Topics December 16, 2016

ALMA Management Agreement Signed

On November 17, the Management Agreement Concerning Operations of ALMA was signed by NAOJ, AUI and ESO.

Topics December 12, 2016

NAOJ and UTSA Sign an Agreement to Collaborate in Astronomy

To further strengthen international collaboration, NAOJ and UTSA signed a memorandum of understanding on collaboration in astronomy.

Topics December 9, 2016

Special Website “Multiwavelength Universe” Wins the WebAward 2016 Best Science Site

NAOJ’s special website, “Multiwavelength Universe” won the WebAward 2016 Best Science Site. The Web Marketing Association in the United States of America gives these awards to excellent websites.

Science December 5, 2016

ALMA measures size of seeds of planets

Researchers using the ALMA, have for the first time, achieved a precise size measurement of small dust particles around a young star through radio-wave polarization.

Events December 2, 2016

Mitaka Open House Day 2016: More than 4500 Visitors Gathered at the Observatory in Autumn

The annual open house “Mitaka Open House Day” was held for 2 days on Friday, October 21, and Saturday, October 22, 2016.

Science November 28, 2016

Timing the Shadow of a Potentially Habitable Extrasolar Planet Paves the Way to Search for Alien Life

Researchers have observed the transit of a potentially Earth-like extrasolar planet known as K2-3d using the MuSCAT instrument on the Okayama Astrophysical Observatory 188-cm telescope.

This article is including a link to a article for kids.

Science November 22, 2016

Record-breaking Faint Satellite Galaxy of the Milky Way Discovered

An international team led by researchers from Tohoku University has found an extremely faint dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The team's discovery is part of the ongoing Subaru Strategic Survey using Hyper Suprime-Cam.

Science November 21, 2016

Discovery of Unexpected Supersonic Events Everywhere on the Sun - Results from 5-minute Flight of the Sounding Rocket Experiment “CLASP” -

Having an imaging instrument on CLASP with the combination of high cadence and high sensitivity operating under seeing-free conditions led to the detection of many recurrent supersonic events at short timescales everywhere on the Sun.

Science October 31, 2016

A joint observation by solar observing satellites Hinode and IRIS quantitatively explores the formation of the solar chromosphere

Hinode and IRIS have shown that the dynamic solar chromosphere could be heated and formed by dissipation of the energy of waves.

Science October 13, 2016

Dense molecular gas disks drive the growth of supermassive black holes - Are supernova explosions the key?

Astronomers using ALMA and other telescopes, revealed that dense molecular gas disks a few hundred light years in scale located at the centers of galaxies supply gas to supermassive black holes situated within them.