A project to expand the National Science Foundation’s famed Very Large Array radio telescope has received strong endorsement from a prestigious national panel of astronomers given the task of setting priorities for astronomical projects in the next decade.

A distinguished panel of scientists today announced their support for the continued funding of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array Project at a press conference given by the National Academy of Sciences.

The US and European partners in the Atacama Large Millimeter Array project have awarded contracts to US and Italian firms, respectively, for two prototype antennas.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory will close down its millimeter-wavelength telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona, in July 2000, Director Paul Vanden Bout announced today.

A disk of water molecules orbiting a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy 60 million light-years away is reverberating in response to variations in the energy output from the galaxy’s powerful central engine close to the black hole.

Scientists have discovered the closest black hole yet, a mere 1,600 light years from Earth.