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Media Information Kit Media Information Kit VISION OF THE W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY A world in which all humankind is inspired and united by the pursuit of knowledge of the infinite variety and richness of the Universe. MISSION STATEMENT To advance the frontiers of astronomy and share our discoveries inspiring the imagination of all. OBSERVATORY CONTACT INFORMATION Rich Matsuda, Communications (interim) [email protected] W. M. Keck Observatory 65‐1120 Mamalahoa Highway Kamuela, Hawaii 96743 ON THE WEB Website: http://keckobservatory.org Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KeckObservatory Twitter: https://twitter.com/KeckObservatory Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/keckobservatory ABOUT THE W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY The revolutionary twin Keck telescopes are the largest fully steerable optical/infrared telescopes on Earth and are able to see fainter and further into the cosmos than any other current research facility. Each telescope stands eight stories tall, weighs 300 tons and operates with nanometer precision. The telescopes’ primary mirrors are 10 meters in diameter and are each composed of 36 hexagonal segments that work in concert as a single piece of reflective glass. In 1985, the W.M. Keck Foundation gave $70 million to begin the construction of the Keck I telescope. While still under construction, the foundation funded another $68 million to build Keck II. Science operations for Keck I telescope began in 1993, Keck II in 1996. The Observatory is managed as a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation whose board of directors includes representatives from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of California (UC). Representatives from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the W. M. Keck Foundation serve as liaisons to the Board. Approximately 125 scientific, technical and administrative employees work at headquarters in Waimea, Hawaii and at the telescope facility located on the summit of Mauna Kea. With an annual budget of approximately $27 million, the organization relies on both public funding and private philanthropy to develop and implement technical innovations to sustain its leadership in ground-based astronomy. Recognized as the most scientifically productive observatory on Earth, Keck has pushed the frontiers of discovery, searching for new inhabitable worlds, probing the mysteries of the Milky Way, measuring distant galaxies and revealing other cosmic phenomenon so that we may further understand the nature of the Universe and our place in its vast expanse. The Keck Observatory is also known for consistently being first and fast in developing new scientific capabilities in a rapidly changing technological field. Beyond offering the largest light collection mirrors on the planet, the Keck telescopes host a complete suite of ten state-of-the-art observing instruments to collect and analyze astronomical data. Keck is a world leader in the field of adaptive optics’ a breakthrough technology that removes the distortions caused by the turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere and provides image clarity of cosmic targets that rivals those of the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2004, Keck Observatory deployed the first laser guide star adaptive optics system on a large telescope. The scientific discoveries have been spectacular, ranging from revealing the mass of the black hole at the center of our galaxy to witnessing the assembly of galaxies early in the life of the universe. Keck sponsors public lectures, podcasts, and engaging science activities for students young and old. The Observatory has a support base of over 800 Friends of Keck and a subscribed fan base of nearly 20,000 astronomy professionals and enthusiasts, and welcomes visitors to its headquarters facility in Kamuela and to its summit facility for a first-hand view of the mighty Keck Telescopes on Mauna Kea 20 YEARS OF DISCOVERY During the past 20 years, the mighty Keck Telescopes have revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos, impacting every area of astronomy and astrophysics, from planets in our solar system to the most distant galaxies in the early Universe. Innovations in development promise to sustain Keck’s leadership for decades to come. Below is a sample of the breadth and depth of Keck Observatory’s research reach. The Accelerating Expansion of the Universe By studying a particular type of exploding star – or supernovae – that is believed to be very similar throughout the universe, astronomers can use them as mile markers to their host galaxies. But when astronomers using the Keck telescopes compared the distances of a large sample of Type Ia supernovae to the speeds at which they were flying apart, they were shocked to discover that the Universe is speeding up in its expanding unaccountably. They had found evidence of a mysterious repulsive force in physics: dark energy. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for this ground breaking research. Oodles of Exoplanets Sixteen years ago, astronomers at Keck detected the first planet outside of our solar system by applying the Doppler effect to spectroscopy. Today, more than 1,000 such discoveries later, Keck has found the majority of all known exoplanets. In 2008 astronomers captured the first- ever direct images of planets orbiting another star. Using the Keck II telescope with its high- contrast near-infrared adaptive optics, astronomers detected a whopping three super-Jupiter planets around the star HR8799. Before this, such “exoplanets” were detected indirectly, primarily by the gravitational pull of the planet on its parent star. In 2010 these same astronomers announced the discovery of a fourth planet around HR8799. Black Hole in the Milky Way Galaxy Using the Keck II telescope’s infrared adaptive optics, astronomers looked through the dust and gas that block our visible light view into the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. What they found were hundreds of large young stars in rapid orbits around some unseen, incredibly massive object. It was profoundly convincing evidence of the existence of a supermassive black hole 4 million times the mass of our sun at the center of the galaxy. While it was theorized more than 25 years ago, the Keck telescopes equipped with adaptive optics have found and proved the Milky Way has a supermassive black hole at its center. Since then, it is generally agreed that most galaxies have black holes at their center. Catching Pluto’s Killer After discovering what appeared to be an object larger than Pluto in the outer solar system in 2005, Caltech’s Mike Brown and his team quickly turned to the Keck II telescope and its atmosphere-penetrating adaptive optics to get a brighter, clearer look. They were surprised to discover a moon orbiting the object. That helped them establish that the object, later named Eris, was larger than Pluto, but otherwise extremely similar to the former ninth planet. Brown’s research led to the demise of Pluto as a planet, and introduced to the public an entirely new population of cosmic objects in our solar system now known as “dwarf planets.” Planet Construction Zones Around a Nearby Star In 1998, astronomers on the Keck II Telescope discovered evidence of a budding solar system around a moderately young star 220 light years away from Earth. The powerful capabilities of the Keck allowed observers to determine that a dust ring around the star was a critical missing link in the evolution of solar systems. L & T Dwarfs: a New Class of Stars After a number of Brown Dwarf candidates were identified, Keck Observatory was used to obtain spectra to reveal the chemical makeup and temperature of more than two hundred objects. In those findings, two classes of yet unclassified stars revealed themselves: the hotter ‘L dwarf’ and the cooler ‘T dwarf’. Because of the unique range in temperature and chemical makeup the objects displayed, a century-old definition had to be rewritten. Shoemaker-Levy Comet Collides with Jupiter While not a discovery, the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into the largest planet in our solar system was arguably astronomy’s most exciting week during Keck’s first decade in operation. After a near miss in July 1992, Jupiter’s huge tidal force ripped the comet apart sending 20 fragments in a wild, fatal orbit that lasted until July 1994 when they crashed into the giant planet. Over six days, the Keck telescopes were positioned to take some of the best images of the exciting impact. Measure Distances of Very Distant Galaxies While any long exposure in a small area of the sky will acquire thousands of distant galaxies, knowing their distance has been a mystery. For the first time, spectroscopy gathered from Keck telescopes have allowed astronomers to obtain not only accurate distance to large numbers of very distant galaxies, but their stellar velocities, mass and their chemical composition as well. This work is continuing using similar methods to make the connection between early galaxies and the diffuse ‘intergalactic medium’ between the galaxies. Using Gravitational Lensing to Find Early Galaxy What do you get when you team the world’s most powerful telescope with gravitational lensing? A peak at one of the youngest building blocks of the Universe. Gravitational lensing, as Einstein theorized, bends lights rays from an object behind a larger object, allowing it to appear much brighter that if it were ‘alone’. A group led by Caltech’s Richard Ellis used the technique and the superior light gathering power Keck Telescopes to see a system of about a million stars that was forming in the first half-billion years of the Universe. .
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