IPAC Uplink Newsletter
August 2023
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Euclid NASA Science Center at IPAC (ENSCI) |
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Euclid Launched and on Its Way to L2 |
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On July 1, 2023, the Euclid telescope was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, FL, on a mission to study the nature of dark energy. The European Space Agency (ESA)-led mission has a substantial U.S. (NASA) component, including the contribution of state-of-the-art near-infrared detectors, nomination of scientists to participate in the Euclid Consortium, and establishment of the Euclid NASA Science Center at Caltech/IPAC (ENSCI).
Well-characterized and validated Euclid data will be publicly released within about two years of acquisition.
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First Euclid Image Release, Euclid's First Month in Space |
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The Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) instrument has been installed on the Lunar Trailblazer (LTB) spacecraft. LTM was built by the University of Oxford in England and contributed by the UK Space Agency. It joins the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) that was integrated with the spacecraft late last year.
LTB completed System Verification Test 1 (SVT1) which is the Launch Scenario. During this test fully encrypted commands were sent from the LTB Mission Operations Center (MOC) at IPAC to the spacecraft at Lockheed Martin in Denver.
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LTB launch is currently scheduled for March 2024 as a ride-share with Intuitive Machines 2. |
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Successful System Level Testing of the SPHEREx Instrument |
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NExScI Science Affairs at IPAC |
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Each year NExScI offers the Sagan Summer Workshop, a week-long workshop that explores a specific exoplanet topic in detail. The topic of the 2023 workshop was “Characterizing Exoplanet Atmospheres: The Next Twenty Years.” It was attended by over 250 people in person, which is the largest group in the 23-year history of the workshop series. The total number or registrations, including remote participants from around the world, was over 1,400!
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2024A NASA/Keck Telescope Observing Time Available |
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The NASA Exoplanet Science Institute is soliciting proposals across all of astrophysics and planetary science topics to use NASA’s portion of time on the two 10m Keck Telescopes for the 2024A observing semester (February 1 – July 31, 2024). Proposals are due September 14, 2023, by 4 pm PDT. Please read the Call for Proposals for complete information, semester highlights, and application guidelines.
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Roman News Mailing List at SSC |
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Anyone interested in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and its large, community-defined astronomical surveys and open general astrophysics program, is invited to subscribe to the email list of the Roman Science Support Center (SSC) at IPAC. You will receive announcements about the current opportunities within the Roman Mission, upcoming Roman-themed science meetings, Virtual Roman Lectures, updates to the SSC Roman website, opportunities for general observers, and much more. Any questions about the Roman mission can be directed to the new Helpdesk portal.
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NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) |
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NITARP Alumni at IPAC, summer 2023. |
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NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) |
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IRSA has been releasing new data from the Zwicky Transient Facility every two months during 2023. The 18th public data release in July contains approximately 49.6 million images, 768 billion source detections, extracted from these images, and 4.70 billion light curves.
IRSA has released simulated images by Troxel et al. (2023) of 20 square degrees of overlapping synthetic imaging surveys representing the full depth of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope High-Latitude Imaging Survey (HLIS) observing the Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Data Challenge 2 (DC2) universe.
Data from the TEXES instrument are now available through the IRTF Archive at IRSA.
The SPHEREx List of Ice Sources (SPLICES) is a compilation of nearly nine million spatially isolated, IR-bright point sources likely to exhibit ice absorption features when observed by NASA's upcoming SPHEREx mission.
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NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database |
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Since the last newsletter, NED has made public releases in April and August 2023. Collectively these updates added 190K object links to over 2300 new journal articles, with over 243K new sources from the literature cross-identified with NED objects, and 175K new redshift measurements. Further information is available in the release notes.
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Dr. Tracy Chen presented “Best Practices for Data Publication to Advance Open Science” at the 242nd AAS meeting. She highlighted the strong connection between the recommendations in the “Best Practices for Data Publication in Astronomical Journals" (Chen et al. 2022) article with the core principles of Open Science. Following these Best Practices will improve the scientific records and enhance the reusability of the data, and help streamline data ingestion into the archives. Links to the Best Practices article are now in the Instructions for Authors by AAS journals, MNRAS and PASP, and will be included in NASA's Open-Source Science Guidance.
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Introducing the NED Local Volume Sample |
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The Keck Observatory Archive has deployed an Observers' Data Access Portal (ODAP). It allows principal investigators and their collaborators observing at the W. M. Keck Observatory to download science and calibration observations as they are acquired in near real time. The ODAP runs securely through a web browser and can be used anywhere in the world. Features include automated downloads, WGET scripts for bulk download, metadata table filtering, customization of the metadata table, and metadata table download. Observers may use the portal to grant access to collaborators and students. The portal has been available for use by all Keck observers since August 1, 2023. |
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Anniversaries of IPAC Legacy Projects: IRAS and Spitzer |
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Forty years ago, on January 25, 1983, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) was launched and became the first space telescope to make a comprehensive, reliable survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths of light. IRAS’s infrared wavelengths gave it the ability to peer deep into clouds of gas and dust obscured at visible wavelengths, to study extremely cold objects, and to study objects in the distant universe. The IRAS dataset resides at the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA). Read this article to learn more about IRAS and the founding of IPAC.
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20 years ago, on August 25, 2003, the Spitzer Space Telescope (then Space Infrared Telescope Facility or SIRTF) was launched, building on and expanding the heritage of the IRAS and ISO infrared space telescope missions. Spitzer revealed previously hidden features of known cosmic objects and led to discoveries and insights spanning from our own solar system to nearly the edge of the universe. The Spitzer dataset also resides at the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA). Follow the ongoing discoveries enabled by Spitzer here.
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IPAC Scientist-led JWST Cycle-2 Programs |
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IPAC scientists as Program Principal Investigators were awarded almost 800 hours (almost 200 hours of prime time, and 600 hours of pure parallel mode time) of JWST Cycle 2 program observing time.
- Dr. Lee Armus: "A JWST Survey of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies" (97.72 hrs)
- Dr. Andreas Faisst: "Witnessing the Maturing of Teenage Galaxies at z=4–6 with a Comprehensive UV-Optical-Submm Benchmark Sample for the Community" (56.93 hrs)
- Dr. Dr. Phil Appleton: "Shaken and Stirred: Shocks and Turbulence in the Stephan’s Quintet Warm Molecular Filament" (22.0 hrs)
- Dr. Chas Beichman: "Planets or Giant Collisions in the Fomalhaut Debris Disk System" (6.57 hrs)
- Dr. Kyle Finner: "Unlocking the Early Universe for Weak Lensing with JWST: High-Precision Analysis of z=2 Galaxy Cluster XLSSC122" (4.99 hrs)
- Dr. Takahiro Morishita: "A NIRCam Pure-Parallel Imaging Survey of Galaxies Across the Universe" (600 hrs pure parallel)
In addition, 12 IPAC scientists were co-investigators of other selected Cycle 2 programs.
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IPAC Science Conference October 23 – 27, 2023
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You are invited to the "Surveying the Milky Way: the Universe in Our Own Backyard" IPAC Science Conference in Pasadena, CA. Registration deadline for in-person attendance was Wednesday, August 30th, 2023, and for online-only attendance Monday October 16th, 2023. Participants in this conference will tackle the following topics:
- Star Formation and ISM
- Structure of the Galaxy
- Metallicity and Merging History
- The Galactic Center
- Time Domain Astronomy
- Surveys of the Milky Way
and they will be discussed in the context of "what have we learned from studying our Galaxy that is applicable to or sheds light on the rest of the Universe?"
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