Issue 16-39, October 9, 2016
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- TMT WORKSHOP AT DPS 48/EPSC 11
- NASA ASTROPHYSICS ASSETS TOWN HALLS I & II AT DPS 48/EPSC 11
- AAS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT AT THE UPCOMING DPS MEETING IN PASADENA
- THE THIRD WORKSHOP ON EXTREMELY PRECISE RADIAL VELOCITIES (EPRV III)
- JOBS, POSITIONS, OPPORTUNITIES
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TMT WORKSHOP AT DPS 48/EPSC 11
The Thirty-Meter-Telescope (TMT) International Observatory will organize
a DPS workshop on Tuesday October 18 at noon (Room C102). The aim of
this workshop is to provide the community of future TMT users with a status
update on the search for an alternative construction site.
Lunch will be provided and to help with the head-count, please send an email
to the workshop organizer ([email protected]) before October 13 to confirm
your interest in participating in this workshop.
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NASA ASTROPHYSICS ASSETS TOWN HALLS I & II AT DPS 48/EPSC 11
I = Monday, 17 October at 12:30pm-2:00pm
II = Thursday, 20 October at 12:00pm-1:30pm
Location: Ballroom C (Pasadena Convention Center)
Agenda and Abstracts
NASA Planetary Science and Astrophysics Assets Town Hall I
Monday, 17 October at 12:30pm-2:00pm
Organizer(s): Doris Daou (Planetary Science Division, NASA HQ)
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM; Ballroom C (Pasadena Convention Center)
The K2 mission makes use of the Kepler spacecraft and expands on its
groundbreaking discoveries. The fields observed by K2 are close to the
ecliptic and hence are rich in Solar System objects including planets,
asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). K2 has already performed
observations of Neptune and its large moon Triton, Uranus, 68 Trojan and
Hilda asteroids, 5 TNOs (including Pluto) and Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding
Spring). Thousands of main-belt asteroids that fell into the pixel masks of
stars have been have been serendipitously observed. Observations of
moving bodies as bright as Jupiter and as faint as V=23 have proved
successful. K2 has an ongoing funded Guest Observer program which has
been successfully proposed to by members of the planetary science community.
We will present K2’s plans and capabilities for solar system science.
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy makes observations
at far-infrared wavelengths possible. A suite of cameras and spectrometers
covers infrared wavelengths from 1 to 300 microns. A high-speed visible-
wavelength photometer is also available to observe stellar occultations by
Solar System objects. In particular, the range of wavelengths from 30-300
microns is nearly completely obscured form the ground, including our best
mountaintop observatories. By flying in the stratosphere above 95% of
atmospheric water vapor, access is opened to photometric, spectroscopic,
and polarimetric observations of Solar System targets including small bodies
through the major planets. We will brief the professional planetary science
community on the capabilities of the observatory and its scientific
instrumentation, the operation of the observatory, the proposal and planning
process, and opportunities for involvement in the observatory itself.
The Spitzer Space Telescope is NASA’s Infrared Great Observatory and
will operate until mid-2019. The IRAC instrument provides unparalleled
sensitivity at 3.6 and 4.5 microns that will only be superseded by JWST.
For solar system observations Spitzer supports non-sidereal tracking rates
of up to 1 arcsec per second, as well as the ability to do shadow observations
for moving targets. We will present Spitzer’s capabilities, future plans,
and some science results from previous and ongoing planetary programs.
NASA Planetary Science and Astrophysics Assets Town Hall II
II = Thursday, 20 October at 12:00pm-1:30pm
Organizer(s): Doris Daou (Planetary Science Division, NASA HQ)
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM; Ballroom C (Pasadena Convention Center)
The two W.M. Keck Observatory 10m telescopes regularly observe
the increasingly dynamic and diverse body of objects in our solar system.
Every US member of the solar system community has the opportunity to
apply for time on the Keck telescopes through NASA’s call for proposals
each March and September. We will present Keck’s current and future
instrument capabilities as well as recent solar system science highlights
from high spatial and spectral resolution imaging and spectroscopy.
Although much information has been gained through spectroscopy of
planets, comets, and Kuiper belt objects, many current solar system
observers also take advantage of the adaptive optics systems on both
Keck 1 and Keck 2 to determine rotation axes and pinpoint orbits with
high astrometric precision. We will also provide information on how
you can gain access to the NASA portion of Keck time, the only way
that PIs from non Keck-member institutions can gain access, and highlight
resources that are available for your use in the proposal planning process.
The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) is a dedicated observatory
for mission support and planetary science research, with 50% of the telescope
time allocated to solar system observations. Instruments currently
available include SpeX (a low to moderate spectral resolution 1-5.3 micron
spectrograph and imager), MORIS (a CCD camera used in conjunction
with SpeX), iSHELL (a high spectral resolution 1.2-5.3 micron spectrograph
and imager), and visitor spectrographs covering 5-24 microns. We are also
upgrading MIRSI, our 8-26 micron camera, and it should be available during
2017B. The IRTF offers remote observing from any site with adequate internet
connection, flexible scheduling (time slots as short as one hour), and daytime
observing.
The Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) is the repository for science products
from NASA’s infrared and submillimeter missions, including many large-area
and all-sky surveys. IRSA’s scientist will describe our tools and datasets of
interest to the DPS community, including: how to get moving object
observations out of the Spitzer and WISE archives, the WISE Co-Adder
(which can sum up (NEO)WISE observations of moving targets), and the
moving object “Pre-covery” tool.
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AAS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT AT THE UPCOMING DPS MEETING IN PASADENA
As part of the ongoing AAS Oral History Project, we are soliciting
planetary scientists to be interviewed at the DPS meeting in Pasadena,
CA. We are looking for DPS members from all stages of career from
undergraduate to emeritus and everything in between. Each interview
takes about two hours and will become part of an oral history archive
in partnership with the AIP Niels Bohr Library Oral History Archive.
Of particular interest to the interviewers are:
– Those involved with astronomy/planetary science education
– Members of “astronomy families,” such as dual-career couples,
single parents, and astronomers with a parent or child who is also
an astronomer (The interviewers would like to speak with the parent
or child, too, if possible.)
– Scientists who work in team collaborations
– Instrumentation designers and builders
– Scientists working with big data
– Researchers using small telescopes
Please sign up now at:
http://tinyurl.com/OralDPS2016
or by emailing Sanlyn Buxner ([email protected]).
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THE THIRD WORKSHOP ON EXTREMELY PRECISE RADIAL
VELOCITIES (EPRV III)
Please save the date for the Third Workshop on Extremely Precise Radial
Velocities (EPRV III), at the Pennsylvania State University, University
Park, PA, USA, during the week of August 14-17, 2017.
This workshop is for teams around the world to share techniques for advancing
precise radial velocity work towards 10 cm/s precision in coming years.
Building on the success of the first two workshops at Penn State in 2010
and Yale in 2015, the focus on this workshop will be on the performance
of the next generation of precise Doppler instruments, including hardware,
statistical techniques for signal extraction and interpretation, and stellar
jitter modeling and mitigation.
Please send questions or inquiries to Dr. Jason Wright at [email protected].
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JOBS, POSITIONS, OPPORTUNITIES
A) JUNO-SUPPORTING POSTDOC POSITION
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Postdoctoral Scholars
Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) invites applications for
a postdoctoral research position in JPL’s Planetary Science Section.
The research will involve coordination of Earth-based supporting
observations for the Juno mission and Juno observations themselves.
Dr. Glenn Orton, in JPL’s Planetary and Exoplanetary Atmospheres
Group, will serve as JPL postdoctoral advisor to the selected candidate.
The appointee will carry out research in collaboration with the JPL
advisor, resulting in publications in the open literature.
Candidates should have a recent PhD in planetary science with a
strong background in atmospheres. Experience in radiative transfer
and spacecraft observations is highly desirable. Candidates who have
received their PhD within the past five years since the date of their
application are eligible. Postdoctoral Scholar positions are awarded
for a minimum of one-year period and may be renewed up to a
maximum of three years.
Please send a letter describing your research interests, a curriculum
vitae, a list of three references (with telephone numbers, postal and
email address) and arrange the reference letters to be sent to:
Name: Glenn Orton
Address: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 183-501, Pasadena, CA 91109
Telephone: 818-354-2460
Fax: 818-393-5555
E-Mail: [email protected]
Caltech and JPL are equal opportunity/affirmative action employers.
Women, minorities, veterans, and disabled persons are encouraged to apply.
http://postdocs.jpl.nasa.gov/researchapplicants/jobpostings/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowJobPosting&JobPostingID=693
B) 3-YEAR POSTDOCTORAL POSITION
Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Universite Paris-Sud
Orsay, France
content/3-year-postdoctoral-position
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Send submissions to:
Anne Verbiscer, DPS Secretary ([email protected])
To unsubscribe visit http://aas.org/unsubscribe or email [email protected].
To change your address email [email protected].
Mark Allen, 67, died on October 22 of complications from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Mark was born in New York City on September 29, 1949, graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia College of Columbia University in New York City and received his PhD from Caltech, both in chemistry. He spent nearly all of his 37-year career at Caltech and JPL, where he was a principal scientist, developing chemical models to study the atmospheres of the earth, planets, comets, interstellar space, and exoplanets. Working with his then postdoctoral advisor Prof. Yuk Yung of Caltech, Mark was the principal architect, builder, and keeper of the comprehensive chemical code KINETICS which has become of the best-known models for simulating chemical processes in planetary atmospheres. Mark was a team member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) Virtual Planet Lab, Principal Investigator for the “Titan as a Prebiotic System” node of the NAI, and was involved in a number of NASA and ESA missions and mission concepts. He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Emily Bergman; children Boh Allen, Philip Allen, and daughter-in-law, Andrea Allen; mother Lucille Allen; and sister, Barbara Peterson. His research continues in the work of his colleagues and former graduate students and postdocs. Donations in his memory may be made to Columbia College at Columbia University, or the California Institute of Technology.
Ewen was a British-born astronomer specializing in lunar studies since 1951. During WWII he was part of the secret PLUTO project (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) to supply Allied vehicles in France with gasoline after the Normandy invasion. After meeting Gerard Kuiper at an IAU meeting in Dubline in 1955, he was invited to join the Lunar Project at Yerkes to produce a high-quality photographic atlas of the moon, and subsequently moved with Kuiper to Tucson, Arizona, where this project ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He provided valuable input into the planning and operations of Apollo operations on the Moon. Ewen was much beloved by his colleagues and is remembered for his knowledge, friendliness and charm.