The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) is a pivotal institution in Japan’s astronomical research landscape, established in 1988. It operates under the umbrella of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences and serves as a center for astronomical science, promoting the development of space and ground-based projects. NAOJ manages several world-class facilities, including the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, which is one of the most powerful telescopes in the world, and the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) in Chile, in collaboration with international partners. The observatory is involved in a broad range of research areas, from the exploration of the solar system to the study of cosmological phenomena, and plays a crucial role in advancing our understanding of the universe.
GALAXY CRUISE, with the help of 10,000 citizen astronomers, discovers that galaxies’ star formation rate surges during collisions, as highlighted in their first scientific paper….
Researchers confirm the spin of the M87 galaxy’s supermassive black hole by observing the wobble in its jet, using two decades of data from global…
Astronomers have, for the first time, detected radio waves from a Type Ia supernova, uncovering new clues about white dwarf explosions and their helium-rich environments….
Researchers from Kyoto University used both terrestrial and satellite observations to capture a superflare on the binary star system V1355 Orionis. The superflare began with…
Researchers have discovered a protostar enveloped by complex organic molecules in the outermost regions of the Milky Way, indicating that complex molecular formation is possible…
The magnetic field is part of one of the four fundamental forces in nature. It plays a vital role in everyday life, from producing electricity…
An international research team using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed the distribution of heavy hydrogen, or deuterium, in planet formation sites with the…
New research shows that sunspots and other active regions can change the overall solar emissions. The sunspots cause some emissions to dim and others to…
Earth just got 7 km/s (~16,000 mph) faster and about 2000 light-years closer to the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way…
Astronomers have applied artificial intelligence (AI) to ultra-wide field-of-view images of the distant Universe captured by the Subaru Telescope, and have achieved a very high…
Astronomers have detected a stealthy black hole from its effects on an interstellar gas cloud. This intermediate-mass black hole is one of over 100 million…
At the end of its life, a red supergiant star explodes in a hydrogen-rich supernova. By comparing observation results to simulation models, an international research…
Using Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) mounted on the Subaru Telescope, astronomers have identified nearly 200 “protoclusters,” the progenitors of galaxy clusters, in the early Universe, about…
A research team of multiple institutes, including the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and University of Tokyo, released an unprecedentedly wide and sharp dark matter…
Magnetism plays a critical role in various solar phenomena such as flares, mass ejections, flux ropes, and coronal heating. Sunspots are areas of concentrated magnetic…
Using the Subaru Telescope, astronomers create the most-extensive map of neutral hydrogen gas in the early universe. Scientists have used the Suprime-Cam on the Subaru…
Using the Nobeyama Radio Telescope, a team of astronomers has detected signs of an invisible black hole with a mass of 100 thousand times the…
New research from the National Institutes of Natural Sciences shows that a previously unconsidered photochemical mechanism by titanium (IV) oxide (titania) can produce abiotic oxygen…