Astronomy

A UH professor shares his efforts to update outdated agricultural maps using satellites and AI; Keck Observatory's new director talks about balancing science and culture; a Maui filmmaker discusses his new streaming series, "Moku Moku"; and local musician Stephen Inglis shares why he's reviving an iconic Grateful Dead concert here in the islands

Maunakea, especially its summit, is sacred to Native Hawaiians as it contains ceremonial platforms, ancestral burial sites and an alpine lake believed to possess healing powers. But over the last 50 years, the summit has been used by astronomers to study the skies.

It's been a year since the Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority was created by Act 255, which transfers responsibility for the Big Island volcano from the University of Hawaiʻi to the panel in five years. But there's a separate university advisory panel of Maunakea raising concerns about co-managing the mountain while the new governing board starts.

A Molokaʻi High School alumna has co-authored a recently published astronomy paper. She captured the first look at magnetic fields within the iconic and beautiful Horsehead Nebula, with data she gathered in 2018. Catherine Cluett Pactol from The Molokai Dispatch explains.

A new discovery out of UCLA's Galactic Center Orbits Initiative found that stars that were once believed to come in pairs actually merge together due to a supermassive black hole. Devin Chu, a Hilo-born astronomer led a 10-year survey of young stars near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy using the Keck Observatory on Maunakea.

HPR's Sabrina Boden discusses the staffing shortages at state prisons; The loneliness of young stars around the Milky Way; Local motorcycle racer sets world record; Big Island Jazz and Music Festival's 10th anniversary

The recent observation of a sun-like star gulping an orbiting planet involved multiple telescopes including the Keck Observatory on Maunakea. The Conversation spoke to John O’Meara, chief scientist of the observatory, to learn about this powerful star and its appetite for other planets.

Regenerative tourism amid 10 million visitors; Keck Observatory and the discovery of a Death Star; National Portrait Gallery's 1898 exhibit and the Kūʻē Petitions

For the first time in Hawaiʻi's 50-year history with astronomy, observatories will be removed from Maunakea. First up is the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Most of the instruments have already been removed, but the telescope's 34-foot diameter primary mirror remains. The Conversation's Russell Subiono has more.

Scientists at Hawaiʻi Island’s Keck Observatory recently observed two significant events in deep space. The Conversation talked to Keck Observatory’s Chief Scientist John O’Meara about the galactic discoveries.