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Michelson Science Center Headlines

Call for SIM Science Studies
The Space Interferometer Mission (SIM) and the Michelson Science Center (MSC) are inviting proposals to a Request for Proposals (RFP) entitled "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. The RFP is described here and proposals are due June 13, 2008 at 5pm PDT.

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.

2008 Michelson Fellowship Call
The Michelson Postdoc and Graduate Student Fellowship Call has been suspended for 2008. We expect to issue the next call for 2009.

NASA Keck Observing Call
As the previous call included proposals for both the 2008A & B semesters, the next NASA Keck Observing call for proposals will be for the 2009A semester. Look for the call to be posted in mid-August. More information can be found on the Keck Solicitation website.

IPAC Newsletter
Check out the Infrared Processing & Analysis
Center's (IPAC's) inaugural newsletter here.
MSC news begins on page 7.

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 figure displays the distribution of sources and data contained within the NStED database, plotted in an Aitoff projection of Galactic coordinates. The following is the key to the figure: Red dots: dwarf stars; Large blue dots: exoplanet hosting stars; Large green plus signs: stars with radial velocity curves or photometric light curves; Open Black Squares/Diamonds: stars with images/spectra. The large black square near galactic coordinates (l=67 deg; b=13 deg) represents the coverage of the TrES transit survey of the Kepler field. The large open circles represent the areas (center and anti-center regions) observable by the transit survey mission CoRoT.

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 & 1
observations 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:
06 May 2008