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Keck Observatory Donor Salon Talk: A New Tool to Map Entire Galaxies
Staff Astronomer Dr. Rosalie McGurk W. M. Keck Observatory All the popular images of galaxies, while beautiful, do not provide adequate information for astronomers to measure the galaxies’ inherent properties, like the dynamics and composition of their stars and gases. Instead, astronomers study the universe by doing spectroscopy, or spreading light into its component wavelengths/colors. […]
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Strange New Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient has Astronomers in Awe
Maunakea, Hawai‘i – Astronomers are baffled by a series of strange, extremely bright repetitive flares that lasted for months – the first phenomenon of its kind ever seen. This mysterious and rare event is consistent with a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT). Typically, LFBOTs explode once and fade within a few days. However, this […]
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Swinburne and W. M. Keck Observatory Form Historic Scientific Partnership to Unlock New Era of Space Discovery for Australia and the U.S.
Swinburne University of Technology has become the first organization outside of the United States to join the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaiʻi as a scientific partner. The new scientific partnership builds on Swinburne’s 15-year association with the Observatory through a strategic agreement with Caltech under which Swinburne researchers have been able to demonstrate outstanding […]
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Uranus Aurora Discovery Offers Clues to Habitable Icy Worlds
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – The presence of an infrared aurora on the cold, outer planet of Uranus has been confirmed for the first time by University of Leicester astronomers. The discovery could shed light on the mysteries behind the magnetic fields of the planets of our solar system, and even on whether distant worlds might support life. Using […]
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Record-breaking Fast Radio Burst is Most Distant Ever Detected
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Scientists have discovered an eight-billion-year-old fast radio burst (FRB) – the most ancient and distant located to date. A global team that includes UC Santa Cruz Professor of Astronomy J. Xavier Prochaska, an expert in spectroscopy, and was led by Macquarie University’s Stuart Ryder and Swinburne University of Technology’s Associate Professor Ryan […]
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Astronomy Talk: Exploring the Pluto System and Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth with NASAʻs New Horizons
Guest Speaker Alan Stern Principal Investigator NASA New Horizons Mission, Southwest Research Institute NASA’s New Horizons is the first spacecraft to successfully explore the Pluto System and a Kuiper Belt Object named Arrokoth, making history as the farthest flyby ever performed in our solar system. Learn more about the mission, the scientific payload it carries, […]
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Cosmic Web Lights Up in the Darkness of Space
Keck Cosmic Web Imager Offers Best Glimpse Yet of the Filamentous Network That Connects Galaxies Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – Like rivers feeding oceans, streams of gas nourish galaxies throughout the cosmos. But these streams, which make up a part of the so-called cosmic web, are very faint and hard to see. While astronomers have known about […]
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NASA Selects Groups to Guide ‘Habitable Worlds Observatory’ Activities, Invites Community Participation
NASA has selected 56 individuals to participate in groups that will guide maturation activities for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). HWO is a concept for a NASA flagship mission, as recommended by the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey, that would pursue a breadth of astrophysics goals, including searching for and characterizing potentially habitable planets beyond our […]
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Clouds On Neptune Perform a Surprise Disappearing Act
Maunakea, Hawaiʻi – For the first time in nearly three decades of observations, clouds seen on Neptune have all but vanished. Images from 1994 to 2022 of the big blue planet captured from Maunakea on Hawaiʻi Island through the lens of W. M. Keck Observatory, along with views from space via NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope […]
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Astronomy Talk: Exploring the Pluto System and Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth with NASA’s New Horizons
Guest Speaker Alan Stern Principal Investigator NASA New Horizons Mission, Southwest Research Institute NASA’s New Horizons is the first spacecraft to successfully explore the Pluto System and a Kuiper Belt Object named Arrokoth, making history as the farthest flyby ever performed in our solar system. Learn more about the mission, the scientific payload it carries, […]
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