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KECK CONFIRMS TRANSIT PLANET
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (August 24th, 2004) Fifteen years ago, the largest telescopes in the world had yet to locate a planet orbiting another star. Today telescopes no larger than those available in department stores are proving capable of spotting previously unknown worlds. A newfound planet detected by a small, 4-inch-diameter telescope demonstrates that we are […]
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SHARPEST IMAGE EVER OBTAINED OF A CIRCUMSTELLAR DISK REVEALS SIGNS OF YOUNG PLANETS
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (August 12th, 2004) The sharpest image ever taken of a dust disk around another star has revealed structures in the disk which are signs of unseen planets. Dr. Michael Liu, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, has acquired high resolution images of the nearby star AU Microscopii (AU […]
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NASA ISSUES DRAFT EIS
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (August 1st, 2004) ACTION: Notice of availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Outrigger Telescopes Project. SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), the Council on Environmental Quality Regulations for Implementing the Procedural Provisions of NEPA (40 CFR […]
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HAWAII STUDENTS STAND ON SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
KAMUELA, Hawaii (June 30th, 2004) In a science lab deep in a basement on the University of Hawaii-Hilo campus, 17 college students cluster around two slide projectors at the front of a darkened classroom-turned-laboratory. As members of the inaugural class of the Big Island Akamai Observatory Short Course, they are presenting their discoveries and conclusions […]
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SCIENTIST FROM UH HELPS NASA GET PHOTOS OF ‘WILD 2’
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (April 6th, 2004) A University of Hawaii astronomer’s observations with the Keck telescope on Mauna Kea enabled the NASA spacecraft Stardust to get closer to comet Wild 2 than it planned in a Jan. 2 flyby. As a result, images of the comet are among the best ever recorded, astronomers said. The […]
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HUBBLE AND KECK TEAM UP TO FIND FARTHEST KNOWN GALAXY
KAMUELA, Hawaii (February 15th, 2004) A team of astronomers may have discovered the most distant galaxy in the universe. Located an estimated 13 billion light-years away, the object is being viewed at a time only 750 million years after the big bang, when the universe was barely 5 percent of its current age. The primeval […]
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BIGGEST, BRIGHTEST, HOTTEST STAR-FORMING REGION FOUND
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (October 30th, 2003) A serendipitous discovery has given astronomers, for the first time, the ability to study an enormous star-forming region from the very early days of the Universe, when it was less than 2 billion years old, or about 15 percent its current age. The discovery was made possible by an […]
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LASER GUIDE STAR AVAILABLE FOR ADAPTIVE OPTICS
KAMUELA, Hawaii (October 7th, 2003) A major milestone in astronomical history took place last month at the W.M. Keck Observatory when scientists, for the first time, used a laser to create an artificial guide star on the Keck II 10-meter telescope to correct the blurring of a star with adaptive optics (AO). Laser guide stars […]
Read More >KECK INTERFEROMETER BREAKS GALACTIC BARRIER
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (October 1st, 2003) A galaxy far beyond our own Milky Way, with a monstrous, churning black hole in its center, has been observed by two optical telescopes working in unison as an interferometer. These observations reveal the finest level of detail in a galaxy ever produced at infrared wavelengths. Two linked telescopes […]
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UCLA OBTAINS MOLECULAR FINGERPRINTS FOR CELESTIAL BROWN DWARFS
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (September 3rd, 2003) Elusive brown dwarfs, the missing link between gas giant planets like Jupiter and small, low-mass stars, have now been “fingerprinted”by UCLA astronomy professor Ian S. McLean and colleagues, using the Keck II Telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. McLean and his research team will publish the most […]
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