Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea

[TomK]

Earth's evil exoplanet twin

This is a follow-up to my previous post.

Big Island News posted a rather long albeit interesting article about an exoplanet called "Gliese 12 b", about 40 light years away. The research team used NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and three Mauna Kea observatories, Keck, Gemini, and Subaru, to nail down the size and mass of a rocky exoplanet. The planet is Earth-sized; in fact, they narrowed it down to Venus-sized, which is only a tiny bit smaller than Earth. It's in a very different solar system; it orbits a red dwarf, a star much cooler than our sun, and a year on that planet lasts just over 12 days. But it's in a region where liquid water should exist and likely has an atmosphere that is not particularly pleasant for humans.

"The researchers think the newly discovered exoplanet is an “evil twin” because of the data they’ve gotten so far making it look more like Venus than Earth".

More here:

https://bigislandnow.com/2024/05/25/evil...-on-earth/
https://www.keckobservatory.org/gliese-12b/

[Punatang]

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2024/08/1...ss-galaxy/

Hawaii telescopes help spot ‘wicked fast’ star blazing across galaxy

By Michael Brestovansky Hawaii Tribune-Herald|Aug. 18th, 2024

A telescope atop Maunakea and a host of backyard astronomers have detected a rare star racing toward the edge of the galaxy at nearly unprecedented speeds.
Astronomers using instruments at both the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea and Pan-STARRS on Haleakala found a star blasting through space at about 1.3 million miles per hour, roughly 0.1% the speed of light.
“It’s wicked fast,” said Keck Chief Scientist John O’Meara. “I think that’s something like Mach 1,700.”

[Chas]

Rare brightening comet seen passing Earth from Hawaii.

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/crejxl4zv33o

[TomK]

See https://punaweb.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=23450

I didn't post it here because Hawaii telescopes didn't discover it.

[HiloJulie]

I find it amazing as well as a bit humorous that even the media confuses a picture/video taken from the SUMMIT of Mauna Kea as being from an actual telescope!

[TomK]

I find it amazing as well as a bit humorous that even the media confuses a picture/video taken from the SUMMIT of Mauna Kea as being from an actual telescope!

I'm not sure I have the same opinion. I know why you say it, but in the end, the general media knows as much about astronomy/telescopes/optics as a regular layperson. It's rare to read a good astronomy news story on a news site; they generally include too many mistakes and misinformation, and sometimes, they aren't apparent unless you're an astronomer, pro or amateur.

Are you referring to a specific article or making a general comment?

[Rob Tucker]

These telescopes are also know as observatories. Observing a comet from the summit seems well in line with being an observatory.

[HiloJulie]

My comment is both in general and specific. 

For example, take the BBC link Chas posted.

The caption under the video says:

A telescope in Hawaii captured a rare comet as it passes near Earth. The footage was captured on 2 October by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru-Asahi Star Camera on the summit of Maunakea."

And while the second sentence corrects the first, it's a poor use of terminology and I find it to be confusing more often than not.

[Rob Tucker]

Tell the BBC about it I guess... doesn't change much.

[TomK]

Although I have contacted the BBC in the past due to incorrect statements in their science articles, in this case, they are correct. Maybe they should have used "observatory" instead of telescope, but that's nit-picking. The camera in question indeed belongs to Subaru and is at the summit.