Inside a retired solar telescope on a nearly 7,000-foot peak in southern Arizona, a science outreach center has traded its English name for an O'odham one: Taṣogida Ki: Center for Astronomy Outreach. The renaming, finalized in 2026, honors the Tohono O'odham Nation on the very mountain where the observatory has operated since a 1958 lease agreement.
The center sits within the Kitt Peak National Observatory campus in the Schuk Toak District near Sells, Arizona, a site that has drawn more than 2 million visitors over the decades, according to KJZZ. The facility itself is housed inside a retrofitted McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, which operated as the world's largest solar telescope from 1962 to 2017 before losing its active research mission, a repurposing that NOIRLab notes was initially backed by a $4.5 million National Science Foundation grant awarded in 2018.
The name Taṣogida Ki was suggested by Ron Geronimo, who directs O'odham Ñi'okĭ Ki, the station's report indicates. The phrase translates roughly to a place of illumination and understanding, with taṣ meaning sun — a fitting label for a building built around a solar instrument.
From Windows on the Universe to an O'odham Name
Before adopting its O'odham identity, the center had celebrated its public grand opening under a different name, Windows on the Universe Center for Astronomy Outreach, on December 16, 2025, according to NOIRLab. Just months later, the formal dedication ceremony for the Taṣogida Ki renaming took place on March 5, 2026, attended by Tohono O'odham Nation Chairman Verlon Jose, Vice Chairwoman Carla Johnson, and NOIRLab executive leadership, per the same organization. That date was not arbitrary — it fell on the anniversary of the original 1958 council lease resolution that first allowed astronomers onto the mountain.
Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan, the education development liaison for Kitt Peak National Observatory, has said field trips have increased since Taṣogida Ki opened, per the station's report. She has also said the center has brought many Tohono O'odham tribal members back to the mountain, and she invites people to visit and arrange tours.
A Mountain the O'odham Call Sacred
Kitt Peak sits on land the Tohono O'odham Nation calls I'oligam Du'ag, or Manzanita Shrub Mountain, which the tribe views as sacred, according to KJZZ. The mountain carries the nickname I'itoi's Garden, tied to I'itoi, a figure associated with a nearby cave within the Baboquivari Mountains. The English name Kitt Peak dates to the late 19th century, assigned after Philippa Roskruge Kitt, sister of Pima County surveyor George J. Roskruge, in contrast to the O'odham name's much deeper cultural roots, as reported by ICT News.
That history of contact between astronomers and the O'odham stretches back decades before the observatory existed. Astronomers first received permission from Tohono O'odham leaders to summit the peak in March 1956, making the ascent on horseback accompanied by O'odham guides Al Martines and Raymond Lopez, ICT News reports — an early exchange that led to the formal consultations with tribal elders that preceded the 1958 lease.
Ramon-Sauberan has also said the O'odham historically used the night sky to teach directions and counting, according to KJZZ, a detail that underscores how astronomy on the mountain predates the observatory itself by generations. National Science Foundation NOIRLab maintains a formal land acknowledgment for Kitt Peak National Observatory recognizing that history.
Outreach, Open Nights, and the Science Still Happening Up There
The observatory now hosts a special family night for the Tohono O'odham Nation, and NSF NOIRLab has scheduled a public closure on October 10, 2026, specifically to host a Tohono O'odham Nation Open Night, offering exclusive telescope access and tailored community programming for tribal members, according to NOIRLab. Roughly two dozen university research telescopes still operate on the mountain today, alongside the renamed outreach center.
The science hasn't slowed down even as the cultural reckoning unfolds. In April 2026, researchers using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument on Kitt Peak's Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope completed a five-year survey mapping 47 million galaxies and quasars, producing the largest 3D map of the universe assembled to date, NOIRLab reported. Then in September 2026, the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team released a 5.6-trillion-pixel 2D map containing nearly four billion celestial objects, built from Kitt Peak's Mayall and Bok telescopes combined with Chilean observatory data, according to Universe Today. That 13-year imaging project covers roughly three-quarters of the sky.
The mountain has also had to recover from disaster in recent years. In June 2022, the lightning-ignited Contreras Fire burned across Kitt Peak and destroyed four non-scientific support structures, though all of the primary research telescopes survived and were restored to service later that year, NOIRLab noted. The fire damaged local power infrastructure and closed public road access to the site for months.
The Tohono O'odham Nation itself spans more than 2.8 million acres across 11 governing districts in southern Arizona, making it the second-largest Indigenous reservation in the country by land area, according to the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona — a footprint roughly comparable to the state of Connecticut. Against that scale, the renaming of a single building on one peak is a small gesture. But for the families now returning to I'oligam Du'ag for tours and open nights, it marks a visible shift in how the mountain's oldest residents are welcomed back to it.
