Announcements

12 February 2003: The tightest orbiting brown dwarf companion ever seen has been discovered orbiting the low mass star LHS 2397a, using adaptive optics on Gemini North. The faint companion completes its orbit around the parent star at a distance of about 3 astronomical units (AUs) every 20 years. The images above show LHS 2397a in four bandpasses. The first image on the left is an optical image in the I Band obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on April 12, 1997. The brown dwarf is seen as the very faint object at nine o'clock and is very difficult to detect in this unenhanced image. The next three images were obtained using adaptive optics in the near infrared (J, H and K' bands) on Gemini North five years later (February 7, 2002). The Gemini images use a Fourier filter to enhance the visibility of the companion, hence the presence of the companion …

29 January 2003: This unusual image was created from five frames imaged with filters covering a narrow range of wavelengths. The color changes across filaments are indicative of physical changes in the bright emission nebula.

28 January 2003: Today, in a live videoconference connecting Hawai`i with Chile, the six teachers selected to participate in the Gemini Observatory StarTeachers Exchange Program were officially announced. During the event, the 3 teachers from each location met and shared some of their ideas for the exchange using the same advanced high-speed internet videoconferencing technology that they will use to present lessons to their students back home during the exchange. The Hawai`i teachers are scheduled to visit their colleagues in Chile for two weeks in March and the Chilean teachers will make a reciprocal visit to Hawai`i in October 2003. The three Big Island StarTeachers selected are Kristen Luning, Chairperson of the Math Department at Keaau High School; Alicia Hui, a fifth grade teacher at Haili Christian School; and Christine Copes, a math and Resource Teacher at Waiakea Elementary School. The three Chilean teachers are Carmen Luz Briones, Viviana Calderon and Jenny Opazo. …

21 January 2003: Violent bush fires ravaging Canberra destroyed most of the facilities at the Stromlo Observatory. Fortunately there were no additional human injuries or casualties. More details on the loss of Gemini's Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrograph can be found at the links below. Astronomy projects in ruins as observatory obliterated Aussie Fires Destroy Mount Stromlo Observatory Australian fire felt in Hilo Gemini Near-Infrared Integral-Field Spectrograph (NIFS): Destroyed by Bushfire January 2003 Historic Australian observatory gutted The Mount Stromlo Fires: A Major Heritage Loss For Australian Astronomy Mount Stromlo Observatory Destroyed by Fire Pictures of the aftermath of the fire of Saturday, 18 January 2003, at Mount Stromlo Observatory

9 January 2003: Gemini South Assistant Astronomer Dr. Michael Ledlow has helped confirm the existence of a giant, subatomic particle jet streaming from a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Though long known to be associated with elliptical and merging galaxies, the discovery of such jets streaming from a spiral galaxy raises significant questions about current theories on jet production. The discovery was made possible by the combination of radio, optical and infrared observations. The findings were reported at the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Seattle. Dr. Ledlow's infrared work at Gemini South was instrumental in complementing research by the team leader, Dr. William Keel with the University of Alabama, and Dr. Frazer Owen with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The galaxy, known as 0313-192, first came to the attention of Dr. Owen more than 20 years ago during a galaxy survey he conducted using the Very Large Array (VLA). Gemini South's …

8 January 2003: Found in the harsh environment of the Carina Nebula, using the Blanco telescope.

26 December 2002: The SOAR (SOuthern Astrophysical Research) telescope dome on snow covered Cerro Pachon.

18 December 2002: The Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) at Gemini South Gemini South took delivery of GMOS-S in November 2002 and is preparing to install it on the telescope for commissioning very early in 2003. It is anticipated that GMOS-S will be available during semester 2003B in both imaging and several spectroscopic modes. Like its twin that began observations in 2001 on Gemini North, GMOS-S was built as a collaboration between Canada (HIA), and the UK (Astronomical Technology Centre at ROE and University of Durham). The GMOS detector system was provided by the US (National Optical Astronomy Observatory). The two GMOSs are the primary instruments for optical (0.36-1.10 µm) slit/multi-slit/integral field spectroscopy as well as imaging (5.5 arcmin field of view) on the Gemini telescopes. Michelle at Gemini North The facility mid-infrared imager and spectrometer Michelle arrived at Gemini North in the first week of December, however, Michelle did not arrive from the …

16 December 2002: Many detailed features in this spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici have been brought out by drastically compressed image mapping: an extremely bright inner region surrounded by a blue ring of young star clusters, a fainter yellowish region of older stars also surrounded by traces of young stars, and even further out, a very much fainter outer ring.

2 December 2002: The Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy at a distance of about 50,000 parsecs, is a prime target in which to probe the chemical evolution of stars. Because this galaxy has a different star formation history than our own galaxy, the properties of its stars are different. Variations in galaxy evolution can lead to differences in chemical composition, which result in stars that noticeably differ in the later phases of their evolution. Measuring and understanding these chemical differences help unravel the physics of the complexes processes of nuclear burning and mixing that take place in the red giant and later phases. Within a given stellar population in a galaxy, chemical evolution is driven primarily by stellar nucleosynthesis, with the dispersal of the processed material back into the galactic interstellar medium (ISM). This heavy-element enrichment over time depends on such processes as star formation history, internal stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis …

25 November 2002: his revealing image combines optical data from the 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak with radio data from the Very Large Array in New Mexico and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands.

14 November 2002: Marian Gillett, right, with her children, Michael Gillett and Denuta Gessner, stand before the plaque which honors her deceased husband, Dr. Fred Gillett (inset), in a naming ceremony of the Gemini North telescope, November 13, 2002, on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i.

7 November 2002: This excellent image of M27, a planetary nebula in the constellation of Vulpecula, was taken at the 3.5-meter WIYN telescope using the Mini-Mosaic imager.

6 November 2002: Approximately 110 astronomers will meet in Kona during November 3-8, 2002, to discuss the nucleus of our Milky Way. Called "The Central 300 Parsecs," the conference has been locally organized mainly by Gemini-North staff and is sponsored by Gemini and several other observatories on Mauna Kea. Gravity and frictional forces inevitably cause the centers of galaxies to acquire mass densities much higher than that of the outer regions. Even a normal-looking spiral galaxy such as ours might be expected to contain almost the entire galactic astronomical zoo: stars of all masses and evolutionary states, white dwarfs, nebulae, dust clouds, neutron stars, and even black holes - all packed together in a tight swarm. The nucleus of our galaxy is already known to contain a wide variety of astrophysical phenomena. Although it is 25,000 light years away, it is by far both the nearest and brightest galactic nucleus. Thus it can …

6 November 2002: Perhaps flung from the Galactic Center's innermost cluster of hot stars some 20,000 years ago, the massive star IRS-8 is moving at supersonic speed through high density gas. Located 8000 parsecs from the Sun in the direction of Sagittarius, the nucleus of the Milky Way is host to numerous high energy phenomena including a supermassive black hole of approximately three million solar masses which defines the dynamic center of our galaxy. The nucleus also contains a number of young clusters of recently formed hot and massive stars, peculiar radio-emitting filaments of ionized gas, supernova remnants, and a number of bright and compact objects whose natures and origins are unclear. Because of the high dust content along the line of sight to the Galactic Center, it has been impossible to observe this region at ultraviolet and optical wavelengths. New tools such as infrared array detectors combined with adaptive optics on large …

22 October 2002: An unobtrusive arc of blue stars stretching above the iconic galaxy Centaurus A represents the lingering signature of an episode of galactic cannibalism that is surprisingly recent and, astronomically speaking, quite nearby.

10 October 2002: Tucson Mayor Robert Walkup and three students from the Indian Oasis Middle School in Sells cut the ribbon at the official opening night of the Space Weather Center exhibit at the Kitt Peak Visitor Center.

9 October 2002: SBS 0335-052 is a gas-rich dwarf galaxy at a distance of 170 million light-years (52 Mpc). It is the second most metal-poor galaxy known, with a heavy metal content only 1/40th that of the Sun. Such a low metallicity means that this galaxy contains significantly lower quantities of the heavy elements produced by the process of nucleosynthesis in stars. This lack of metals could be because the galaxy is very young. Another possibility is that SBS 0335-052 is an old galaxy that has experienced a very low star formation rate throughout its lifetime. Canadian Ph. D. student Stephanie Plante (Universite Laval, Quebec) and French astronomer Marc Sauvage (Service d'Astrophysique, Saclay) used OSCIR on Gemini North to image SBS 0335-052 in the mid-infrared at 10.8 and 21 microns. Their images revealed a massive supercluster of young stars with a total mass equivalent to 2 million times the mass of the Sun …

27 September 2002: Instrument at the CTIO Blanco 4-meter telescope has obtained this first-light image of globular cluster 47 Tucanae taken in the infrared H-band.

26 September 2002: A US-UK team led by Gemini South astronomer Michael Ledlow, using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini North, has obtained a spectrum from the optical counterpart of the most distant "dusty" galaxy known. This object was selected for study based on a detection at submillimeter wavelengths using SCUBA* on the JCMT (Cowie, Barger, & Kneib 2002). The optical counterpart was found in deep multiwavelength imaging from the Kitt Peak National Observatory, but its nature was not understood (only a handful of SCUBA/submm galaxies have measured spectra). Gemini was able, with its great light gathering power, to obtain a spectrum that allows an analysis of this distant galaxy that is thought to represent some of the most massive galaxies of the early universe. Michael Ledlow and his collaborators studied the optical counterpart of the submillimeter source, SMMJ09431+4700 that is seen through an intervening galaxy cluster (Abell 851) at redshift 0.41. …