Dr. Kathy Vivas, CTIO Astronomer, sends us this picture of the Desierto Florido (Flowering Desert) she took today, Aug 21, 2017, on the road to Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón. It shows the varied colors of the blooming flowers that grace the otherwise barren landscape, after this wet 2017 winter season.
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, brown dwarfs occupy the mass range between stars and giant planets. While young stars are commonly found to launch jets that extend over a light year or more, this is the first jet with a similar extent detected from a brown dwarf. The result lends new insight into how substellar objects form.
El 3 de mayo de 2017 y producto de una repentina y breve enfermedad falleció en Santiago, nuestro querido colega Daniel Maturana Aspillaga. Al momento de su fallecimiento Daniel tenía 67 años de edad, y se encontraba en su casa junto a su familia.