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December 27, 2001The Incredible Expanding Crab | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : December 13, 2001
The Passing of Astronomer Robert Schommer | Astronomer Robert A. Schommer, one of the leading members of the scientific staff at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and the director of the U.S. Gemini Program, died in Chile on December 12. NOAO Press Release Please also see the following web pages celebrating Bob's life:
: : : : : : December 11, 2001Let's Talk Stars! | On December 11, 2001, NOAO Education Officer Suzanne Jacoby was a guest on David Levy's radio show, "Let's Talk Stars." Listen in on the archive. [Requires RealPlayer] : : : : : : December 10, 2001Globular Cluster M15 | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : December 6, 2001Comet Linear (WM1) Brightens | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : December 4, 2001AE Aurigae: The Flaming Star | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : October 29, 2001
$10 Million NSF Grant to Fund "National Virtual Observatory" | Astronomers from 17 research institutions have announced the start of an ambitious new project to put the Universe online. The National Virtual Observatory (NVO), headed by researchers from The Johns Hopkins University and the California Institute of Technology, will unite astronomical databases of many earthbound and orbital observatories, taking advantage of the latest computer technology and data storage and analysis techniques. The goal is to maximize the potential for new scientific insights from the data by making them available in an accessible, seamlessly unified form to professional researchers, amateur astronomers and students. David De Young of NOAO is the NVO project scientist. Johns Hopkins University Press Release : : : : : : October 29, 2001
Gemini Observation Deepens Mystery of Local Active Galaxy | In the deepest ground-based mid-infrared image ever taken, the Gemini North Telescope reveals that the mysterious environment around one of the most massive black holes in the Universe is missing a key feature predicted by astronomical theory. Gemini Observatory Press Release : : : : : : October 4, 2001M74: The Perfect Spiral | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : October 3, 2001The Planetary Nebula Show | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : October 2, 2001
Gemini Observatory Captures "Perfection" With Early Image From New High-Tech Instrument | After seven years of design and construction but only two weeks of commissioning, a remarkable first light image was obtained with a new state-of the-art instrument at the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea. NOAO provided the detector subsystem and related software for the instrument, the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph. Gemini Observatory Press Release : : : : : : September 29, 2001Teachers star in astronomy program | Flour will fly in a hotel conference room today at a two-day workshop that puts teachers and astronomers together to enhance the teaching of astronomy. Arizona Daily Star News Story : : : : : : September 28, 2001
NOAO, UA, NASA work to witness comets in intimate detail | Three Arizona researchers crossed their fingers Saturday afternoon as an ailing NASA spacecraft performed a risky flyby that yielded the best images ever of the icy core of a comet. Arizona Daily Star story : : : : : : September 27, 2001Elements of Nearby Spiral M33 | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : September 25, 2001
Kitt Peak and NASA Mission Look at Comet | This image of Comet Borrelly was taken on September 22, 2001, using the National Science Foundation's 2.1-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ. NOAO Image Release | University of Arizona Press Release | JPL Press Release : : : : : : September 11, 2001Astronomers Compete to Find the Farthest Galaxies | NOAO's Deep Wide-Field Survey team is one of several groups pushing the limits on the most ancient objects detected in astronomical reserach. Space.com News Story : : : : : : September 6, 2001Moon AND Stars | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : August 29, 2001AFGL 2591: A Massive Star Acts Up | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : August 28, 2001
The Big One That (Almost) Got Away | Astronomers have discovered a double star system, known as a massive X-ray binary, with an orbit so elongated that the twosome appears to have barely survived the disruptive effects of the supernova that transformed them into a fountain of X-ray energy. NOAO Press Release : : : : : : August 23, 2001Distortion from a Distant Cluster | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : August 21, 2001Light pollution in Tucson | The city's increasing glow threatens the work of top astronomers and, some say, can rob us of a spiritual and cultural boost. Tucson Citizen News Story : : : : : : August 14, 2001
Galaxy Cluster Found Using Gravitational Distortion, Suggests Independent Test of Accelerating Universe | Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Blanco Telescope in Chile have used the distorting effects of a weak gravitational lens to discover and locate a dim cluster of at least 15 galaxies at a significant distance from Earth, using only the mass properties of the cluster, not its visible light. NOAO Press Release | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : August 9, 2001New View of Primordial Helium Traces the Structure of Early Universe | Kitt Peak National Observatory Director Richard Green is a member of a team that has used NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite to give us our best glimpse yet at the ghostly cobweb of helium gas left over from the Big Bang. Spread thinly through the vastness of space, this helium traces the architecture of the Universe back to very early times, when the first large structures arose from small gravitational instabilities. STScI News Release | Tucson Citizen News Story : : : : : : August 7, 2001Students seek new asteroid | Two NOAO REU students have been patiently scrutinizing thousands of white specks this summer, hoping one of them turns out to be an asteroid they can call their own. Arizona Daily Star News Story : : : : : : August 4, 2001Neighboring Galaxy: The Large Magellanic Cloud | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : July 27, 2001Journey Among the Stars | A student in the Communication of Science, Engineering, and Technology program at Vanderbilt University reports on her experience observing with the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Vanderbilt News Story : : : : : : July 23, 2001
Gemini Spies Strong Stellar Gusts in Nearby Massive Star | A dramatic infrared image released today by the Gemini Observatory sheds new light on the early stages of the formation of giant stars in our galaxy. NOAO Image Release : : : : : : July 19, 2001Star Clusters Born in the Wreckage of Cosmic Collisions |
New Hubble Space Telescope pictures of the complex galaxy cluster Stephan's
Quintet show that at least two of the galaxies have been involved in
high-speed, hit-and-run accidents that have ripped stars and gas from
neighboring galaxies and tossed them into space. But the galactic carnage
also has spawned new life. Arising from the wreckage are more than 100 star
clusters and several dwarf galaxies. This HST news release is supported by
an image and map from NOAO.
: : : : : : July 17, 2001The Carina Nebula in Three Colors | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : July 2, 2001
Kuiper Belt Object Found Possibly As Large As Pluto's Moon | The Blanco Telescope at CTIO has helped astronomers from Lowell Observatory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory discover an icy planetary body orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune in the Kuiper Belt roughly equal in size to Pluto's moon Charon. NOAO Press Release : : : : : : June 11, 2001Globular Cluster M2 | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : June 4, 2001
Early Gemini North Results Feature Super Star Clusters, Details of Circumstellar Disks | From massive young star clusters swaddled in a dust cocoon 600 trillion miles wide to intriguing structural details in a circumstellar disk around a nearby binary star system, the 8-meter Gemini North telescope is providing astronomers with some of their best-ever infrared views of the processes of star and planet formation. NOAO Press Release Astronomers Report Galactic Baby Boom | A pair of young astronomers used the 4-meter Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ to find a bumper crop of "infant" galaxies that may help scientists develop new insights into the beginnings of galaxy formation. Several staff members from NOAO are on the research team. Johns Hopkins Press Release : : : : : : May 30, 2001Stellar Spectral Types: OBAFGKM | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : May 24, 2001X-Ray Stars of 47 Tucanae | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : May 14, 2001NOAO Engineer Honored With Asteroid Naming | Mark Trueblood, the project engineer for the U.S. Gemini Program Office in Tucson, has received a rare honor. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has approved the naming of asteroid 15522 as "Trueblood" after him. In addition, the IAU named asteroid 15606 as "Winer," after Irvin M. Winer, the namesake of an advanced amateur observatory in Sonoita, AZ, that Trueblood built and operates. Winer was a physicist, teacher, and mentor who studied laser physics, experimental General Relativity, and laboratory fusion, and was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. The so-called "minor planets" were discovered in December 1999 and April 2000, respectively, by Charles W. Juels, an amateur astronomer based in Fountain Hills, AZ, near Phoenix. How are such minor planets named? A Cerro Tololo Sky | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : May 2, 2001Planet Building in HD 100546 | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : April 27, 2001Visitors' Galaxy Gallery | Astronomy Picture of the Day via the Kitt Peak National Observatory Visitor Center's Advanced Observing Program. : : : : : : April 26, 2001Horsehead Rides Again | Astronomy Picture of the Day April 26, 2001
Passing Of Fred Gillett, Infrared Astronomy Pioneer | Infrared astronomy pioneer Dr. Fred Gillett died Sunday, April 22, 2001 at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle at the age of 64, following a months-long battle with a rare bone marrow disorder. NOAO Press Release : : : : : : April 25, 2001Space Laser Creates Artificial Star | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : April 24, 2001
NOAO Releases new image of the Horsehead nebula | The magnificent extent of the Horsehead nebula is best appreciated in a new wide-field image being released today by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, taken by Travis Rector with the National Science Foundation's 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, AZ. The image is being released in conjunction with a close-up image of the Horsehead from the Hubble Space Telescope, in celebration of the 11th anniversary of the launch of HST. NOAO Image Release | Hubble Heritage Horsehead Nebula Site : : : : : : April 10, 2001M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy in Dust and Stars | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : April 5, 2001
NOAO Releases new image of M51 | This beautiful image of the famous Whirlpool galaxy, M51, was taken with the NOAO Mosaic CCD camera on the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The image has been used by the Space Telescope Science Institute to provide context for a zoom-in image of the center of M51 from the Hubble Space Telescope. Located in the constellation Canes Venatici, the "hunting dogs," M51 consists of the large spiral galaxy NGC 5194 and its smaller companion NGC 5195. Hot, massive stars that recently formed in NGC 5194 give the galaxy its bluish color. The reddish areas are nebulae in the galaxy in which stars are rapidly forming. M51 is approximately 31 million light years away, and it is more than 65,000 light years in diameter. NOAO Image Gallery page for M51 | Hubble Heritage M51 Site : : : : : : March 30, 2001
Largest Sunspots in a Decade are imaged by NOAO Instruments; | This whole sunspot covers more than 140,000 kilometers (86,8000 miles), 22 times the diameter of Earth, over the Sun's northern hemisphere. The darkest of the structures are the sunspot umbrae, where the magnetic fields are locally vertical. They are surrounded by lighter fibrous channels called sunspot penumbrae, where the magnetic fields are locally horizontal. The surrounding bubbly structures are known as photospheric granules, which are about 1000-2000 km (620-1,240 miles) across. More Images : : : : : : March 22, 2001
Astronomers detect part of Universe's missing mass | Measurements taken with the National Science Foundation's Blanco 4-meter telescope at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile have helped an international team of researchers propose that unseen cool white dwarf stars may represent a significant portion of galactic dark matter. The source of this so-called missing matter has eluded astronomers for nearly 70 years. UC Berkeley Press Release : : : : : : March 19, 2001
WIYN Consortium Selected to Operate Historic Telescope on Kitt Peak | A consortium lead by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Indiana University and Yale University has been selected to assume operational responsibility for the historic 0.9-meter (36-inch) telescope at the National Science Foundation's Kitt Peak National Observatory. NOAO Press Release : : : : : : March 6, 2001M27: The Dumbbell Nebula | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : March 1, 2001Hubble Heritage Image of Edge-on Galaxy NGC 4013 | The WIYN Telescope provided the ground-based reference image for this month's Hubble Heritage image release. : : : : : : February 28, 2001
Satellites Spanning the Sky | Using an off-the-shelf camera set for a long exposure and satellite data freely available on the Internet, solar scientist Bill Livingston has developed a dependable method for taking pictures of commercial communications satellites hovering high above Earth. NOAO Press Release | Images : : : : : : February 27, 2001Hubble Zooms In on Bar of Favourite Spring Spiral Galaxy | Astronomers have long suspected that the bar systems that dominate the appearance of some spiral galaxies provide an efficient mechanism for fuelling star births at their centres. New results from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provide evidence that this is indeed the case. NASA/ESA Photo Release. The ground-based overview image was captured by public observers at Kitt Peak's Advanced Observing Program. : : : : : : February 15, 2001NOAO's Pilachowski Elected President of AAS | Catherine (Caty) Pilachowski, a scientific staff member at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, AZ, has been elected as the new president of the American Astronomical Society. NOAO Press Release : : : : : : February 7, 2001Survey Seeks New Neighbors, Locals Only Need Apply | An intriguing NOAO sky survey program called "In Search of Nearby Stars: the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Parallax Investigation" aims to discover "missing" members of the small group of stars within a few dozen light-years of the Sun -- stars that will one day be destination points for robotic space probes and, sooner or later, humans. more... Distant Open Cluster M103 | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : January 23, 2001Spherical Planetary Nebula Abell 39 | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : January 18, 2001
Mould Selected as Next NOAO Director | The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) has selected Dr. Jeremy R. Mould as the director-elect of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). Dr. Mould's extensive management experience and international scientific reputation will enable him to take a major leadership role in moving NOAO into the roles envisioned by the recent Decadal Survey. Dr. Mould comes to the position with a wealth of experience in U.S. astronomy and as a staff member and user of NOAO facilities over the past 25 years. More recently, he has held the position of Director of the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories. He will succeed Dr. Sidney Wolff at NOAO. NOAO Biographical Sketch | AURA Press Release : : : : : : January 11, 2001
Partial Image of M31 Hints at Power of On-Going Survey | A sharply detailed image of the northwest portion of the Andromeda galaxy, M31, demonstrates the power of an on-going sky survey project sponsored by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) NOAO Press Release | Images. : : : : : : January 10, 2001Watch the Sky Rotate | Astronomy Picture of the Day : : : : : : January 9, 2001
Unusual Mixing in Red Giants Identified as Unexpected Contributor to Mysterious Source of Lithium | Astronomers surveying hundreds of red giant stars in more than a dozen globular star clusters have found clues that may reveal an unexpected origin of lithium, the third element in the Periodic Table. The team used the 3.5-meter WIYN Observatory at Kitt Peak National Observatory and an optical-fiber spectrograph capable of observing dozens of red giants simultaneously to identify a handful of red giants with surprisingly high lithium abundances. NOAO Press Release | Images : : : : : : January 8, 2001
Astronomers Map Out Largest Structure In Distant Universe | By reading the light from the fiery heart of unimaginably remote galaxies, astronomers have discovered evidence for an immense concentration of galaxies over 6.5 billion light years away in the largest known group of quasars, possibly the largest structure anywhere in the observable universe. The galaxies were revealed by light they absorbed from the spectra of even more distant quasars which are located behind the large quasar group. The field was observed using the Big Throughput Camera (BTC) on the National Science Foundation's 4-meter (159 inch) Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile by NOAO Astronomer Dr. Gerard Williger. Goddard Press Release | Space.com story 
Rare Spherical Planetary Nebula Provides Step Toward Accurate Measurement of Chemical Compositions in Stars | "The truly spherical nature of this beautiful nebula helps us eliminate a common confusion concerning the actual three-dimensional geometry of most nebulae," says George Jacoby, director of the Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO (WIYN) Observatory and co-author of a study with Gary Ferland of University of Kentucky and Kirk Korista of Western Michigan University. NOAO Press Release 
Vast Area Covered with 300,000 Galaxies and Stars Seen in First Release from NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey | The National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Deep Wide-Field Survey marks its first release of data today with a large, exhibit-sized image of 300,000 faint galaxies and stars at the opening of the 197th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. NOAO Press Release : : : : : : 2000 news... |
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