Kitt Peak Observatory Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory NOAO System Science Center
Credit: LSST Project/NSF/AURA
LSST Mirror Arrives at Cerro Pachón
The 8.4m-diameter primary mirror of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has reached its home at Cerro Pachón in Chile. Earlier this month, the mirror reached the port at Coquimbo, where it was loaded onto a 72-wheeled transport vehicle for the trip to the summit. The trip included passage through the tunnel at Puclaro Dam, with just inches to spare on either side. In a survey set to begin in 2022, LSST will scan the entire visible sky every few nights for 10 years, opening a new window on the changing Universe.
Read more in the LSST press release.
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New results from the Hubble confirm that the Universe today is expanding faster than expected. The development relies on an earlier study carried out with the SMARTS 1.5m telescope at CTIO. -
Using an artificial intelligence algorithm to sift through massive amounts of data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, a team of astronomers, including NOAO astronomer Mark Everett, has discovered two new exoplanets. -
Observations made with the Event Horizon Telescope have captured the first picture of a supermassive black hole. NOAO Astronomer Tod Lauer is a member of the EHT research team. -
On April 1, the Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak emerged from hibernation and, for the first time, starlight poured through the six large lenses of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). -
How many and what kind of star clusters have been born in the history of the Magellanic Clouds? A new project, the Local Group Cluster Search, invites citizen scientists to help find out! -
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, which is being installed on the KPNO Mayall telescope, will use an array of robot fiber-positioners to automatically capture the spectra of 5000 galaxies at a time. -
A Virtual Tour of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope: this visualization, featured in the documentary Seeing the Beginning of Time, gives us a virtual peek inside the LSST enclosure.
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.