Kitt Peak Observatory Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory NOAO System Science Center
A bright, artificial blob representing Antlia 2 (upper left) has been added to show its location on the far side of the Milky Way
(G. Torrealba/Academia Sinica, Taiwan; V. Belokurov/Cambridge, UK & CCA, New York, US; based on an image by S. Brunie/ESO)
Ghostly Backyard Giant Plays Hide-and-Seek
Astronomers have discovered a large, extremely diffuse galaxy companion to the Milky Way. As big as the Large Magellanic Cloud but 10,000 times fainter, the galaxy has eluded us until now because of its faint, “ghostly” appearance and its hiding place behind the disk of the Milky Way. The discovery was made with the Gaia satellite and archival data from DECam on the CTIO Blanco telescope. Astronomers want to know: is this galaxy an oddball?...or one of many “ghostly” companions yet to be found?
Long press or hover your mouse over the image above to view a labeled version.
Read more from University of Cambridge.
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Pluto’s terrain shows a “washboard” pattern of fine ridges. The New Horizons team, including NOAO Astronomer Tod Lauer, suggests this is evidence of an ancient nitrogen glacier. -
Cosmic Dance of Tiny Galaxies. Astronomers have discovered that the tiny Sextans dwarf galaxy, 100,000 times less massive than the Milky Way, is merging with an even smaller companion galaxy. -
New extreme dwarf planet discovered, in part with DECam at CTIO, during search for Planet X. Patrolling the outer Solar System on a highly elongated orbit, it travels between 65 and 1000 AU from the Sun. -
Ultra-short Period Planet Found by TESS and Confirmed with CHIRON. This “hot Earth” is in orbit around a star 45 light years away, with a period of just 11 hours. Read more in the paper posted on arXiv. -
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) has released data products used in its Year-One (YI) science programs, including object catalogs, survey characterization maps, and cosmological likelihoods. -
A new $4.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation will fund the development of the Windows on the Universe Center for Astronomy Outreach in the iconic McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope Facility on Kitt Peak. -
Read about the Legacy Surveys DR7 in the latest issue of NOAO Currents, including articles on exoplanet observing on CHIRON, news from SOAR & Blanco, research opportunities for time domain astronomy, & more.
NOAO is the national center for ground-based nighttime astronomy in the United States and is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. If you would like information about solar astronomy, visit the National Solar Observatory. If you would like information about radio astronomy, visit the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.