The Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) at Caltech is dedicated to science operations, data archives, and community support for astronomy and solar system science missions, with a historical emphasis on infrared-submillimeter astronomy and exoplanet science.
Headlines
In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, NASA's Spitzer and Swift space telescopes joined forces to observe a microlensing event, when a distant star brightens due to the gravitational field of at least one foreground cosmic object.
The Euclid/WFIRST Spitzer Legacy Survey proposal has been selected for observations in Spitzer GO Cycle 13. The PI is Dr. Peter Capak from IPAC, Caltech, leading an international team of 51 Co-Is. This ambitious program has been awarded 5286 hours of Spitzer Legacy Science Time, the most time awarded in this cycle, and a substantial fraction of the total available time in the remainder of currently planned mission lifetime for Spitzer. This program will observe 20 square degrees to 2h per pointing split between the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS) and the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP). This will achieve 5sigma depths of 24.6 AB mag. It will enable the scientific research on reionization in the Universe, stellar mass from 3<z<10 and luminous quasars.
Life exists in a myriad of wondrous forms, but if you break any organism down to its most basic parts, it's all the same stuff: carbon atoms connected to hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements. But how these fundamental substances are created in space has been a longstanding mystery.
The Euclid NASA Science Center (ENSCI) has released an Estimator for Astrophysical Background at L2. This provides an important tool to Euclid scientists for survey optimization.
In the ongoing hunt for the universe's earliest galaxies, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has wrapped up its observations for the Frontier Fields project. This ambitious project has combined the power of all three of NASA's Great Observatories -- Spitzer, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- to delve as far back in time and space as current technology can allow.
To most of us, our home galaxy, the Milky Way, seems like mind-boggling, never-ending space. But what does the Milky Way actually look like? How quickly is the Milky Way giving birth to new stars? In their efforts to answer these complex questions, scientists are figuring out new ways to break down the vast amounts of data they collect.
Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the TV series "Star Trek," which first aired September 8th,1966, a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope may remind fans of the historic show.
ESA's Planck satellite, a mission with significant participation from NASA, has revealed that the first stars in the universe started forming later than previous observations of the cosmic microwave background indicated. The background is the most ancient light in the history of the cosmos, dating back to 380,000 years after the big bang.
Events
Bulletins
Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek announced that a coalition of the world’s leading space science and astronomical institutions based in Pasadena are partnering to produce Astronomy Week, October 16-22, 2016. The week-long series of public events, open houses, lectures and other activities celebrates Pasadena’s rich history as an innovative “City of Astronomy.”
The Palomar Transient Factory and IPAC announces the Third Data Release (DR3). This release adds to DR1 and DR2 by including selected g- and R-band data obtained from January 1, 2013 through January 28, 2015.
The Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech announces the availability of six-month graduate student fellowships beginning in the Spring of 2017. The program is designed to allow students from other institutions to visit IPAC-Caltech and perform astronomical research in close association with an IPAC staff member during Spring 2017.
More than 50 teachers, students and astronomy educators from the NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) will be attending the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).
Nine NITARP alumni educators, some of their current students, and a student alumna have all returned this year to AAS, paying their own way to attend the international conference.