Press Release

2010

Why Do Ionized Gas Clouds Stream Out from Galaxies?
Why Do the Ionized Gas Clouds Stream Out from Galaxies?
November 19, 2010

Using the Subaru Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) in their observations of the Coma Cluster, researchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Hiroshima University, the University of Tokyo, and other institutes have discovered 14 galaxies accompanied by extended, ionized hydrogen clouds. The discovery marks the first time that scientists have 1) detected many galaxies with extended ionized hydrogen gas clouds in a cluster and 2) investigated their spatial and velocity distribution as well as the characteristics of their parent galaxies. The observations captured images of this cluster of galaxies during a critical moment of galaxy evolution and contribute to an understanding of how such clouds may have formed.

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Subaru Telescope photographed 103P/Hartley
Subaru Telescope photographed 103P/Hartley
October 21, 2010

Subaru Telescope photographed the comet 103P/Hartley approaching to the Earth. Scientists used Suprime-Cam at Subaru Telescope to catch the comet 103P/Hartley during the performance verification period after long shut down of the telescope. Shouts of joy arose from the observers as well as the night crews on site when the telescope slew to the calculated position and the comet's tail appeared on a monitor.

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New Herbig-Haro Jets in Orion
New Herbig-Haro Jets in Orion
August 19, 2010

A research team led by Dr. Bo Reipurth (University of Hawaii at Manoa) using the Subaru Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) has obtained some of the deepest and highest resolution images ever taken of the large star-forming molecular cloud Lynds 1641, located just south of the Orion Nebula. Many bright Herbig-Haro flows, which are small patches of faint nebulosity in star-forming regions, occupy this part of the sky. Emissions from Herbig-Haro objects are caused by powerful shock waves that occur when supersonic outflows from newborn stars ram through the interstellar medium.

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Discovery of First Trojan Asteroid in a Stable Zone near Neptune
Discovery of First Trojan Asteroid in a Stable Zone near Neptune
August 12, 2010

Astronomers Scott Sheppard (Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C.) and Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii) have discovered the first Trojan asteroid, 2008 LC18, at a difficult-to-detect stable spot near Neptune, the so-called Lagrangian point L5. In their quest to find out whether Neptune Trojans at L5 exist, they used the 8.2 meter Subaru Telescope's camera at prime focus (Suprime-Cam) to locate the asteroid, and the Carnegie 6.5 meter Magellan Telescope to determine its orbit.

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Subaru Telescope Detects Clues for Understanding the Origin of Mysterious Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts
Subaru Telescope Detects Clues for Understanding the Origin of Mysterious Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts
July 20, 2010

A research team led by astronomers from Kyoto University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan used the Subaru Telescope to observe a dark gamma-ray burst (GRB) that provides clues for understanding the origin of dark gamma-ray bursts. Their research is a very rare case of the detection of a dark GRB's host galaxy and afterglow in the near-infrared wavelength. They not only found that the host galaxy of this GRB is one of the most massive GRB host galaxies but also that a local dusty environment around the GRB significantly suppresses its afterglow. The observational results suggest a high metallicity environment (one that contains a majority of elements heavier than helium) around the GRB, a finding that is inconsistent with previous interpretations of GRBs, which associate their origin with a supernova explosion of a low metallicity massive star at the end of its life. This research suggests the possibility that GRBs classified as "dark" may originate in another mechanism such as the merger of binary stars.

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Subaru Telescope photographed Hayabusa spacecraft
Subaru Telescope photographed Hayabusa spacecraft
June 13, 2010

Before its re-entry to the earth after 6 billion kilometers (3.75 billion miles) round trip, Hayabusa demonstrated its namesake in the view of Subaru Telescope. Launched in 2003 from the southern island of Japan, Hayabusa the Falcon, went all the way to an asteroid Itokawa, landed on it, scooped up its soil, and flew back. Overcame with tremendous difficulties during this journey lasted 4 years longer than originally planned, the project team is now on its final "leg" of recovering the capsule ejected from Hayabusa upon re-entry. This capsule might contain the speckle of dust from Itokawa, which enables scientists to uncover the history of the solar system.

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An Unusual Supernova May Be a Missing Link in Stellar Evolution Research
An Unusual Supernova May Be a Missing Link in Stellar Evolution Research
May 21, 2010

After the discovery of an unusual Type Ib Supernova (SN) 2005cz in an elliptical galaxy, an international team of astronomers used the Subaru Telescope to monitor it. Their findings provide the first solid evidence of the theoretical prediction that stars in the 8-12 solar mass range can explode into supernovae.

The team’s measurements of the late-phase spectrum and the luminosity showed that this supernova was faint, faded quickly, and showed a [O I] 6300, 6364 spectral line much weaker than [Ca II] 7291, 7323. They suggest that SN 2005cz originated from a progenitor star less massive (about 10 solar masses)than other Ib supernovae. The abundance pattern of the ejecta of such stars may be very special and might have played important roles in the chemical evolution of galaxies.

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More(Hiroshima University)
More(IPMU)
A Completely Grown-Up Galaxy in the Young Universe
A Completely Grown-Up Galaxy in the Young Universe
May 20, 2010

An international team of astronomers led by Dr. Masato Onodera at the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique in France has used the Subaru Telescope to take infrared spectra of a very distant, unusually bright, and massive elliptical galaxy. This galaxy is 10 billion light-years from Earth and was observed at a time when the Universe was only about one-quarter of its current age. Paradoxically, and in contrast with some previous studies, this galaxy appears to be similar to its cousins in the local Universe. Its size appears to be normal for its mass, and its velocity dispersion is consistent with its large size. This research deepens the puzzle as to how and why some elliptical galaxies seem to reach their full size very early in the evolution of the Universe while other, very compact ones increase in volume a hundredfold over time.

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Invisible Light Discovers the Most Distant Cluster of Galaxies
Invisible Light Discovers the Most Distant Cluster of Galaxies
May 9, 2010

An international team of astronomers from Japan and Germany has discovered the most distant cluster of galaxies known so far-9.6 billion light years away. X-ray observations in the Subaru/SMM-Newton Deep Field helped to identify the candidates, and infrared observations using the Subaru Telescope, fitted with its Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrometer (MOIRCS), provided the distance information. The results demonstrate that current near infrared facilities are capable of providing a detailed analysis of galaxy populations at this redshift level. Even more comprehensive understandings will come as the X-ray cluster survey progresses and is followed up with near-infrared observations.

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Research Illuminates the Shape of Dark Matter's Distribution
Research Illuminates the Shape of Dark Matter's Distribution
April 26, 2010

An international team of researchers from Japan, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom has provided the first direct and clear evidence for an extremely flattened shape of dark matter's distribution in massive clusters of galaxies, a finding that confirms a major prediction of the prevailing dark matter model. The researchers took advantage of the gravitational lensing effect to make detailed measurements of the spatial distributions of dark matter in 20 massive clusters of galaxies. A thorough examination of the shape of dark matter's distribution in the cosmos may open up a new way to explore the nature of this enigmatic matter.

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M81's "Halo" Sheds Light on Galaxy Formation
M81's
April 22, 2010

Observations with Subaru Telescope's Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) have revealed an extended structure of the spiral galaxy Messier 81 (M81) that may hold a key to understanding the formation of galaxies. This structure could be M81's halo. Until now, ground-based telescopes have only observed individual stars in the haloes around the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies. Differences in M81's extended structure from the Milky Way's halo may point to variations in the formation histories of spiral galaxies.

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A Fresh Look at Jupiter's Great Red Spot
A Fresh Look at Jupiter's Great Red Spot
April 1, 2010

New, ground-breaking thermal images obtained with powerful ground-based telescopes show swirls of warmer air and cooler regions never seen before within Jupiter's Great Red Spot.




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Astronomers Discover Cool Stars in Nearby Space
Astronomers discover cool stars in nearby space
January 29, 2010

An international team of scientists, led by astronomers at the University of Hertfordshire, have discovered what may be the coolest sub-stellar body ever found outside our own solar system. Using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, observers identified an object that is technically known as a brown dwarf. Equipped with its Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (IRCS), the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii showed that SDSS1416+13 B is a brown dwarf, and the Spitzer Space Telescope revealed that it is the reddest known brown dwarf at longer wavelengths.

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Discovery of New Stellar Streams in the Andromeda Galaxy Shows Galaxy Formation Through Mergers
Discovery of new stellar streams in the halo of the Andromeda galaxy
- Remnants of galaxy formation processes through mergers -
January 22, 2010

A team of astronomers from Tohoku University, University of Tokyo, NAOJ, University of California Santa Cruz, and other universities have discovered new stellar streams in a vast region surrounding the disk of Andromeda, in its so-called stellar halo. These stellar or tidal streams, which are localized in space and move as a coherent group through the parent galaxy, intensify the density of stars and are remnants of past mergers of relatively small (i.e., dwarf) galaxies. The data from the team's observations using both Subaru's Suprime Cam for photometry and Keck II's Deep Extragalactic Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) for spectroscopy provided detailed spatial and velocity distributions of the stellar streams and led to this discovery.

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