Carnegie Science News - Astronomy/Cosmology

A team of astronomers, led by Carnegie’s Masami Ouchi, has discovered a mysterious, giant object that existed when the universe was only 800 million years old. Dubbed an extended “Lyman-Alpha blob,” it is a huge body of gas. It is named Himiko for a legendary Japanese queen and stretches for 55 thousand light years, a record for that early point in time. Its length is comparable to the radius of the Milky Way’s disk. Click here for multimedia

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The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) Corporation  announces that nine astronomical research organizations from three continents have signed the Founders’ Agreement to construct and operate the 25-meter Giant Magellan Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The participating institutions are the Carnegie Institution for Science, Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, Texas A& M University, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, the Australian National University and Astronomy Australia Limited. Most recently, the South Korean government has approved participation in the GMT project, with the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute as the representative of the Korean astronomical community.

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Here on Earth we worry about our planet's atmosphere warming by a few degrees on average over the next century, and even weather fronts bring temporary changes in temperature of no more than tens of degrees. Now astronomers writing in the January 29 Nature report on an extra-solar planetary system where global warming is taken to a spectacular extreme: a 700 degree rise in a few hours
Audio Press Release

Dr. George W. Preston of the Carnegie Observatories has been selected by the American Astronomical Society to be the 2009 recipient of its highest distinction: the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship. The Russell Lectureship is awarded each year in recognition of a lifetime of excellence in astronomical research. Preston will deliver the lecture at the 2009 winter meeting of the AAS in Washington, D.C. more »

Two independent groups have simultaneously made the first-ever ground-based detection of extrasolar planets thermal emissions. Until now, virtually everything known about atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars in the Milky Way has come from space-based observations. These new results, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, open a new frontier to studying these alien worlds and are especially critical because the major space-based workhorse to these studies, the Spitzer telescope, will soon run out of cryogens, highly limiting its capabilities.
Audio News Release

The rate at which the universe is expanding, a value known as the Hubble constant, has been hotly debated for the last 80 years. Now the director of the Carnegie Observatories, Wendy Freedman, will lead a team who will slash the uncertainty of this value to just 3% via the new Carnegie Hubble Program using NASA’s space-based Spitzer telescope.
Video News Release

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