Keck Interferometer
Full Name: Keck Interferometer
Phase: Operating
Mission Project Home Page: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/Keck/keck_index.cfm
Program(s): Exoplanet Exploration
The Keck Interferometer is a ground-based component of NASA's Origins Program. Origins addresses fundamental questions about the formation of galaxies, stars, and planetary systems, the prevalence of planetary systems around other stars, and the formation of life on Earth. At 4,150 meters (13,600 feet) above the Pacific Ocean, atop the dormant volcano Mauna Kea on the "Big Island" of Hawaii, the twin Keck Telescopes are the world's largest telescopes for optical and near-infrared astronomy. The Keck Interferometer joins these giant telescopes to form a powerful astronomical instrument.
The search for planets beyond the solar system has been advocated by a variety of NASA and National Academy of Science advisory committees, extending back over more than a decade. The basic concept for the Keck Interferometer was described in the TOPS (Toward Other Planetary Systems) report and restated in the 1996 Road Map for the Exploration of Neighboring Planetary Systems, reviewed by a blue ribbon panel chaired by Professor Charles Townes, a Nobel Prize winning physicist.
In 1996, in response to the recommendations of these and other advisory committees, NASA embarked on a program to implement the Keck Interferometer project. NASA selected JPL to implement the interferometer jointly with the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CARA). In 1996, NASA also joined as a partner in the Keck Observatory.
Since 2003, the Keck Interferometer has been in scheduled operation for such peer-reviewed programs as study of preplanetary disks, measurement of stellar masses, and determining the size of the nuclei of distant galaxies. Beginning in 2008, the Keck Interferometer Nuller will begin operation for a group of key projects to study emissions from faint dust clouds around other stars. These dust clouds reflect light and give off heat, and so interfere with the search for planets. By helping to characterize these emissions, the KI will guide understanding of such exozodiacal dust, and thus help establish the feasibility of future instruments to detect and study Earthlike planets in detail.