Kitt Peak Observatory Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory NOAO System Science Center
Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
2020 Breakthrough Prize Awarded to Event Horizon Telescope Team
The 347-person team that made the first image of a supermassive black hole has been awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, one of the “Oscars of Science.” By synchronizing 8 radio telescopes, the team created a virtual telescope the size of the Earth, with a resolving power never before achieved from the Earth’s surface. One of their first targets was the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87. NOAO Astronomer Tod Lauer is a member of the Event Horizon Telescope team.
Read more in Breakthrough Prize press release.
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Pandia, Ersa, Eirene, Philophrosyne and Eupheme — these are the new names of five of the moons of Jupiter that were discovered last year with the Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco 4-m telescope at CTIO. -
The SOAR telescope at CTIO has just completed the first observing night for AEON, a new network of telescopes designed to enable rapid follow up of the changing night sky. -
The Kitt Peak Mayall’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project, which will conduct the most ambitious cosmic cartography experiment ever, is featured in this Nature news article. -
A Whirlpool Warhol: It all depends on how you look at it—galaxies appear different in visible light (top left image, taken with the KPNO 2.1m) than at longer wavelengths, in the infrared. -
What’s Your Moonshot? Newsweek profiles NOAO Astronomer Aaron Meisner whose citizen science project, Backyard Worlds, aims to discover cold new worlds. -
Observations made with KPED, a new instrument developed for use at the Kitt Peak 2.1-meter telescope, have led to the discovery of the fastest eclipsing white dwarf binary yet known. -
On 2 July 2019, a total solar eclipse passed over Chile and Argentina, crossing directly over the telescopes on CTIO. View this spectacular event as seen from CTIO.
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.