ago
Unusual Galaxy Prompts Researchers to Rethink How Structures in the Universe Form Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers have captured an image of a super rare type of galaxy – described as a “cosmic ring of fire” – as it existed 11 billion years ago. The galaxy, which has roughly the mass of the Milky Way, is […]
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Astronomers Confirm Existence of Two Giant Newborn Planets in PDS 70 System
New Direct Images Captured with W. M. Keck Observatory’s Upgraded Adaptive Optics System Lead to First Independent Confirmation of PDS 70 Protoplanets Maunakea, Hawaii – New evidence shows the first-ever pictures capturing the birth of a pair of planets orbiting the star PDS 70 are in fact authentic. Using a new infrared pyramid wavefront sensor […]
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Hawaii Astronomers Help Decipher Rhythm Among Young Stars
Maunakea, Hawaii – By “listening” to the “beating hearts” of stars, an international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Hawai’i Institute for Astronomy (UH IfA), detected a rhythm of life for a class of stellar objects that puzzled scientists until now. The findings are an important contribution to the overall understanding of […]
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Director’s Message: COVID-19
UPDATE: MAY 8, 2020 Aloha, Yesterday marked the first day astronomical observatories in Hawaii received the official go-ahead to reopen, a directive issued as part of the Governor’s new emergency proclamation easing certain restrictions on the local economy. This “safer-at-home” order includes observatories in the state’s list of low-risk businesses and non-profits that are permitted […]
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Newly Discovered Exoplanet Dethrones Former King of Kepler-88 Planetary System
Hawaii Astronomer Discovers Massive Extrasolar Planet with Maunakea Telescope Maunakea, Hawaii – Our solar system has a king. The planet Jupiter, named for the most powerful god in the Greek pantheon, has bossed around the other planets through its gravitational influence. With twice the mass of Saturn, and 300 times that of Earth, Jupiter’s slightest […]
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Astronomers Catch Rare Eclipse of a Double Brown Dwarf System
Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers working on “first light” data from a newly commissioned telescope in Chile made a chance discovery that led to the identification of a rare eclipse of two brown dwarfs. The result, which includes data taken from W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii to help confirm the discovery, published today […]
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Distant Giant Planets Form Differently Than ‘Failed Stars’
Maunakea, Hawaii – A team of astronomers led by Brendan Bowler of The University of Texas at Austin has probed the formation process of giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs, a class of objects that are more massive than giant planets, but not massive enough to ignite nuclear fusion in their cores to shine like true […]
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