Announcements

15 September 2005: Fulfilling one of its central operational goals in a big way, the SOuthern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) on Cerro Pachón in Chile made the first observations of the glowing remains of the most distant explosion ever seen in the Universe. The international telescope then provided the first accurate measurement of just how incredibly far away this explosion appears to be.

6 September 2005: A unique wide-field view of the Orion Nebula in the mid-infrared, from Gemini South, is featured on the cover of the September 2005 NOAO/NSO Newsletter. This image reveals new details about the preferred locations and inferred lifespans of newborn planetary systems in the nebula. Other topics in the Newsletter include submissions to the NSF Senior Review, new partnership opportunities, and semester 2006A proposal information.

30 August 2005: This image of galaxy cluster Abell 3266 was taken using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) instrument on the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón, Chile, in July 2005. The image was obtained by the NOAO Fundamental Plane Survey team as part of follow-up observations in support of their spectroscopic data from Kitt Peak National Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.

11 August 2005: Starlight illuminates wispy clouds of dust above the star Antares in this image mosaic from the Kitt Peak Advanced Observing Program. Globular cluster M4 can be seen to the right of the bright star.

27 July 2005: High school teachers making observations with the research telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory as part of the Teacher Leaders in Research Based Science Education (TLRBSE) workshop obtained some of the earliest multicolor imaging and spectra of a newly exploded massive star in a nearby galaxy.

18 July 2005: This image shows a deep Hydrogen-alpha image of the brightest X-ray source in the sky, NGC 1275, taken by the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ. The filaments emanating from this galaxy likely are the result of an interaction between the black hole in the center of the galaxy and the intracluster medium surrounding it.

7 July 2005: On the night of the Deep Impact event, many hundreds of images were taken of comet Tempel 1 at the Kitt Peak Visitor Center Observatory. In the almost two hours of time that elapsed during that imaging, the comet's position changed against the background stars. When all of the images of this motion are added together, the resulting streak of light is shown in the image above. Starting from the left, the comet was its natural brightness. The streak brightens significantly in the middle, immediately after impact of the probe! A full size version of the above image and more are available on our Deep Impact page.

7 July 2005: The Gemini community has embarked on a broad, multi-faceted search for planets around other stars. The prospect of answering the age-old question of how common solar systems like our own are in the universe captured the imaginations of astronomers who attended the June 2003 Aspen meeting, where new capabilities for the Gemini telescopes were imagined. In preparation for the next generation of planet-finding instruments, Gemini Observatory is actively looking for sub-stellar mass companions using the existing Adaptive Optics (AO) system Altair on Gemini North, and building the specialized near-infrared coronagraph (NICI) with its own AO system for Gemini South. Proposing for the NICI Planet Search Campaign We request that astronomers interested in participating in the NICI Planet Search Campaign send a short letter of interest to Joe Jensen, including the following details: name and institution; names and affiliations of other possible team members with whom you plan to or would …

5 July 2005: The blinking image above are two images of Tempel 1 about 20 minutes before and after the Deep Impact probe impacted the comet. These images of were taken using the Kitt Peak Visitor Center’s 20in Ritchey-Chretien telescope (RCOS) and an SBIG ST10XME CCD camera. A full size version of the above animation as well as a time-lapse animation are available on our Deep Impact page.

2 July 2005: The Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea successfully captured the dramatic fireworks display produced by the collision of NASA's Deep Impact probe with Comet 9P/Tempel 1. Researchers in two control rooms on Hawaii’s Big Island (on Mauna Kea and in Hilo) were able to keep enough composure amid an almost giddy excitement to perform a preliminary analysis of the data. They concluded from the mid-infrared spectroscopic observations that there was strong evidence for silicates or rocky material exposed by the impact. Little doubt remains that the unprecedented quality of the Gemini data will keep astronomers busy for years. “The properties of the mid-infrared light were completely transformed after impact,” said David Harker of the University of San Diego, co-investigator for the research team. “In addition to brightening by a factor of about 4, the characteristics of the mid-infrared light was like a chameleon and within five minutes of the collision …

1 July 2005: How can you watch the planned first-of-its-kind collision between a comet and a spacecraft from Earth this weekend, even if your night skies don’t allow a direct view? The Visitor Center at Kitt Peak National Observatory plans to offer a live feed of the encounter between NASA’s Deep Impact mission and Comet Tempel 1 starting this Sunday night (local time), running about an hour before the planned 10:52 p.m. PDT impact though about 45 minutes afterward. The feed will consist of still images of the distant comet, and a frequently updated movie assembled from the individual frames, similar to the animation above (imaged on the night of June 14-15, 2005).

28 June 2005: Imaging by Gemini North's Michelle mid-infrared imager/spectrograph has allowed an international team of researchers to isolate and characterize the dusty remains of the supernova remnant SN 2002hh some 20 million light-years away. Led by UK astronomer Michael Barlow (University College London), the team imaged SN 2002hh in the relatively nearby galaxy NGC 6946 to study the dust expelled (and/or created) during the supernova explosion. Earlier Spitzer Space Telescope observations identified the dust excess from the supernova as part of the Survey for Evolution of Emission from Dust in Supernovae (SEEDS) project using Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxy Survey (SINGS) Legacy data set. However, due to a lack of spatial resolution, these observations failed to confirm the identity of Source 1 (see Figure 1) as the supernova. The new Gemini results provided an approximately ten-fold increase in resolution at 11.2 and 18.5 microns and were able to clearly isolate the supernova source …

16 June 2005: This image of a faint optical remnant of Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) 050607 was obtained by James Rhoads (Space Telescope Science Institute) using the Mayall 4-meter telescope on Kitt Peak in the early morning hours of June 7, 2005. Rhoads suspended his science program and got “on source” on the GRB just 10 minutes after an alert was issued on the burst being detected by NASA’s Swift satellite.

15 June 2005: It's Tough Being Small(At Least in the Trapezium Region...) The observed distribution of stars as a function of mass has a well-established behavior known as the initial mass function (IMF). For normal stars the IMF says that the quantity of more massive stars is lower than the number of less massive counterparts. In other words, smaller stars are more numerous than bigger ones. How does the IMF behave at lower masses, e.g. subsolar masses or for brown dwarfs, or even planetary size bodies? Stars in the Orion Trapezium region are bombarded by intense ultraviolet radiation. Does such a hostile environment influence the IMF? We do not yet know the answers to these questions. To help provide answers, Gemini South Flamingos-I observations of the outer Trapezium region by Lucas et al. have probed the region to very faint levels in the infrared. These observations provide partial but very instructive clues. Lucas …

3 June 2005: The cover of the June, 2005 NOAO/NSO Newsletter features this false color image of the dynamic solar chromosphere, taken on 18 January 2005. Daily images like this one, made with the new SOLIS vector spectromagnetograph, have been obtained with various instruments on Kitt Peak for 31 years. The June Newsletter contains articles on a new roadmap for optical-infrared astronomy, related partnership opportunities at NOAO, and recent Gemini science instrument productivity.

1 June 2005: Dust Growth and Planet Formation Silicates found in the general interstellar medium or molecular clouds are exclusively amorphous, non-crystalline dust grains. However, both amorphous and crystalline dust grains are observed in more evolved stellar and planetary systems including those that, while still young, are in their later stages of formation. Thus, crystalline dust is present near T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be stars, which are only a million or so years old, debris disks such as Beta Pic, which is 15-20 million years old, and our solar system, which is billions of years old (e.g., Comet C/1996 Q1). During the early formation and evolution of the dust in these systems, crystalline silicates form by a process that is still a mystery. The earlier we can look into the process of stellar evolution the better we can understand how the dust surrounding a young star is processed. Spectroscopy in the mid-infrared provides …

18 May 2005: Curtains of gas and dust open dramatically to reveal the inner area of this starforming region. The unceremoniously named bright star SAO 152320 shines with intense light in the center of this field. Clouds of gas glow strongly and dust shrinks quickly under its radiative prowess. This vista lies some 4,000 light years away toward the constellation Monoceros. This is a portion of a much larger nebula called Gum 1.

6 May 2005: The draft report of the O/IR Long Range Planning Committee is available for community review and input until May 15. See the O/IR Long Range Planning Committee web page for more information and to download a draft report.

28 April 2005: A joint Chile-United Kingdom team led by Simon Casassus (University of Chile) has used the NOAO-built Phoenix near-infrared spectrometer on Gemini South to obtain high-resolution spectra (R~75,000) of the [Al VI] 3.66-micron line region in the planetary nebula NGC 6302 (the Bug Nebula). By modeling the multi-component structure of the line, the team has been able to derive values for the electric quadrupole constant in the [Al VI] transition and measure a reliable isotopic ratio for aluminum. This is the first time such a constant in an atomic transition has been measured in any astrophysical object. The isotopic ratio of Aluminum (Al-26/Al-27) is of astrophysical interest because it is a signpost of recent nucleosynthesis. Al-27 is the stable isotope, while Al-26 is radioactive – with a half-life of 720,000 years. Because the ratio is poorly established, the origin of Al-26 is currently assigned to a range of astrophysical processes ranging …

16 April 2005: These images show two views of the active galaxy Centaurus A—in visible light from Cerro Tololo and in infrared light from two instruments aboard the NASA-JPL Spitzer Space Telescope. For more details, see the Image Gallery page.