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2016

Discovery of Comet P/2015 PD229 (Cameron-ISON) with DECam by UR scientist Dave Cameron

2015


The Closest Known Flyby of a Star to the Solar System (Scholz's Star)
FAQ on Scholz's star and its flyby
UR Press Release 2015 Feb 16 - A Close Call of 0.8 Light Years | BBC | ABC | Sky & Telescope | NBC | Scientific American | EarthSky | Space.com
Links to Astrophysical Journal Letters Article, ArXiv, and UR Press Release (Tuesday 17 February 2015 10am)
Previous studies: Scholz (2014), Burgasser et al. (2015), Ivanov et al. (2015)
SIMBAD entry for Scholz's star
Google Sky .kml file for finding Scholz's star and showing a best estimate of its trajectory over the past million years (it's the faint star just above and to the left of the final pin corresponding to its 2010 position)



Eclipsing Ring System Orbiting Substellar Object J1407b ("Meliora"):
UR Press Release 2015 Jan 26 - Giant Ring System Around J1407b
BBC | Time | WSJ video
Animation of J1407 ring eclipses: Vimeo | .mpg file
Artist's view of ring system associated with young giant or brown dwarf J1407b transiting in front of young Sun-like star J1407 - by Ron Miller
Same - but with Saturn and its ring system to scale! - by Ron Miller
What J1407b ring system would look like from Earth if it were at Saturn's orbit! (M. Kenworthy)
J1407b entry in The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia

Papers on J1407b:
Paper IV: Kenworthy & Mamajek (2015, ApJ, in press) "Modeling giant extrasolar ring systems in eclipse and the case of J1407b: sculpting by exomoons?"
Paper III: Kenworthy et al. (2015, MNRAS, 446, 411) "Mass and period limits on the ringed companion transiting the young star J1407" (J1407b must be substellar!)
Paper II: van Werkhoven, Kenworthy & Mamajek (2014, MNRAS, 441, 2845) "Analysis of 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 eclipse fine-structure: hints of exomoons"
Paper I: Mamajek, Quillen, Pecaut, et al. (2012, AJ, 143, 72) "Planetary Construction Zones in Occultation: Discovery of an Extrasolar Ring System Transiting a Young Sun-like Star and Future Prospects for Detecting Eclipses by Circumsecondary and Circumplanetary Disks"

2014

UD Conference Offers Insight on Brown Dwarfs by Eli Chen / WDDE / Delaware Public Media
Fomalhaut: A Crazy-Wide Triple Star by Bob King / Sky & Telescope
Asteroid named for Oscar Saa: NOAO/CTIO

2013

Discovery of planetary-mass companion HD 106906 b:
Christian Science Monitor | Tucson Citizen | UA press release

Fomalhaut C:
UR press release | ScienceShot | Science News | EarthSky | phys.org | Nature World News | Science Daily| Astronomy | Sky & Telescope | ABC.es (espanol) | axxon.com.ar (espanol)
Chelyabinsk Meteor:
YNN interview
Your Universe Today podcast interview (Part 3) - "The Search for Alien Life" - 14 January 2013
Your Universe Today podcast interview (Part 2) - "Planet Hunting" - 7 January 2013

2012

Your Universe Today podcast interview (Part 1) - "How Planets Form" - 31 December 2012

Discovery of an Extrasolar Ring System Transiting a Young Sun-like Star: graphic of the ring system by Mike Osadciw.
Light curve graphics by Matt Kenworthy: #1, #2, #3. Futurity: "Odd eclipse reveals 'Saturn on steroids'"
Huffington Post: "Ringed Planet Outside Solar System Possibly Found"
Science Daily: "Saturn-like ring system eclipses Sun-like star"
Discovery: "'Saturn on Steroids' Exoplanet Discovered?"
Deskarati: "Have scientists found a super Saturn?": including beautiful artwork by Ron Miller.
Bad Astronomer @ Discover Magazine:


Artist's conception of the ring system orbiting the companion to the young star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 (credit: Ron Miller).

Another illustration by Ron Miller imagining the ring system for the companion to J1407.


2011

Pecaut, Mamajek & Bubar (2012) Astrophysical Journal article on Upper Scorpius subgroup of Sco-Cen being twice as old as previously throught:

UR Press: "Some Nearby Young Stars May Be Much Older"
Sky & Telescope: "Young Stars Aren't So Young"
UR 2011 Pi Day (3/14/2011) pictures from talk on "Pi in Astronomy"

2010

Tarduno et al. Science article on early Earth's interaction with solar wind:

Cosmos Magazine
US News & World Report
Scientific American
Univ. Rochester
Red Orbit
Science News

2009


Alcor B: This has been an interesting story. Eric Mamajek (U. Rochester), Matt Kenworthy, Phil Hinz (Univ. Arizona), & Michael R. Meyer (ETH Zurich & Univ. Arizona) report the discovery with the MMT telescope of a faint companion to Alcor (nicknamed "Eleonora"), and show that the famous Alcor-Mizar system is most likely a (physical) sextuple star system (the 2nd closest such system to the Sun after the Castor system, and effectively doubling the census of >=6-star multiple systems within 40 pc of the Sun!). The manuscript was submitted to the Astronomical Journal and placed on astro-ph (i.e. made public) on November 26th (Thanksgiving), and accepted for publication 24 December 2009 (To appear in March 2010 Astronomical Journal). Another group contacted us after our paper was posted, informing us that they had independently detected the companion at Palomar, and had submitted a paper to the Astrophysical Journal. They made their results public December 9th on astro-ph. We've made it clear that none of the co-authors on our paper were refereeing the paper by the other group. It appears that both groups had found Alcor B independently and published around the same time. Our group is analyzing data from a survey of ~20 of the nearest A-type stars in an attempt to directly image giant exoplanets at large orbital radii with the MMT adaptive secondary and Clio IR camera. The first result previously from our survey was ruling out planets with masses of >2 Jupiter masses orbiting in the ~13-40 astronomical unit zone around the nearby A-type star Fomalhaut in 2008. The detections of Alcor B by our group and Zimmerman et al. were quite independent (perhaps unsurprising given the recent interest in imaging planets around A-type stars!). The epoch of our discovery image is mid-2007, and the companion was noticed in the data earlier this year (combined, the two datasets show that the companion's orbit is bringing it closer to Alcor A at a rate of ~0".03 per year).

Science Daily (UR press release) | slashdot | The Register | USA Today


Quoted in SciAm article on "Seeking Out the Sun's Long-Lost Siblings"

2008

7835 Myroncope: JPL data | asteroid orbit | PG | ESPN | bio on Myron Cope

When Worlds Collide: PG | EarthSky | Natl Geographic | UA | Space Daily | USA Today | MSNBC | space.com | Astronomy.com

Many terrestrial planets around sun-like stars? UA | innovations report

"Indexing Your Career" by Genevive Bjorn

"Portrait of the Stars" Boston Globe.

2006

Do planemos have progeny? (2M1207B): spaceref.com | physorg.com | Universe Today | Astrobiology.com | ESO

2005

Dynamical mass of young, low-mass star AB Dor: ESO | Science Daily | Eurekalert

2002

Warm dusty disk around young binary star HD 113766: NAI

1999

Discovery of nearest star cluster in the 20th century (Eta Chamaeleontis): PG | ABC | PSU


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