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News Archive
- Labbé Receives Van Marum Prize
- Dr. Ivo Labbé, a Hubble Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories, has received the inaugural Martinus Van Marum Prize from the Royal Dutch Society of Sciences for his “pioneering” doctoral research and subsequent publications on the early universe.
- Koch Receives Ludwig Biermann Award
- Dr. Andreas Koch, a joint postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Observatories and UCLA, has been chosen the recipient of the prestigious 2008 Ludwig Biermann Award from Germany's Astronomische Gesellschaft for his outstanding work on chemical evolution in nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies.
- Supernova birth seen for first time
- Astronomers have seen the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but until now no one has witnessed a star dying in real time. While looking at another object in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, using NASA’s orbiting Swift telescope, Carnegie-Princeton fellows Alicia Soderberg and Edo Berger detected an extremely luminous blast of X-rays released by a supernova explosion.
- Baby stars born in galactic outback
- Co-authors Mark Seibert and Barry Madore of the Observatories are part of team that has produced a stunning new image showing infant stars growing in a remote area of galaxy M83.
- Carnegie’s Stephen Shectman receives Jackson-Gwilt Medal
- The Royal Astronomical Society has awarded Stephen Shectman of the Carnegie Observatories the 2008 Jackson-Gwilt Medal for his exceptional work in developing astronomical instrumentation and in constructing telescopes. Shectman was the project scientist for Carnegie’s twin Magellan 6.5-meter mirror telescopes at Las Campanas, Chile, and has designed and built a number of its key instruments.
- New population of faint protogalaxies discovered
- Astronomers have found a new population of faint protogalaxies by taking the most sensitive spectroscopic survey ever of a time when the universe was only 15% of its present age. These objects are the probable building blocks of galaxies today, including our own Milky Way. The research, conducted by Michael Rauch and George Becker of the Carnegie Observatories with colleagues, will be published in the March 1, 2008, issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
- Hurtling star possesses comet-like tail
- New findings reported in Nature describe how NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has spotted an amazingly long comet-like tail behind a star streaking through space at extraordinary speeds. "This is an utterly new phenomenon to us, and we are still in the process of understanding the physics involved," said co-author and Carnegie postdoctoral researcher Mark Seibert. “We hope to be able to read Mira's tail like a ticker tape to learn about the star's life."
- Star Cluster Holds Midweight Black Hole
- Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have greatly strengthened the case that supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies may have formed through mergers of smaller black holes. Their VLA studies showed that a globular star cluster in the galaxy M31 probably has a black hole with 20,000 times the mass of the Sun at its core.
- Edo Berger Receives Top Award
- The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) has chosen Dr. Edo Berger to receive the 2007 Robert J. Trumpler Award for an outstanding recent PhD thesis. As described by ASP, Dr. Berger's thesis has made seminal contributions to our understanding of gamma-ray bursters, revealing fundamental aspects of their nature almost 40 years after they were first discovered. Dr. Berger, who earned his PhD at the California Institute of Technology, is now a Carnegie-Princeton and Hubble Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories.
- Double-star systems cycle between big and small blasts
- Certain double, or binary, star systems erupt in full-blown explosions and then flare up with smaller bursts, according to new information gathered by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and analyzed by a team of astronomers, including postdoctoral researcher Mark Seibert of the Carnegie Observatories.
- Hubble Sees 'Comet Galaxy' Being Ripped Apart By Galaxy Cluster
- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with several other ground- and space- based telescopes, has captured a galaxy being ripped apart by a galaxy cluster's gravitational field and harsh environment. Dr. Jane Rigby, a Spitzer Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories, is part of the team whose finding sheds light on the mysterious process by which gas-rich spiral-shaped galaxies might evolve into gas-poor irregular- or elliptical-shaped galaxies over billions of years. The new observations also reveal one mechanism for forming the millions of "homeless" stars seen scattered throughout galaxy clusters.
- Astronomers show predicted present day distribution of elusive first stars
- With the help of enormous computer simulations, astronomers have now shown that the first generation of stars –– which have never been observed by scientists –– should be distributed evenly throughout our galaxy, deepening the long-standing mystery about these missing stellar ancestors. The results were recently published in the Astrophysical Journal.
- Astronomers weigh 200-million-year-old baby galaxies
- A Carnegie astronomer is part of a team that has taken amazing pictures of two of the most distant galaxies ever seen. The ultradeep images, taken at infrared wavelengths, confirm for the first time that these celestial cherubs are real. The researchers are now able to weigh the galaxies and determine their age at earlier times than ever before, providing important clues about the evolutionary origins of galaxies like our Milky Way. The work appears in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
- Special Precursor to a Supernova
- The intense cosmic outbursts of high-energy radiation known as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) - among the most energetic astrophysical processes known - are thought to arise from the collapse of massive stars in a supernova. But not all supernovae generate GRBs, and it remains unclear what causes some but not others to produce these bursts. Four international teams of astronomers, including several from the Carnegie Observatories, recently reported in Nature different views of a burst event that occurred in February 2006, which promises to yield new insights into the process.
- Carnegie Helps Organize Major Conference in China
- More than 300 astronomers from around the world will meet in historic Xi'an, China, in October at a conference entitled, "The Central Engine of Active Galactic Nuclei," which is being co-chaired by Carnegie Staff Astronomer Luis Ho. The meeting will focus on the classical components of the central engine of AGNs: black holes, accretion disks, jets, outflows/winds, absorbers, broad-line regions, tori, and narrow-line regions. Those interested in attending still have time to register.
- GALEX: Huge Black Holes Stifle Star Formation
- Supermassive black holes in some giant galaxies create such a hostile environment, they shut down the formation of new stars, according to NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer findings published in the August 24th issue of Nature. The orbiting observatory surveyed more than 800 nearby giant elliptical galaxies of various sizes. An intriguing pattern emerged: the bigger the galaxy, the smaller the population of young stars. Because bigger galaxies are known to have bigger black holes, astronomers believe the black holes are responsible for the lack of youthful stars.
- NASA Funds Development of Destiny: The Dark Energy Space Telescope
- The director of the Carnegie Observatories, Wendy Freedman, is a part of a team led by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center that has been selected by NASA to develop a concept for a space mission to characterize the mysterious “dark energy” that permeates the Universe and causes its expansion to accelerate.
- Concept design for new telescope published online
- The Conceptual Design Report for the proposed Giant Magellan Telescope has been made available to the scientific community and the general public on the telescope project's web site (www.gmto.org). The report, the result of more than three years of work by scores of scientists and engineers, was reviewed by a panel of independent experts this spring. The document details all of the major components of the telescope and provides a blueprint for the next phase of this ambitious international effort.
- Magellan Telescope Helps Find "Trojan" Asteroids in Neptune's Orbit
- With the help of the first 6.5-meter Magellan Telescope (known as the Baade Telescope), astronomers from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii, have found three new Neptune Trojans, asteroids sharing the same stable orbit as the blue planet.
- Australia Joins GMT
- The Australian National University (ANU) has announced that it is joining the effort to build the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the first extremely large next-generation telescope to begin production. ANU is renowned for its design and manufacture of instruments for adaptive optics-capable telescopes and its new Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre, specifically designed for ELT-era technology, will be completed later this year.
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