At the 2025 Spring Annual Meeting of the Astronomical Society of Japan, the awards for FY 2024 under the society's award system have been announced. Among them, the following awards are related to NAOJ.

The ASJ Award for Education and Public Outreach in Astronomy

Tsunehiko Kato, a Specially Appointed Professor at Rikkyo University, who has been engaged in the Four-Dimensional Digital Universe (4D2U) project at NAOJ and served as a Senior Specialist in the Center for Computational Astrophysics, has received the FY 2024 ASJ Award for Education and Public Outreach in Astronomy. The prize recognizes his work on the development of Mitaka, The Four-Dimensional Digital Universe Viewer. The prize was established to praise and encourage astronomy education and popularization.

Mitaka is a viewer that uses the latest observational data and theoretical models to provide a virtual and visual experience of the hierarchical structure of the Universe, from the Solar System to the Milky Way Galaxy and the large-scale structure of the Universe. Public screenings at 4D2U Dome Theater in NAOJ Mitaka Campus allow visitors to experience cosmic images in stereoscopy using this Mitaka software. Since the Mitaka software is distributed free of charge, it is widely used in many science museums and planetariums in Japan and abroad, as well as in school education, making a significant contribution to astronomy education and dissemination, and to increasing interest in astronomy.

As a member of the 4D2U project, Dr. Kato also received the FY 2020 Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Award for Science and Technology (Public Understanding Promotion Category).

PASJ Excellent Paper Award and ASJ Young Astronomer Award

A research paper by Associate Professor Teruyuki Hirano at NAOJ and the NINS Astrobiology Center (ABC) has received the FY 2024 Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan (PASJ) Excellent Paper Award, which is given to outstanding papers that are original and contribute to the development of the field of astronomy. The winning paper, “Precision radial velocity measurements by the forward-modeling technique in the near-infrared,” was published in PASJ on September 10, 2020.

M-type stars, which are low-temperature stars, are considered targets in the search for extraterrestrial life, and many line-of-sight methods are used to detect the planets that orbit around them. The research team observed M-type stars using IRD, a high-precision infrared spectrograph on the Subaru Telescope, and succeeded in obtaining accurate line-of-sight velocity information in the near-infrared region. This paper summarizes a method for realizing precise line-of-sight velocity measurements in the near-infrared using IRD, and this method has attracted much attention worldwide.

Dr. Hirano also received the FY 2024 Young Scientists’ Award in the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Likewise, Stevanus Nugroho, a project researcher at NINS ABC, received the FY 2024 ASJ Young Astronomer Award, which commends the outstanding research achievements by researchers within eight years of receiving their doctoral degree. The recognized research was "Detection of new molecules and the discovery of a temperature inversion layer in the atmosphere of an ultra-hot Jupiter through high-dispersion spectroscopy using the Subaru Telescope.”

Among hot Jupiters, which are Jupiter-like exoplanets orbiting near their host stars, Dr. Nugroho observed an ultra-hot Jupiter that is especially hot and close to its host star, to gain a detailed understanding of its atmosphere. Using Subaru Telescope's High Dispersion Spectrograph (HDS) and InfraRed Doppler instrument (IRD), using data analysis techniques he developed himself, Nugroho has discovered new insights into planetary atmospheres, including the detection of previously undiscovered molecules in the atmospheres of ultra-hot Jupiters. Nugroho is a major driving force in the development of research in this field.

Other recognized papers and research also benefited from contributions by NAOJ's open-use facilities such as the ALMA radio telescope array and the dedicated astronomy supercomputer ATERUI II.