April 18, 2011 - Astronomy Now Online
Astronomers are finding tantalising hints of planets around dead stars, it was revealed today at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales.
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Burleigh, along with Fraser Clarke of Oxford University and Emma Hogan of the Gemini South Observatory, named the search for planets around white dwarfs the Degenerate Objects around Degenerate Objects Project, or DODO. Their strategy is to sample around 40 young white dwarfs within 65 light years. Deep, wide-field images in the near-infrared using Gemini and the Very Large Telescope in Chile were obtained where the common proper motion of companions is being analysed over one to three years in order to confirm if they are indeed orbiting the white dwarfs. DODO is sensitive to a few Jupiter masses.
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Giant Galaxy NGC 6872
April 3, 2011 - Astronomy Picture of the Day
... The idea to image this titanic galaxy collision comes from a winning contest essay submitted last year to the Gemini Observatory by the Sydney Girls High School Astronomy Club...
Friday, April 15, 2011
When beauty and science collide
March 31, 2011 - Discovery Blog (Bad Astronomy)
That spiral galaxy is NGC 6872, and as you can see in this image from the Gemini South telescope it’s getting its clock cleaned by the littler spiral — IC 4970 — just to the right. The two are undergoing a galactic collision, a colossal event playing out over hundreds of millions of years. NGC 6872 is currently the victim here; its spiral arms are clearly distorted and being flung wide by the gravitational interaction. However, the smaller IC 4970 will be the ultimate loser in this battle: it will fall into the bigger galaxy, be torn apart, and eventually consumed in its entirety, becoming a part of NGC 6872. Bigger galaxies do this to smaller ones all the time; the Milky Way is in the process of eating several small galaxies even as you read this (I have details in articles linked below; see Related Posts).
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That spiral galaxy is NGC 6872, and as you can see in this image from the Gemini South telescope it’s getting its clock cleaned by the littler spiral — IC 4970 — just to the right. The two are undergoing a galactic collision, a colossal event playing out over hundreds of millions of years. NGC 6872 is currently the victim here; its spiral arms are clearly distorted and being flung wide by the gravitational interaction. However, the smaller IC 4970 will be the ultimate loser in this battle: it will fall into the bigger galaxy, be torn apart, and eventually consumed in its entirety, becoming a part of NGC 6872. Bigger galaxies do this to smaller ones all the time; the Milky Way is in the process of eating several small galaxies even as you read this (I have details in articles linked below; see Related Posts).
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Galactic Collision Wins Telescope Contest
March 31, 2011 - Wired Science
This new image from the Gemini South telescope in Chile captures a pair of galaxies locked in a graceful waltz that will eventually bring the two crashing together.
The telescope was aimed at these galaxies at the suggestion of a group of Australian students at the Sydney Girls High School Astronomy Club, who won a Gemini-sponsored contest searching for beautiful and scientifically useful images of the cosmos.
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Galaxy Tango
March 31, 2011 - National Geographic Daily News (Space pictures this week)
Two interacting galaxies seem to strike a pose during their gravitational dance in a new picture from the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii.
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Australian Students Capture Dancing Galaxies
April 7, 2011 - SpaceRef
For the second consecutive year, high school students from across Australia joined in a competition to obtain scientifically useful (and aesthetically pleasing) images using the Gemini Observatory. The 2010 winning student team suggested that Gemini focus on an interacting galaxy pair which, they assured, "would be more than just a pretty picture."
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For the second consecutive year, high school students from across Australia joined in a competition to obtain scientifically useful (and aesthetically pleasing) images using the Gemini Observatory. The 2010 winning student team suggested that Gemini focus on an interacting galaxy pair which, they assured, "would be more than just a pretty picture."
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