Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea

[TomK]

Well, I think it happens to many people in the latter stages of their careers—more management and admin, less time doing what they enjoy, and stuff they were never trained or wanted to do. As you can see in one or two other threads, some have more free time than they can handle. I envy them in a small way.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

The star is close, relatively speaking, the planets are too hot for life, but we’re getting closer to finding nearby earth-like planets in our galaxy.

Scientists have confirmed the existence of four small, rocky planets orbiting Barnard's Star — the second closest star system to Earth — using a specialized instrument on the mighty Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. Just six light-years away from us

https://www.space.com/the-universe/exopl...-neighbors

[TomK]

Thanks, HOTPE. Barnard's star is infamous, not because it's the closest star but due to its high proper motion, which means we've known it's close for decades even though it's faint. M-dwarfs are the most common stars in the Galaxy. They are smaller and cooler than our sun and have been targets for habitable exoplanet searches for some time, mainly because it's much easier to detect objects orbiting smaller and less bright stars. For those interested, there's a Nature article from 2023 that goes into the subject. It's worth a read. Note that our sun is a G-type star (hotter and more massive than M-dwarfs) which may help understand the first diagram in the article.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37487-9

[TomK]

This is not a discovery but a refinement of an object we've known about since 1054 AD, when Chinese astronomers witnessed the enormous explosion of a star in our Galaxy. The expansion of gases and dust ultimately formed what we know today as the Crab Nebula (NGC 1952).  Supernovae are rare events; for instance, the expected rate of supernovae in our own Galaxy is one every 40 years or so, and many have likely occurred that were so far away and obscured that we haven't seen them. Still, the rate can be figured out by observing other galaxies. The Crab Nebula is close enough that the expansion of the gases can still be measured, and it was a perfect target for CFHT's MegaCam and MegaPrime instruments. Press release here:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/sky-at-ni...1728631576

[TomK]

Sounds of a nearby star

Astroseismology is a relatively new technique that allows astronomers to measure the oscillations in the outer layers of nearby stars and can tell scientists what's going on deeper in the star. Couple that with other observations, you can tell the star's age, mass, and evolutionary status. This star also has exoplanets, at least two of which are "super-earths", i.e., rocky planets resembling Venus, Mars, and Earth but are larger than Earth. The innermost rocky planet is just 1.6 times the diameter of the Earth and a little denser. This stellar solar system is just over 20 light years away. The star is slightly less massive and a bit cooler than our sun.

However, the astroseismology observations, carried out using the Keck Observatory and the Keck Planet Finder, have led to researchers reproducing the sound the star would make if we could hear it. 



"Using the oscillations detected in HD 219134, the team determined the star’s age to be 10.2 billion years, more than twice the age of our Sun. This makes it one of the oldest main-sequence stars with an age determined using asteroseismology.
This new measurement offers key insights into stellar aging. For stars like HD 219134, spin-down appears to stall later in life. The asteroseismic age helps refine models and improve age estimates for other stars.
“This is like finding a long-lost tuning fork for stellar clocks,” said Yaguang Li. “It gives us a reference point to calibrate how stars spin down over billions of years.”"

https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2025/05/06/m...arby-star/

[TomK]

This caught my attention despite being on leave. A supernova, SN 2021yfj, was observed, showing few signs of hydrogen and helium. That could only happen if the originating star had its outer layers stripped, as that's where most of the lighter elements exist, at least to start with. As hydrogen and helium are used up, the star begins to fuse carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Depending on the star's mass, it's evolution can take different routes, the more massive examples ending with a supernova.
In this case,  SN 2021yfj, is severely depleted in hydrogen and helium, much more than expected. This has led those looking at the data to think its outer layers may have been stripped off before going supernova. If that's the case, it's not been seen before.

More info from the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, where the data were obtained:

https://keckobservatory.org/sn2021yfj/
 
“This event quite literally looks like nothing anyone has ever seen before,” added Adam Miller, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern and senior author on the study. “This star is telling us that our ideas and theories for how stars evolve are too narrow. It’s not that our textbooks are incorrect, but they clearly do not fully capture everything produced in nature. There must be more exotic pathways for a massive star to end its life that we hadn’t considered.”

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

The Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea in conjunction with two European Space agencies has made a couple of recent discoveries:

However, astronomers in Hawaii just spotted a pair of exciting discoveries — a huge exoplanet and a brown dwarf — using Japan’s Subaru Telescope, which sits atop Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.

These new celestial discoveries represent the first findings from OASIS (Observing Accelerators with SCExAO Imaging Survey), a program that relies on the Subaru Telescope, as well as data from other sources.

https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplane...-exoplanet

[TomK]

Not directly Mauna Kea related, instead some work that is being done at the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii regarding DKIST on Maui. In this case, the researchers are using AI to make significant advances that can help protect systems we rely on in real-time.

"UH scientists help unlock the Sun’s magnetic secrets with AI"

“The Sun is the strongest space weather source that can affect everyday life here on Earth, especially now that we rely so much on technology,” said Kai Yang, an IfA postdoctoral researcher who led the work. “The Sun’s magnetic field drives explosive events like solar flares and coronal mass ejections. This new technique helps us understand what triggers these events and strengthens space weather forecasts, giving us earlier warnings to protect the systems we use every day.”

https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2025/12/11/u...s-with-ai/




Credt -- ESA and NASA

[TomK]

3I/Atlas is an instellar comet. The 3I designation indicates it's the third object detected to come from outside our solar system. Atlas is the name of the network of telescopes that first detected it and was led by the University of Hawaii.

Since the discovery of the comet, there has been a lot of nonsense in the mainstream tabloid media and on social media claiming that the object is not a comet but an alien spaceship. Much of this came from Avi Loeb, a very respected astrophysicist who, for whatever reason, kept saying it might be a spaceship. It isn't, it's an interstellar comet, only the second one we've ever detected. (https://atlas.fallingstar.com/)

Its orbit took it behind the sun from our perspective, and as expected, it recently reappeared. Gemini North, an observatory on Mauna Kea, invited the public to observe this relatively unique object.

Gemini North Color Images Reveal Greenish Glow of Comet 3I/ATLAS

"Community observing program Shadow the Scientists took the public on a second tour of the famous interstellar visitor with live observations from the Gemini North telescope control room in Hawai‘i"

https://www.gemini.edu/news/press-releases/noirlab2532

[randomq]

That's the best you guys could do? You can't even see the thrusters, never mind the windows. You guys really need to build a better telescope up there! /s