Announcements 2006

11 January 2006: A team led by a University of Florida astronomer has discovered a planet orbiting a star about 100 light-years from Earth. The star is just 600 million years old, one of the youngest stars ever found with a planetary companion. The discovery was made at Kitt Peak National Observatory with a new interferometric instrument called the Exoplanet Tracker (ET) that promises to greatly expand the efficiency of searches for new exoplanets.

9 January 2006: A team led by astronomers from CTIO has found faint visible echoes of three ancient supernovae by detecting their centuries-old light as it is reflected by clouds of interstellar dust hundreds of light-years removed from the original explosions. The oldest one is likely to have occurred more than six hundred years ago. More in NOAO Press Release 05-12. Additionally, the team has used the Gemini South telescope in Chile to obtain a detailed spectrum of an echo of light from an ancient supernova that enables them to identify the original star’s cause of death. More in NOAO Press Release 06-02.

4 January 2006: There are many milestones an astronomical observatory passes as it progresses through its scientific evolution. As the 2006 calendar year begins, Gemini Observatory has reached one of these important milestones: the publication of the 200th paper based on Gemini data. The paper which marks this event is titled “The luminosity function of the fossil group RX J1552.2+2013” by Claudia L. Mendes de Oliveira, Eduardo. S. Cypriano, & Laerte Sodré, Jr., The Astronomical Journal, 131, 158-167, 2006 January. For more details on the paper see the summary here. Of course this particular paper, like any of the 199 before it, only provides a glimpse at the diversity of research performed during Gemini’s early years. A scan of our publications archive reveals a range of research and discoveries that will continue to expand and diversify, creating a significant legacy for generations of scientists and members of the public. Many of these findings …

3 January 2006: Galaxy Clusters Galaxies frequently appear in large numbers as physical units bound by gravity. The largest are the galaxy clusters with hundreds of members, and at the smaller end are the compact groups of galaxies with a maximum of about 10 members. Between these are the “fossil groups” with members numbering in the dozens. A fossil group of galaxies is a system with a large extended x-ray halo, dominated by one very luminous elliptical galaxy that is surrounded by low-luminosity companions. Claudia L. Mendes de Oliveira (Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil) and her collaborators used GMOS, the optical imager/multi-object spectrograph on the Gemini North Telescope, to determine the first luminosity function (LF) of the galaxies in a fossil group based on spectroscopy of the member galaxies. The team observed the fossil group RX J1552.2+2013, and measured a mean redshift of z = 0.136 for 36 of its confirmed members. The …