[from HPR] Astronomers with the University of Hawai‘i are examining possible ice pockets on the dwarf planet Ceres which orbits Pluto. Pictures taken from NASA’s Dawn mission show frozen water may be trapped in craters on the planet’s poles–which sit in dark areas that don’t receive sunlight. Researchers say Ceres may have just enough gravity to hold the water on the surface. If temperatures in the crater stay below minus 243 degrees Fahrenheit the area becomes a “Cold Trap”, holding ice for billions of years. Scientists have previously discovered ice hiding in similar pockets on Mercury and Earth’s moon. Norbert Schorghofer is an associate professor with UH’s Institute for Astronomy. Schorghofer says his team will continue to run stereo imaging tests on the photos to see if water actually exists on the surface of Ceres....
From UH News For a decade, a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Institute for Astronomy’s summer program has attracted middle school and high school students from across the state. It’s called Hawaiʻi Student/Teacher Astronomy Research or HI STAR. “This program introduces students from across the state of Hawaiʻi to the basic practices of science,” said Geoff Mathews, UH Mānoa astronomy instructor. “Science is about exploring, going out and discovering new things, adding to humanity’s understanding of the universe.” Over the past few years, HI STAR alumni have been awarded more than $400,000 in scholarships and awards at science fairs. The program, which recently marked its 10th year, is unique to the extent in which students design and direct their research projects. Pahoa High School student James Iaukea said, “We got to learn about star clusters and galaxies and basic things like that and now we’re moving into more field-based studies, like I’m working on my exoplanets right now.” UH Mānoa student mentor Marielle Dela Cruz, will be the first student to graduate from from the campus’ nascent astrophysics program in 2017. ”My (students’) project is globular clusters. They have the oldest stars in the universe,” she said. According to organizers, HI STAR alumni are not only college and research ready, they are also becoming future leaders in the science, engineering and technology fields that are so important to Hawaiʻi and the nation....
About IMAGE: Rendering of the orbit of RR245 (orange line). Objects as bright or brighter than RR245 are labeled. The Minor Planet Center describes the object as the 18th largest in the Kuiper Belt. Credit: Alex Parker, OSSOS [source] An international team of astronomers including researchers from the University of British Columbia has discovered a new dwarf planet orbiting in the disk of small icy worlds beyond Neptune. The new object is about 700 km in diameter — roughly one-and-a-half times the size of Vancouver Island — and has one of the largest orbits for a dwarf planet. Designated 2015 RR245 by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, it was found using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii, as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). “Finding a new dwarf planet beyond Neptune sheds light on the early phases of planet formation,” said Brett Gladman, the Canada Research Chair in planetary astronomy at UBC. “Since most of these icy worlds are incredibly small and faint, it’s exciting to find a bright one that is easier to study, and which is on an interesting orbit.” RR245 was first spotted in February 2016 by astronomer JJ Kavelaars of the National Research Council of Canada. The OSSOS project uses powerful computers to hunt the images, and Kavelaars was presented with a bright object moving at such a slow rate that it was clearly at least twice as far from Earth Neptune and 120 times further from the Sun than Earth. The exact size of RR245 is not yet exactly known, as its surface properties need further measurement. “It’s...
Normally this space on our site is for information related to discoveries from Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, but the successful orbit (click on this article’s title to see the animation) of Jupiter by Juno effects everyone on the planet. Jupiter is one of the first planets to form in our system and what is inside this planet that almost became a sun is a mystery. We are hopeful Juno can unlock some of the deep secrets of how our planets formed and how a gas planet like Jupiter works. Follow along on NASA’s page all about the Juno Mission....
From West Hawaii Today “So, what are you doing this summer?” is one of the most commonly asked questions students are asked when walking out of their final exams. But instead of replying with a casual shrug of the shoulders, Hawaii residents Nicole Tabac, Kyle Mauri and Daryl Albano had the unique opportunity to proudly say, “I’m a Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Akamai intern.” While these students are akamai by every stretch of the word, they are among 30 college students interning in STEM related organizations throughout the Big Island and Maui as a part of the Akamai Internship Program. The program’s mission is to provide college students the opportunity to gain work experience at an observatory, company or technical facility in Hawaii for seven weeks. It has had tremendous success, with an 81 percent retention rate of students staying on the STEM pathway in college and beyond. The program includes housing, travel fees and a stipend to interns. Such is possible through generous funding from sponsors such as Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory and The Air Force Office of Scientific Research based in Arlington, VA. Yet, unlike other similar internships, the program has a variety of sites and jobs available for each student based on their aptitudes and interests. The list includes more than 50 different fields of STEM ranging from biology to computer programming. Students are placed with a project and mentor that best suits their interests, according to Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope’s outreach program manager, Mary Beth Laychak. “You want to make sure the intern, mentor and project are all very well aligned,” she said. “And that’s something that Lisa...
Astronomers at The University of Nottingham have released spectacular new infrared images of the distant Universe, providing the deepest view ever obtained over a large area of sky. The team, led by Omar Almaini, Professor of Astrophysics in the School of Physics and Astronomy, is presenting their results at the National Astronomy Meeting taking place this week at the University’s Jubilee Campus. The final data release from the Ultra-Deep Survey (UDS) maps an area four times the size of the full Moon to unprecedented depth. Over 250,000 galaxies have been detected, including several hundred observed within the first billion years after the Big Bang. Astronomers around the world will use the new images to study the early stages of galaxy formation and evolution. The release of the final UDS images represents the culmination of a project that began taking data in 2005. The scientists used the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Hawaii to observe the same patch of sky repeatedly, building up more than 1000 hours of exposure time. Observing in the infrared is vital for studying the distant Universe, as ordinary starlight is “redshifted” to longer wavelengths due to the cosmological expansion of the Universe. Because of the finite speed of light, the most distant galaxies are also observed very far back in time. Professor Almaini said: “With the UDS we can study distant galaxies in large numbers, and observe how they evolved at different stages in the history of the Universe. We see most of the galaxies in our image as they were billions of years before the Earth was formed.” The UDS is the deepest...
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