Announcements

16 July 2018: Nine billion light years away, the blue supergiant Icarus is the most distant star ever seen. In 2016 it briefly flared to 2000 times its original brightness as its light was magnified fortuitously by the gravity of a passing star in a foreground galaxy. The result, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, was carried out by an international team of astronomers that includes NOAO astronomer Tom Matheson.

9 July 2018: The frustrating search for intermediate mass black holes is advancing thanks to Gemini observations of a “belch” which escaped when a black hole devoured a star. The black hole powering the blast weighed in at a few tens of thousand solar masses and is quite possibly a missing link between supermassive and stellar mass black holes. After 10 years of searching, an international team of astronomers used Gemini South, and space-based telescopes, to probe a luminous X-ray outburst unlike any seen before. The outburst was unusual because it appears to be the result of a “tidal disruption event” (TDE), in which a massive black hole slurps up an entire star, but this particular event did not occur within the center of a galaxy, where the most massive black holes reside. In their investigation, the researchers measured the mass of the black hole that powered the outburst and found it was …

9 July 2018: The millions of asteroids in the Solar System are thought to be the shattered remains of colliding planetesimals, the large rocky bodies that were the building blocks of the planets. New results suggest that most, if not all, of the known asteroids originate from only a few “common ancestors”, i.e., a small number of very large planetesimals. The study, published in Nature Astronomy, was carried out by a team that includes NOAO astronomer Dan Li.

5 July 2018: Project & Science News The LSST science community is invited to play a key role in the definition of LSST’s Observing Strategy. The LSST Project is now soliciting white papers to help plan various aspects of the survey strategy. The deadline for white paper submission is November 30, 2018. Click here for more details. The registration deadline for LSST 2018 is July 9; if you haven’t already registered, it’s time! A detailed block agenda for the meeting is now available. An LSST team recently visited the Coating Plant vendor Von Ardenne in Germany in mid-June to confirm coating functionality and to approve packaging and shipment of the Coating Plant to Chile. As a result of this successful visit, transport arrangements are underway; a vessel to transport the Coating Plant has been booked for August 22, 2018. The Washing Station, another deliverable in the Coating Plant contract, shipped on June 24 …

2 July 2018: The original 45-year-old top end of the Mayall telescope was recently removed and a new top ring placed in the dome. The ring will support new optics for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a state-of-the-art spectrometer that can measure the spectra of 5000 astronomical objects simultaneously. DESI will explore the mysterious physics of dark energy, which is believed to accelerate the expansion of the Universe.

25 June 2018: A new generation of sky surveys offers new frontiers for exploration and discovery, and NOAO’s Data Lab is ready to assist! Version 2.0 of the Data Lab’s Science Platform, released this month, features new datasets, including the 30 billion measurements in the NOAO Source Catalog. The above movie shows the developing exposure map of data in the NOAO archive and illustrates the build up of a crowd-sourced survey of the sky.

20 June 2018: Project & Science News The deadline for registration for LSST 2018 is July 9. Watch for a draft agenda for the meeting, which will be available soon. The TVSSC (Transient and Variable Stars Science Collaboration) Survey Strategy Proposal Preparation Workshop took place in Bethlehem, PA on June 4-8. The purpose of the meeting was to organize the response of the TVSSC in advance of the upcoming LSST Observing Strategy call for white papers, which is scheduled for late June. The annual SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation conference took place in Austin, TX from June 10-15. LSST was well-represented with more than 35 posters, presentations, and invited talks highlighting LSST construction progress. LSST@Europe3 wrapped up in Lyon on June 15. The meeting gathered approximately 150 participants for 5 days of talks, tours, and informal opportunities for networking between members of the LSST Project and the European science community. Recordings of many …

18 June 2018: The Mayall telescope’s new top end ring was recently installed using a 450 ton crane with a 250 foot boom. The top ring will support new optics for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a state-of-the-art spectrometer that can measure the spectra of 5000 astronomical objects simultaneously. By surveying 30 million galaxies and quasars, DESI will explore the mysterious physics of dark energy, which is believed to accelerate the expansion of the Universe.

11 June 2018: Which stars harbor what kind of planets? The NEID spectrograph, destined for Kitt Peak, will soon study planets discovered by the NASA missions Kepler and TESS. Designed for extreme radial velocity precision and funded by NASA, NEID will arrive at the WIYN telescope later this year. TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, was launched in April and will become fully operational this month.

5 June 2018: Project & Science News Cast your votes now for sessions at LSST 2018; voting closes tomorrow, June 6. LSST will be hosting Booth #614 at the SPIE conference in Austin June 11-15. If you’re attending the conference, please stop by. The 4th version of the LSST overview paper, “LSST: From Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products,” was submitted to arXiv on May 25. Since its first submission 10 years ago, the paper has grown from 29 to 57 pages, and the author list has increased from 93 to 313. LSST is featured in a recent article in Universe Today titled, “What are the Chances that the Next Generation LSST Could Find New Planets in our Solar System?” A time-lapse video of the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) effort at the Asturfeito factory in Spain is now available in the LSST Gallery.* A Commissioning Science Validation Bootcamp took place …

4 June 2018: Astronomers recently reported the discovery of 14 new stars within 10 parsecs of the Sun. The discovery by the RECONS project was made using data obtained with the SMARTS 0.9m telescope at CTIO. Established in 1994, RECONS has discovered one of every seven systems within 10 parsecs. Are more of the Sun’s nearest neighbors yet to be discovered? Stay tuned!

31 May 2018: A new study using Gemini data reveals that the ratio of binary stars in Kepler’s K2 exoplanet host stars is similar to that found elsewhere in our neighborhood of the Milky Way. According to lead author Dr. Rachel Matson of NASA’s Ames Research Center, “While we have known that about 50% of all stars are binary, to confirm a similar ratio in exoplanet host stars helps set some important constraints on the formation of potential exoplanets seen by Kepler.” Until recently, astronomers generally focused on single exoplanet host stars, believing that planets form primarily around lone stars like our Sun. However, the research led by Matson, who’s team observed 206 star systems, demonstrates that the influence of a neighboring star does not appear to deter planet formation. The presence of a very close neighboring star produces enormous collateral effects on a planetary system, possibly ejecting planets into interstellar space, or …

23 May 2018: Project & Science News Don’t forget to register for LSST 2018 using this link. The deadline for registration is July 9. LSST was mentioned in a recent article by Ellen Meyer (UMBC) about the future of astronomy and data, originally published in The Conversation and re-printed in the San Francisco Chronicle and at Smithsonian.com. In Spain, a reception was held at the factory of LSST vendor Asturfeito on May 14 to acknowledge the significance of the work completed on the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA). Approximately 200 people attended, including local government officials and industry dignitaries. A news article describing the event can be found here. Installation of the first summit network equipment took place on Cerro Pachón at the beginning of May. After readying the summit computer room, which included ensuring the space was appropriately clean and temperature-controlled, the IT team began installing servers in this space, which will serve …

21 May 2018: To enhance U.S. scientific leadership in astronomy and astrophysics, and enable the broader U.S. community to to take advantage of the power of ground-based extremely large optical-infrared telescopes (ELTs), the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO), and the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory (TIO) have embarked on the development of a U.S. Extremely Large Telescope (US-ELT) Program.

8 May 2018: Project & Science News Registration is open for LSST 2018; register now at this link. Proposals for meeting sessions are also currently being accepted here. The deadline for submitting session topics is May 14. Several LSST subsystem staff presented status updates and recent accomplishments on May 1 at the LSST Open House for the AURA Member Representatives Meeting in Tucson, AZ. An LSST team spent 5 days in Spain last month conducting a thorough safety review of the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) at the facility of vendor Asturfeito. The group inspected the numerous safety features included in the TMA, and reviewed the procedures by which the group of vendors responsible for building the TMA (referred to as UTE) will verify that the hazard mitigations meet LSST requirements. Read more about the review in this news post. The Education and Public Outreach (EPO) subsystem held a Citizen science workshop in April …

8 May 2018: Astronomers using the Dark Energy Camera on the CTIO Blanco telescope have detected a new dwarf galaxy in the stream of gas linking the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The new galaxy, Hydrus 1, located in the “water snake” constellation, may have been brought to the Milky Way by the Magellanic Clouds.

3 May 2018: Astronomers using data from both of the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrographs (GMOS - North and South) measured the motions of stars within a sample of 32 massive elliptical cluster galaxies and found the stellar motions inconsistent with these galaxies’ solitary cousins. The galaxies chosen are known as brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) because they are the brightest members of large galaxy clusters. The international team of astronomers obtained Gemini spectra to find the relative velocities of stars within each galaxy and then determine the central stellar velocity dispersions and radial dispersion profiles for each galaxy. “This is similar to what we see in our own Solar System with the different velocities of the planets around the Sun,” said John Blakeslee, Gemini Observatory's Head of Science. “We use the planets’ velocities to determine our Solar System’s mass distribution and it is also how we know the Sun’s mass accurately.” The researchers discovered a …

1 May 2018: The April 2018 NOAO Newsletter is online and ready to download. It contains sections on Science Highlights, Community Science & Data, System Observing, and NOAO Operations & Staff. On the Cover Clockwise from upper right: a) Nicholas Mayall at the guiding eyepiece at the prime focus during commissioning of the KPNO 4-meter telescope that now bears his name; b) the Mayall 4-meter under moonlight during the MzLS imaging survey, which was completed in February 2018; c) the Mayall’s primary mirror being lifted out of its cell during an early stage of the work to prepare the telescope for installation of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instru- ment (DESI). By mid-June the entire top end of the telescope will have been removed, and installation of the new prime focus system for DESI will begin. Initial commissioning with the new DESI hardware should begin in November 2018.

25 April 2018: Project & Science News Save the date! The LSST 2018 Project and Community Workshop will take place the week of August 13 in Tucson, AZ. More details will be available soon. Symmetry Magazine, a joint publication of Fermilab and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, published an article about LSST on April 17 titled “The world’s largest astronomical movie,” which features detailed information and visualizations of the LSST Camera. An LSST cross-project team met at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on April 3-4 to conduct the latest in a series of Early Integration Pathfinder Activities. This activity focused on simulated control and image collection for the nominal Auxiliary Telescope visit sequence. Read more about the activity here, and view a group photo taken at the event in the LSST Gallery. LSST’s series of spring subsystem meetings concluded last week with the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) Subsystem Meeting, held …

19 April 2018: While most supernovae studied to date brighten and fade over a period of weeks, a handful are known to evolve much quicker. KSN2015K reached its maximum brightness in 2 days and faded to half that in only 7 days. To explain the rapid evolution, the discovery team, which includes NOAO astronomers Alfredo Zenteno and Chris Smith, has argued that the star bumped into itself in the explosion!