News
Science News
KECK AND SPITZER FIND FIRST STARS IN DISTANT GALAXIES
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (April 2nd, 2005) Astronomers have used the Keck, Spitzer and Hubble telescopes to catch the light coming from the first stars to form in some of the most distant galaxies yet seen. Dr. Andrew Bunker of the University of Exeter announced the results show the formation of the first galaxies may have […]
Read More >
KECK IMAGES OF TITAN BEFORE THIRD CASSINI FLY-BY
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (February 16th, 2005) Images of Titan taken February 15, 2005 just 23 minutes before the Cassini spacecraft’s third flyby of the moon. In this near-infrared color composite image taken with the Keck II telescope and adaptive optics system, Titan’s surface appears red, while haze layers at progressively higher altitudes in the atmosphere […]
Read More >
SATURN’S STRANGE HOT SPOT
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (February 4th, 2005) Astronomers using the Keck I telescope in Hawaii are learning much more about a strange, thermal “hot spot” on Saturn that is located at the tip of the planet’s south pole. In what the team is calling the sharpest thermal views of Saturn ever taken from the ground, the […]
Read More >
HUYGENS PROBE ARRIVES AT TITAN
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (January 14th, 2005) The Huygens probe impacted Titan’s atmosphere at 09:06 GMT Friday morning, with an expected landing on Titan’s mysterious surface three hours later. This near-infrared image shows Titan at the moment Huygens reached its target. “Although no disturbances in Titan’s atmosphere were detected, the observations provide the best images that […]
Read More >
DIVINING THE SOURCE OF THE WATER-FOUNTAIN NEBULA
SAN DIEGO, California (January 13th, 2005) New, very high-resolution (false-color) images of a dying star IRAS16342-3814 (hereafter the Water-Fountain Nebula) taken with the Keck II Telescope equipped with adaptive optics, at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, are helping astronomers understand the extraordinary deaths of ordinary Sun-like stars. These results are being […]
Read More >
KECK LASER CAPTURES NEW VIEW OF DISTANT COLLIDING GALAXIES
SAN DIEGO, California (January 12th, 2005) For the first time, astronomers have been able to combine the deepest optical images of the universe, obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope, with equally sharp images in the near-infrared part of the spectrum using a sophisticated new laser guide star system for adaptive optics at the W. M. […]
Read More >
NEW CLOUDS ADD TO TITAN’S MYSTERY
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (December 15th, 2004) Using adaptive optics on the Keck II and Gemini North telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawai’i, a U.S. team has discovered a new phenomenon in the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Unlike previous observations showing storms at the south pole, these new images reveal atmospheric disturbances at Titan’s temperate […]
Read More >
POLARIZED SUNGLASSES LET ASTRONOMERS TAKE CLOSER LOOK AT BLACK HOLES
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (November 11th, 2004) An international team led by an Edinburgh astronomer have discovered that by studying polarised light from black holes they can focus much more closely on what exactly is going on around them. The work is published this week in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on November […]
Read More >
KECK PICTURES OF URANUS SHOW BEST VIEW FROM THE GROUND
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (November 10th, 2004) Observations of Uranus conducted at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii are surprising astronomers with the level of detail they can see from the ground. Two separate teams of astronomers, one from Berkeley/SSI and one from Wisconsin, used advances in Keck adaptive optics (AO) to help make major […]
Read More >
MYSTERY OBJECT NEITHER STAR NOR BROWN DWARF
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (October 5th, 2004) Astronomers using the Keck II and Gemini North telescopes on Mauna Kea have peered inside a violent binary star system to find that one of the interacting stars has lost so much mass to its partner that it has regressed to a strange, inert body resembling no known star […]
Read More >
