Dunlap scientists, led by Dunlap Fellows Dr. Nick Law, Dr. Jérome Maire and Dr. Suresh Sivanandam, study the feasibility of an astronomical observatory at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic.
Over 5000 people fill U of T’s Varsity Stadium to witness the last transit of Venus of the century using transit-viewing glasses and telescopes. Organization of the event is led by the Dunlap’s Outreach Coordinator, Prof. Michael Reid.
Students from around the world attend the inaugural Dunlap Institute Introduction to Astronomical Instrumentation Summer School, to learn the fundamentals of telescopes, as well as optical, infrared, x-ray and long-wavelength instrumentation. The school attracts some 40 students annually and in 2018 is in its seventh year.
In a paper published in the journal Science, Dunlap Fellow Dr. Tuan Do and his colleagues at the UCLA Galactic Center Group announce the discovery of a star that orbits the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy every 11.5 years, the shortest such orbital period known.
The Dunlap Prize is awarded to Neil deGrasse Tyson for sparking a love of astronomy in millions around the world. Tyson delivers the Dunlap Prize Lecture to a capacity crowd of 1500 in U of T’s Convocation Hall.
The Dunlap Prize is awarded to Neil deGrasse Tyson for sparking a love of astronomy in millions around the world. Tyson delivers the Dunlap Prize Lecture to a capacity crowd of 1500 in U of T’s Convocation Hall.
September 24 2014
Astronomy on Tap, which originated in New York City, comes to Toronto, organized by U of T astronomy students and postdocs. The Toronto event is eventually organized and sponsored by the Dunlap, and grows into one of the largest “Taps” in the world, routinely attracting 500 people, four times a year, for a lively night of talks, games and conversation.
After years of development at the Dunlap, a new instrument joins the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI): Prof. Shelley Wright and colleagues’ NIROSETI, or Near Infrared Optical SETI detector.
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) collaboration announces its first discovery: 51 Eri b, an exoplanet orbiting a star 96 light-years from Earth. Astronomers at the Dunlap, including then Dunlap Director, Prof. James Graham, played a key role in developing GPI, a ground-breaking instrument designed to directly image planets orbiting stars other than the Sun.
Credit: J. Rameau (UdeM) and C. Marois (NRC Herzberg)
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) collaboration announces its first discovery: 51 Eri b, an exoplanet orbiting a star 96 light-years from Earth. Astronomers at the Dunlap, including then Dunlap Director, Prof. James Graham, played a key role in developing GPI, a ground-breaking instrument designed to directly image planets orbiting stars other than the Sun.
Credit: J. Rameau (UdeM) and C. Marois (NRC Herzberg)
SEPTEMBER 27 2015
Thousands pack U of T’s King’s College Circle at the Dunlap’s Supermoon Total Lunar Eclipse Viewing Party. Clouds diminish the visibility of the eclipse, but not the crowd’s enthusiasm.
The Dunlap partners with Julie Bolduc-Duval and Discover the Universe to provide English and French resources, workshops and webinars to help teachers across the country provide astronomy instruction to their students.
Dr. Dustin Lang and his colleague uncover the strongest evidence yet that an enormous X-shaped structure made of stars lies within the central bulge of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Using data from the Gaia mission to map the positions of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, Dunlap Fellow Dr. Jason Hunt and his colleagues discover evidence that our Galaxy’s spiral arms will eventually disappear.
The Greenbank Ammonia Survey, co-led by Dunlap Fellow Dr. Rachel Friesen, releases an image of a 50-light-year long filament of ammonia molecules in the Orion Nebula. The survey will map major, nearby starforming regions.
Credit: R. Friesen, Dunlap Institute; J. Pineda, MPE; GBO/AUI/NSF
CHIME, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, begins its mission to create the largest three-dimensional map of the Universe after years of development and construction at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in B.C. At the Dunlap, Prof. Keith Vanderlinde leads the team of students and postdocs working on CHIME.
Credit: Andre Renard; Dunlap Institute
CHIME, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, begins its mission to create the largest three-dimensional map of the Universe after years of development and construction at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in B.C. At the Dunlap, Prof. Keith Vanderlinde leads the team of students and postdocs working on CHIME.
Credit: Andre Renard; Dunlap Institute
OCTOBER 12 2017
Projects led by Prof. Bryan Gaensler and Prof. Suresh Sivanandam receive a combined $23 million in funding for the development of a radio astronomy data centre called CIRADA and a multi-target, infrared spectrograph for Gemini Observatory called GIRMOS.
Hubble Fellow and Carnegie-Dunlap Fellow Maria Drout is a member of the team that is the first in history to detect the visible counterpart of an event that generates gravitational waves detected on Earth—the merger of two neutron stars.
Credit: Robin Dienel; Carnegie Institution for Science
Credit: Robin Dienel; Carnegie Institution for Science
WINTER 2018
U of T astronomy grad student Matt Young spends two months in Antarctica helping to install a new camera on the South Pole Telescope, the camera he and Dunlap Fellow Dr. Tyler Natoli (pictured) helped build.
Prof. Renée Hložek becomes chair of the Collaboration Council of the Simons Observatory to be built in the high Atacama in Northern Chile on the current site of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (pictured). The Observatory will provide a powerful means to study the Cosmic Microwave Background and the early, inflationary Universe.
Prof. Roberto Abraham and colleagues announce the discovery of a one-of-a-kind galaxy, one that appears to contain virtually no dark matter, using the Dragonfly Telescope Array.
