Subaru's Top 10
Here are summaries of the 10 research papers based on Subaru data and published in 2000 though 2004 that are most frequenly referenced in other research papers.
- Esther Hu and colleagues assembled a large sample of very distant galaxies with accurately known distances. Their large sample allows them to describe the properties of these young star-forming galaxies with unprecedented confidence, ushering a new era in the study of the most distant galaxies where astronomers can study a whole class of galaxies rather than individual specimen. (2004)
- Amy Barger and colleagues looked for the visible counter parts of astronomical X-ray sources, and determined that matter falling into massive black holes have been emitting X-rays during the past seven billion years. Most of these black holes appear to be in large elliptical galaxies, whose other properties appears not to have changed much over the same period. Detecting X-rays may be a good way to find distant galaxies that are similar to elliptical galaxies that we see today. (2003)
- Members of the Subaru Deep Field project are scouring the Universe for the most distant galaxies. They succeeded in detecting the two most distant galaxies currently known, at a distance of nearly thirteen billion light years from Earth. These galaxies were giving birth to stars only nine hundred million years after the birth of the Universe. (2003)
- Paolo Mazzali and colleagues found that the star that led to the hypernova explosion SN 2002ap was smaller than other known progenitors of hypernovas. Hypernova explosions are very bright and are therefore one of the most important probes of the distant Universe. Understanding how they occur is of great interest to astronomers. (2002)
- Toshikazu Ebisuzaki and colleagues observed the galaxy M82 and found that that a compact cluster of young stars coincides with the location of a medium sized black hole discovered earlier by X-ray telescopes in space. This discovery suggests that massive back holes in the center of galaxies may form through the merger of medium sized black holes born when massive stars collide. (2001)
- James Dunlop and colleagues succeeded in imaging the most violently star-forming galaxy in the region of the sky called the Hubble Deep Field. Four years of earlier attempts by other astronomers had been unsuccessful. The difficulty implies that this galaxy is extremely far way and very dusty. (2004)
- Misato Fukagawa and colleagues found that the material surrounding the proto-star AB Aurigae has a spiral structure. Their discovery showed that there is fascinating detail waiting to be discovered in what what astronomers call proto-planetary "disks". (2004)
- Team members of the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey Project are studying the evolution of galaxies over time by observing a piece of sky five times the size of the full moon to great depth at many wavelengths. They found that big galaxies had older stars compared to small galaxies when the universe was only half its current age, forcing astronomers to make more sophisticated theoretical predictions that can be compared with observations. (2004)
- Takeshi Hamana and colleagues successfully estimated the overall density and distribution of matter in the Universe by measuring how the Universe itself distorts how distant galaxies appear to us. Their results help narrow down the possible fate of the Universe. (2003)
- Astronomers have known for a long time that galaxies in the proximity of other galaxies look different from isolated galaxies. Tadayuki Kodama and colleagues were able to get an exquisitely detailed image of a cluster of galaxies that shows exactly how crowded the neighborhood has to get before affecting the appearance of galaxies. (2001)
