Tag Archive for 'Keck Observatory'

These images of Saturn’s moon Titan were captured by Webb’s NIRCam instrument on November 4, 2022. Left: image using F212N, a 2.12-micron filter sensitive to Titan’s lower atmosphere; the bright spots are prominent clouds in the northern hemisphere. Right: color composite image using a combination of NIRCam filters; several prominent surface features are labeled: Kraken Mare is thought to be a methane sea; Belet is composed of dark-colored sand dunes; Adiri is a bright albedo feature. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / A. Pagan, STScI / Webb Titan GTO Team.

Webb Sees Clouds in Hazy Atmosphere of Titan

Dec 2, 2022 by News Staff

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere, and it is also the only planetary body other than Earth...

This image shows PSR J0952-0607 and its companion. Image credit: W.M. Keck Observatory / Roger W. Romani / Alex Filippenko.

Astronomers Find Heaviest Neutron Star on Record

Jul 27, 2022 by News Staff

PSR J0952-0607, a so-called millisecond pulsar, has shredded and consumed nearly the entire mass of its stellar companion and, in the process, grown into...

The view of the Galactic center observed with the NIRC2 instrument on the Keck II telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory. This image is high-pass filtered and shows the position of several S stars close to Sgr A*, which is indicated by a black cross. The star in the white dashed circle shows a magnitude of 16.3 mag, while the star in the blue circle is 17 mag faint. Here north is up and east is to the left. Image credit: Peissker et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac752f.

Fast-Moving Star Orbits Milky Way’s Central Black Hole in Just Four Years

Jul 6, 2022 by Natali Anderson

The newly-found star, named S4716, reaches a speed of 8,000 km/sec and comes as close as 98 astronomical units (AU) to Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black...

An artist’s impression of the HD 33142 planetary system, which is located 397 light-years away in the constellation of Lepus. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Three Massive Planets Orbit Nearby Giant Star HD 33142

Jun 20, 2022 by Natali Anderson

An international team of astronomers, using the radial velocity (RV) method, has discovered a third planet in the planetary system HD 33142. An artist’s...

Neptune is Cooler than Astronomers Thought

Apr 11, 2022 by News Staff

Using data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, the Subaru Telescope, the Keck Telescope, the Gemini South and North...

An artist’s impression of the Roque 12 binary system in the Pleiades cluster. Image credit: Sci-News.com / NASA / ESA / AURA / Caltech.

Astronomers Find Widest-Separation Brown Dwarf Pair to Date

Feb 18, 2022 by Natali Anderson

At an estimated distance of 130.5 light-years, CWISE J014611.20-050850.0AB has a projected separation of 129 AU (astronomical units), or 129 times the...

This infrared image, taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, shows an aurora at the southern pole of Saturn. Image credit: NASA / Cassini / VIMS Team / University of Arizona / University of Leicester / JPL / ASI.

Weather Drives Saturn’s Powerful Aurorae, Planetary Scientists Say

Feb 9, 2022 by News Staff

Saturn is unique among planets observed to date in that some of its aurorae are generated by swirling winds within its atmosphere, and not just from the...

An artist’s impression of a mini-Neptune exoplanet and its parent star. Image credit: Adam Makarenko, Keck Observatory.

Two Mini-Neptunes Lose Their Puffy Atmospheres, Transform into Super-Earth Exoplanets

Feb 4, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers have identified two mini-Neptune exoplanets — TOI-560b and HD 63433c — that are losing their puffy atmospheres and likely transforming...

Super-Jupiter Found Circling Very Young, Very Low Mass Star

Oct 25, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The discovery of a super-Jupiter exoplanet around the M-type dwarf star 2MASS J04372171+2651014 challenges models of planet formation by either core accretion...

An artist’s rendition of the MOA-2010-BLG-477Lb exoplanet and its white-dwarf host. Image credit: W.M. Keck Observatory / Adam Makarenko.

Jupiter-Mass Exoplanet Found Orbiting White Dwarf

Oct 15, 2021 by News Staff

Using a technique called gravitational microlensing, which occurs when a star close to Earth momentarily aligns with a more distant star, astronomers have...

Fast-moving debris from a supernova explosion triggered by a stellar collision in the VT 1210+4956 system crashes into material thrown out earlier, and the shocks cause bright radio emission seen by the VLA. Image credit: Bill Saxton / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Compact Object Collision with Companion Star Triggers Supernova Event

Sep 2, 2021 by News Staff

Using data collected by the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS), astronomers have found evidence that a compact object — a black hole or neutron...

This is an artist’s impression of a free-floating Y-dwarf. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Enigmatic Ancient Brown Dwarf Spotted in Solar Neighborhood

Sep 1, 2021 by News Staff

WISEA J153429.75-104303.3 (WISE 1534-1043 for short) — nicknamed ‘The Accident’ by its discoverer, citizen scientist Dan Caselden — is...

Jupiter is shown in visible light for context underneath an artistic impression of the Jovian upper atmosphere’s infrared glow. The brightness of this upper atmosphere layer corresponds to temperatures, from hot to cold, in this order: white, yellow, bright red and lastly, dark red. The aurorae are the hottest regions and the image shows how heat may be carried by winds away from the aurora and cause planet-wide heating. Image credit: J. O’Donoghue, JAXA / Hubble / NASA / ESA / A. Simon / J. Schmidt.

Jupiter’s Powerful Polar Aurorae are Responsible for Upper-Atmospheric Heating, Study Shows

Aug 5, 2021 by News Staff

The upper atmosphere of Jupiter is hotter than expected from the amount of sunlight that it receives: the average temperature should be about minus 73...

An artist’s impression of the giant exoplanet Kepler-1704b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Failed Hot Jupiter Found in Wide Orbit around Kepler-1704

Aug 2, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers from the Giant Outer Transiting Exoplanet Mass (GOT ’EM) Survey have discovered a long-period giant planet circling the 7.4-billion-year-old...

Artist's rendering of the planetary system HR 8799 at an early stage in its evolution, showing the planet HR 8799c, a disk of gas and dust, and interior planets (Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics / Mediafarm)

Astronomers Measure Rotation Speeds of Planets in HR 8799 System

Aug 2, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer (KPIC) on the Keck II telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory, astronomers have obtained and analyzed the...

Hubble captured this view of comet 46P/Wirtanen on December 13, 2018. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Bodewits, Auburn University / J.-Y. Li, Planetary Science Institute.

Astronomers Detect Unusual Amount of Methanol in Comet 46P/Wirtanen

Jul 9, 2021 by News Staff

Using the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC) instrument at the Keck II telescope, astronomers conducted near-infrared spectroscopic observations of the...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

First Generation of Stars Emerged 250-350 Million Years after Big Bang, Astronomers Say

Jun 24, 2021 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from the United Kingdom and the United States has examined six of the most distant galaxies currently known and found that the distance...

This artist’s impression shows how the distant quasar PSO J172.3556+18.7734 and its radio jets may have looked. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Discover Most Distant Known Cosmic Jet

Mar 8, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using several ground-based telescopes have spotted the most distant cosmic jet discovered so far. Its source is PSO J172.3556+18.7734, a radio-loud...

An artist’s impression of the KIC 8462852 binary system. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Milky Way’s ‘Most Mysterious Star’ Has a Companion

Feb 2, 2021 by Sergio Prostak

KIC 8462852, a mysteriously dimming star located about 1,480 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus, is, in fact, a binary stellar system, made...

An artist’s impression of WASP-107b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Super-Puff Exoplanet WASP-107b is Even Stranger than Thought

Jan 19, 2021 by News Staff

With a mass of 1.8 Neptune masses and a radius of Jupiter, WASP-107b presents a challenge to planet formation theories. An artist’s impression of WASP-107b....

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