Announcement: NOIRLab

12 January 2021: Measurements of the Universe’s darkness performed with NASA’s New Horizons probe reveal an unexplained glow to the Universe. These results are presented at the January 2021 meeting of the American Astronomical Society.[1] NOIRLab’s facilities focus on ground-based astronomy, but NOIRLab scientists also use data from space telescopes to answer their astronomical questions — and sometimes even use space probes designed to visit other planets. A team of astronomers led by NOIRLab scientist Tod Lauer, which included other members of the New Horizons science team and Marc Postman from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), used the New Horizons spacecraft [2] to answer a fundamental question — how dark is the Universe? “The Universe is dark, but not as dark as we thought,” said Lauer. This measurement — known as the cosmic optical background — is the visible equivalent of the well-known cosmic microwave background. “While the cosmic microwave background tells …

24 November 2020: Joan Najita of NSF NOIRLab has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. Najita was elected as an AAAS Fellow for her distinguished contributions to astrophysics, particularly for theoretical modeling of protoplanetary disks and winds and the applications of these models to observations of young stars. This year 489 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. This year’s AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on 27 November 2020. A virtual Fellows Forum — an induction ceremony for the new Fellows — will be held on 13 February 2021. The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. The AAAS Fellow honor comes with …

15 April 2020: Joan Najita from NSF NOIRLab, headquartered in Tucson, has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in astronomy & astrophysics for 2020. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of past achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishments. Since 1925 the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded annual Fellowships in the arts and sciences: this year they awarded 173 Fellowships, but only two in astronomy and astrophysics. From the Guggenheim webpage: “Joan has a broad range of research interests, including planets beyond the Solar System, low mass stars and brown dwarfs, the structure and origin of our galaxy, the Milky Way, massively multiplexed wide-field spectroscopy, the nature of discovery in astronomy and its science sociology and resource allocation practices. She is actively engaged in communicating science to the public and has a lifelong interest in the power of science to inspire and in the role of science in society.” We congratulate …