News
News
A Strange, Solitary Life for Young Stars at the Milky Way’s Center
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Stars living closest to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way have no stellar companions, a new study finds. Using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island, Devin Chu of Hilo, an astronomer with the UCLA Galactic Center Orbits Initiative, led a 10-year survey that found these […]
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Star Eats Planet, Brightens Dramatically
For the first time, astronomers have caught a star in the act of swallowing a planet whole.
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CARA Board Announces W. M. Keck Observatory Leadership Change
Director Hilton Lewis to Step Down Rich Matsuda to Serve as Interim Director UC’s Bruce Macintosh and Caltech’s Lynne Hillenbrand to Co-chair Search Committee for New Director Kamuela, Hawaiʻi, April 20, 2023 – The Board of Directors for the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CARA) today announced W. M. Keck Observatory Director Hilton Lewis […]
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New Exoplanet-Hunting Technique Leads to Successful Direct Image of a Super-Jupiter
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Astronomers have developed a new method for finding exoplanets whose portraits can be taken from Earth using large ground-based telescopes, one that has proven successful after this technique resulted in a direct image of a Jupiter-like gas giant located 132.8 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The planet, called HIP 99770 b, […]
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First Ever 3D Map of Messier 87 Galaxy Assembled
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – A UC Berkeley-led team of astronomers has for the first time measured the three-dimensional shape of Messier 87 (M87), one of the biggest and closest elliptical galaxies to us. New data from W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi show M87 isn’t perfectly symmetrical after all, but rather triaxial – similar […]
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A Strange Streak of Young Stars is Evidence of a Runaway Supermassive Black Hole, Study Finds
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Astronomers have spotted a candidate supermassive black hole running away from its home galaxy, hurtling through space at a velocity of about 4 million miles per hour for the past 39 million years. A Yale University-led team using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi discovered […]
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A Dual Quasar Shines Light on Two Supermassive Black Holes on a Collision Course Inside a Galaxy Merger
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Astronomers have made a rare discovery in the early universe involving two actively feeding supermassive black holes – or quasars – just 10,000 light-years apart from each other, that are on the verge of a colossal collision. Using a suite of space- and ground-based telescopes, including two Maunakea Observatories in Hawaiʻi – […]
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The First Bubble in the Intergalactic Stew
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Astrophysicists using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi have discovered a galaxy protocluster in the early universe surrounded by gas that is surprisingly hot. This scorching gas hugs a region that consists of a giant collection of galaxies called COSTCO-I. Observed when the universe was 11 billion years younger, COSTCO-I […]
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Ultracool Dwarf Binary Stars Break Records
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Northwestern University and the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) astrophysicists using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island have discovered the tightest ultracool dwarf binary system ever observed. The two stars are so close that it takes them less than one Earth day to revolve around each other; […]
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The Swansong of a Cloud Approaching the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Two decades of monitoring from W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi reveals a peculiar cloud being pulled apart as it accelerates toward the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Dubbed X7, astronomers from the UCLA Galactic Center Orbits Initiative (GCOI) and Keck Observatory have been […]
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