Michelson Science Center Headlines

The MSC is now the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI). NExScI is the science operations and analysis center for NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program and will continue to support all MSC activities including tools and archives for the exoplanet community, the Sagan program of fellowships and workshops, support of the Keck Interferometer and administration of the NASA Keck telescope time. Please change your links to http://nexsci.caltech.edu

2009 Sagan Fellowship Call The 2009 Sagan Postdoc Fellowship Call has now been issued.  Please see the fellowship page for more information. 2009A Call for NASA Keck Observing Proposals The NASA solicitation of proposals for use of the Keck Telescopes for the 2009A semester is now closed. NASA Headquarters has opened up the call to a wider range of disciplines. In addition, a portion of the time will be devoted to CoRoT Key Science projects.  All proposals were due on September 8, 2008 at 4pm PDT. Please see the Keck Solicitation website for further information. SIM Science Studies Selected The Space Interferometer Mission (SIM) and the Michelson Science Center (MSC) have completed the call for proposals on "SIM Science Studies". The solicitation objective is to enhance the science return from SIM by supporting researchers to conduct concept studies that will lead to the most scientifically productive observations using SIM. A list of the selected proposals is available. SIM Planet-Finding Astrometry Analysis Teams The Space Interferometry Mission-PlanetQuest (SIM/PQ) project has selected 4 external teams of scientists to participatein a demonstration of SIM/PQ's astrometric analysis of multiple-planet exoplanet systems. Please see the proposal call for details and the newly selected teams. IPAC Newsletter Check out the Infrared Processing & Analysis Center's (IPAC's) inaugural newsletter here. MSC news begins on page 7.

SIM Science Studies Workshop A workshop on SIM-lite instrument performance and operation, talks on current plans from the SIM Science Team, presentations from the newley selected Science Studies teams, and opportunities for Q&A.  The workshop will be held Sept 24 & 25 at the Pasadena Sheraton. Click here for more information. Exoplanet Forum 2008 The 3rd Exoplanet forum will take place May29-30 at the Pasadena Hilton.  The Forum builds on the progress made at the two previous Forums. Its purpose is to give the extrasolar planet science community an opportunity to reflect on the Exoplanet Task Force report as well as the selections from the Astrophysics Strategic Mission Concept Studies competition, and to discuss potential paths forward for exploring and characterizing exoplanets.  See the announcement for more details. 2008 NASA Keck Key Science Awardees Three teams have been selected to conduct Key Science projects on exo-zodiacal emission around main sequence stars. See here for more information on the awardees. NASA Keck Observations Help to Find Evidence for Earth-like Planet Formation Supported by the W. M. Keck Observatory Principal Investigator's Fund and NASA's Origins of Solar System program, Prof. William Herbst (Wesleyan University) and his team observed the initial phase in the formation of an earth-like planet. The discovery, highlighted in the March 13th issue of Nature, used observations from the Keck telescopes taken over several years. Press Release  NASA Keck Nuller Discovery NASA scientists made a surprising discovery while using the Keck Interferometer Nuller to observe the nova RS Oph during a rare outburst. More information can be found here.

Announcing the New Release of the  NASA Star and ExoPlanet Database The NASA Star and Exoplanet Database (NStED) is a stellar and exoplanet archive to support NASA's planet finding and characterization activities. This version significantly improves on the stellar and exoplanet content, allowing detailed searches on 70+ parameters for over 140,000 bright, nearby stars, including all known exoplanet hosting stars. For more details on the new release, please see the NStED page. Public Release of the Keck Observatory Archive MSC announces the public release of the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA). KOA serves level 0 observations (level 1 observations coming in July) made with both the current CCD on the Keck HIRES instrument, as well as the pre-upgrade single-chip data. Currently, data on more than 2500 scientific objects are available to the public; see the list here.  The Keck Observatory Archive is a collaboration between NASA, the Michelson Science Center, and the W. M. Keck Observatory. Visibility Modeling Tool 1.0 Release The Visibility Modelling Tool (VMT 1.0) has been released to the public for planning intereferometric observations. The VMT computes visibility amplitudes (and Nuller response for the Keck Interferometer) for most operating ground based optical interferometers. The tool, along with a complete user's manual and example model file, may be accessed via the VMT main web site

Last Updated:
  15 Sept 2008