Kitt Peak Observatory Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory NOAO System Science Center
Credit: P. Marenfeld & NOAO/AURA/NSF, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger
Citizen Scientists Invited to Join Quest for New Worlds
“Backyard Worlds: Planet 9” re-launches this week, with a call to volunteer citizen scientists to join the search for cold worlds near the Sun—both planets lurking in the outer reaches of the Solar System as well as nearby brown dwarfs. The re-launch coincides with the publication of the project’s latest discovery: a record-setting white dwarf star whose mysterious dusty rings challenge our understanding of the long-term evolution of planetary systems. NOAO astronomer Aaron Meisner is a co-founder of Backyard Worlds and a science team member.
Read more in the NOAO Press Release 19-04.
-
New!
Astro2020 Science White Paper Coordination Hub: advertise your Decadal Survey science ideas, comment on science white paper topics, & find others with common interests. -
New Horizon’s departing view of Ultima Thule shows that the Kuiper Belt Object’s shape is actually quite odd. NOAO Astronomer Tod Lauer played a critical role in the investigation. -
WIYN Observations of P/2017 S5, carried out by a team that includes NOAO astronomers Jayadev Rajagopal, Susan Ridgway, and Wilson Liu, identify it as a water-bearing active asteroid. -
After a sluggish first few billion years, the Magellanic Clouds have upped their game and are now forming stars at a fast clip. This insight into Magellanic history comes from a study led by NOAO’s David Nidever. -
An unusual supernova studied by multiple telescopes, including SOAR & telescopes at CTIO & KPNO, is thought to herald the birth of a new neutron star or black hole, caught at the moment of its creation. -
A Survey Machine and a Data Trove: Dark Energy Survey’s Rich Legacy:
the six year survey has now ended, but the Dark Energy Camera and DES survey data will continue to yield new discoveries. -
Images from the New Horizons team, which includes NOAO Astronomer Tod Lauer, of the most distant object ever explored reveal the Kuiper Belt Object Ultima Thule to be a “contact binary”. -
In preparation for its new mission as the home of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), the Kitt Peak Mayall telescope recently received its new top end.
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.