the latest news from the maunakea observatories
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Andrea Ghez Wins Nobel Prize In Physics
Dr. Andrea Ghez, an astrophysicist at UCLA who has been observing the Galactic Center from Maunakea for over two decades, has won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. She is honored for her pioneering work using W. M. Keck Observatory to provide conclusive experimental evidence of a supermassive black hole with the mass of four million suns residing at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
January 4, 2023
Fillowup observations of an explosive collision involving neutron stars by two Maunakea observatories reveals that a so-called “long gamma-ray burst” (originally detected from an observatory in Earth orbit) upends our understanding of the origin of these extraordinary events. Read more, in the W.M.Keck Observatory and International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab press releases.
November 14, 2022
Using two Maunakea Observatories to follow up a star’s tiny wobbling motion detected by the orbiting Gaia satellite, astronomers have located the nearest black hole to the Sun. At 1600 light years, Gaia BH1, a companion to a Sun-like star, is some three times closer than the previous record holder, and appears to pose some interesting challenges for our understanding […]
October 19, 2022
Combining the signal from the VLBA dish on Maunakea with identical dishes across and beyond the continental US, astronomers have created the first ever three-dimensional view of the orbit of a Jupiter-like planet in a binary star system. Read more and see a video of the orbit, in the VLBA press release.
September 16, 2022
Using the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea and the Faulkes telescope on Haleakalā, observers have discovered two temperate, rocky planets a little larger than our own Earth, and both orbiting a faint red star just 100 light years from us. One of the two lies in the star’s “habitable zone” and so could have liquid water on its surface. Read more, […]
September 12, 2022
Astronomers using the Canada-France Hawaii telescope have identified a probable “Ocean World” among the candidates found by NASA’s TESS satellite. Measuring the minute wobble of the planet’s host star, they found that planet is much less dense than a rocky body like Earth. The planet is also far enough from its star that water can exist as liquid, so this […]
August 2, 2022
Researchers using the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea have found an exoplanet which spends about half its time in the “habitable zone” around its host star, and which may be able to retain liquid water on its surface. The exoplanet – known as Ross 508b – will be a prime target for life searches by a future generation of large telescopes. […]
July 7, 2022
Governor Ige signed HB2024 into law today, creating the Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority, declaring astronomy as a policy of the state. Mahalo to the Hawai’i State Legislature, the Mauna Kea Working Group and the many community members for their efforts. We share the commitment stated by the University of Hawai’i to support the new Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight […]
July 6, 2022
On the outer fringes of the Andromeda Galaxy an unusual ultra-faint dwarf galaxy, first spotted by an amateur astronomer, has been observed by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea. The followup observations reveal the galaxy is a “fossil,” and among the first galaxies to form in the Universe. Read more, in the Gemini Observatory press release. The International Gemini Observatory […]
June 20, 2022
Observations from the James Clerk Maxwell telescope and the Submillimeter Array, both located on Maunakea, contributed to the production of the first-ever image of the shadow of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, by the “Event Horizon Telescope”. This incredibly challenging observation builds on the more than 20-year history of studies of the Galactic Center […]