The Association of Universities for Astronomy (AURA) is pleased to welcome two new member institutions, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Utah. Both institutions’ applications to join AURA were approved by AURA’s Member Representatives at its April annual meeting in Tucson, Arizona.
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The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope released eight new images of the Sun, previewing the exciting science underway at the world’s most powerful ground-based solar telescope. The images feature a variety of sunspots and quiet regions of the Sun obtained by the Visible-Broadband Imager (VBI), one of the telescope’s first-generation instruments.
Each year AURA holds an Annual Meeting of representatives from its member institutions. The 2023 meeting, held April 17-19 in Tucson, Arizona, was a hybrid gathering, with in-person attendance for the first time in four years in addition to virtual participation.
NASA has awarded an Exceptional Public Service Medal to Dr. Heidi Hammel, AURA Vice President for Science, Interdisciplinary Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Planetary Society.
Chief of Staff Lee Curtis transitioned to Chief of Staff after 11 years as Senior Executive Assistant to the AURA President and STScI Director. As Senior Executive Assistant he provided guidance and oversight for all planning and policy development activities. In addition, he organized and coordinated executive outreach and external relations efforts, and oversaw special […]
Astronomers using an array of ground- and space-based telescopes, including Gemini North on Hawai‘i, have uncovered a closely bound duo of energetic quasars — the hallmark of a pair of merging galaxies — seen when the Universe was only three billion years old. This discovery sheds light on the evolution of galaxies at “cosmic noon,” a period in the history of the Universe when galaxies underwent bursts of furious star formation. This merger also represents a system on the verge of becoming a giant elliptical galaxy.
The Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, captured this dazzling image of UGC 12914 and UGC 12915, which are nicknamed the Taffy Galaxies. Their twisted shape is the result of a head-on collision that occurred about 25 million years prior to their appearance in this image. A bridge of highly turbulent gas devoid of significant star formation spans the gap between the two galaxies.
An international team of researchers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to measure the temperature of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b. The measurement is based on the planet’s thermal emission: heat energy given off in the form of infrared light detected by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) seeks a new Director for the National Solar Observatory (NSO).
The tattered shell of the first-ever historically recorded supernova was captured by the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, which is mounted on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.
Science can uncover new knowledge, but it can also reveal what we don’t understand. New research is shedding light on a cosmological mystery that’s been brewing since the 1920s. The mystery involves the make-up and expansion of the universe.
Like a sports photographer at an auto-racing event, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a series of photos of asteroid Dimorphos when it was deliberately hit by a 1,200-pound NASA spacecraft called DART on September 26, 2022.
Dr. Dara Norman, NSF’s NOIRLab’s Community Science and Data Center (CSDC) Deputy Director, has been elected President of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). She will serve as President-Elect for the next year and will begin her two-year term as President in June 2024.
Astronomers using the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, have uncovered the first example of a phenomenally rare type of binary star system, one that has all the right conditions to eventually trigger a kilonova — the ultra-powerful, gold-producing explosion created by colliding neutron stars.
Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objects — arguably the largest such catalog so far.
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