The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) is the United States national observatory for ground based nighttime ultraviolet-optical-infrared (OUVIR) astronomy. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds NOAO to provide forefront astronomical research facilities for US astronomers. However, professional astronomers from any country in the world may apply to use the telescopes operated by NOAO under the NSF's "open skies" policy. Astronomers submit proposals for peer review to gain access to the telescopes which are scheduled every night of the year for observations (with the exception of Christmas and New Year's Eve). The combination of truly open access and the merit based science proposal process makes NOAO unique in the world. The NOAO headquarters are located in Tucson, Arizona and are co-located with the headquarters of the National Solar Observatory. The NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), under a cooperative agreement with the NSF. NOAO operates world class research telescopes in both the northern and southern hemispheres. These telescopes are located at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo in the US and Chile, respectively.
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Astronomers studying the distant Universe have found that small star-forming galaxies were abundant when the Universe was only 800 million years old, a few percent of its present age. The results suggest that the earliest ...
Astronomy
Jul 11, 2017
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Two undergraduates at San José State University have discovered two galaxies that are the densest known. Similar to ordinary globular star clusters but a hundred to a thousand times brighter, the new systems have properties ...
Astronomy
Jul 27, 2015
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The visit of the interstellar interloper 1I/2017 U1, recently spotted streaking through the solar system, gives the people of Earth their first chance to study up close an object from another planetary system. In a study ...
Astronomy
Nov 16, 2017
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Astronomers using the SOAR telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory report the discovery of a spectacular extended jet from a young brown dwarf. With masses too low to sustain hydrogen fusion in their interiors, ...
Astronomy
May 18, 2017
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A team of astronomers has confirmed the existence of a young planet, only 11 million years old, that orbits very close to its star (at 0.05 AU), with an orbital period of 5.4 days. Approximately 5 times the size of the Earth, ...
Astronomy
Jun 21, 2016
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NOAO scientists, using the Gemini Observatory 8-meter telescope in Chile, have obtained the highest resolution image ever obtained for the planetary nebula NGC 2346. Shaped like a butterfly, or an hourglass, but known scientifically ...
Astronomy
Jul 10, 2015
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(Phys.org) —Stars come in a tremendous size range, from many tens of times bigger than the Sun to a tiny fraction of its size. But the answer to just how small an astronomical body can be, and still be a star, has never ...
Astronomy
Dec 10, 2013
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(Phys.org) —Stellar lifetimes are measured in billions of years, so changes in their appearance rarely take place on a human timescale. Thus an opportunity to observe a star passing from one stage of life to another on ...
Astronomy
Apr 2, 2014
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An unusual supernova studied by multiple telescopes, including the SOAR telescope and other telescopes at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) and NSF's Kitt Peak National ...
Astronomy
Jan 10, 2019
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After slowly forming stars for the first few billion years of their lives, the Magellanic Clouds, near neighbors of our own Milky Way galaxy, have upped their game and are now forming new stars at a fast clip. This new insight ...
Astronomy
Jan 22, 2019
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