| Program Number | Principal Investigator | Program Title |
|---|---|---|
| 12529 | Alicia M. Soderberg, Harvard University | What Powers Nature's Most Luminous Supernovae? |
| 12605 | Giampaolo Piotto, Universita degli Studi di Padova | Advances in Understanding Multiple Stellar Generations in Globular Clusters |
| 12870 | Boris T. Gaensicke, The University of Warwick | The mass and temperature distribution of accreting white dwarfs |
| 12880 | Adam Riess, The Johns Hopkins University | The Hubble Constant: Completing HST's Legacy with WFC3 |
| 12884 | Harald Ebeling, University of Hawaii | A Snapshot Survey of The Most Massive Clusters of Galaxies |
| 12892 | Yue Shen, Carnegie Institution of Washington | Imaging the Host Galaxies of Low-Redshift Quasars with Associated Absorbers |
| 12897 | Marc W. Buie, Southwest Research Institute | Pluto System Orbits in Support of New Horizons |
| 12902 | Matthew A. Malkan, University of California - Los Angeles | WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel Survey WISP: A Survey of Star Formation Across Cosmic Time |
| 12903 | Luis C. Ho, Carnegie Institution of Washington | The Evolutionary Link Between Type 2 and Type 1 Quasars |
| 12911 | Luigi R. Bedin, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova | A search for binaries with massive companions in the core of the closest globular cluster M4 |
| 12939 | Elena Sabbi, Space Telescope Science Institute - ESA | Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project {HTTP: unraveling Tarantula's web} |
| 12961 | Misty C. Bentz, Georgia State University Research Foundation | A Cepheid Distance to NGC6814 |
| 12967 | Abhijit Saha, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, AURA | Establishing a Network of DA White Dwarf SED Standards |
| 12969 | Peter Garnavich, University of Notre Dame | Global Properties Are Not Enough: Probing the Local Environments of Type Ia Supernovae |
| 12970 | Michael C. Cushing, University of Toledo | Completing the Census of Ultracool Brown Dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood using HST/WFC3 |
| 12982 | Nicolas Lehner, University of Notre Dame | Are the Milky Way's High Velocity Clouds Fuel for Star Formation or for the Galactic Corona? |
| 12984 | Ignazio Pillitteri, Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo Giuseppe S. Vaiana | Probing the evaporation of HD189733b atmosphere |
| 12995 | Christopher Johns-Krull, Rice University | Testing Disk Locking in the Orion Nebula Cluster |
| 13024 | John S. Mulchaey, Carnegie Institution of Washington | A Public Snapshot Survey of Galaxies Associated with O VI and Ne VIII Absorbers |
| 13055 | Mark R. Showalter, SETI Institute | Orbital Evolution and Stability of the Inner Uranian Moons |
| 13057 | Kailash C. Sahu, Space Telescope Science Institute | Detecting and Measuring the Masses of Isolated Black Holes and Neutron Stars through Astrometric Microlensing |
| 13177 | Marusa Bradac, University of California - Davis | Spitzer UltRaFaint SUrvey {SURF'S Up}: Cluster Lensing and Spitzer Extreme Imaging Reaching Out to z~7 |
| 13297 | Giampaolo Piotto, Universita degli Studi di Padova | The HST Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters: Shedding UV Light on Their Populations and Formation |
| 13346 | Thomas R. Ayres, University of Colorado at Boulder | Advanced Spectral Library II: Hot Stars |
| 13364 | Daniela Calzetti, University of Massachusetts - Amherst | LEGUS: Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey |
| 13377 | Andrea Mehner, European Southern Observatory - Chile | Essential UV Observations of Eta Carinae's Change of State |
| 13385 | Andrew Robinson, Rochester Institute of Technology | Is there a kicked supermassive black hole in E1821+643? |
| 13475 | David Jewitt, University of California - Los Angeles | Hubble Imaging of a Newly Discovered Main Belt Comet |
GO 12870: The mass and temperature distribution of accreting white dwarfs
 An accreting white dwarf starn in a close binary system |
Supernovae are the most spectacular form of stellar obituary. Since B2FH, the physical processes underlying their eruptive deaths have been known to play a key role in populating the ISM with metals beyond the iron peak. More recently, these celestial explosions have acquired even greater significance through the use of Type Ia supernovae as distance indicators in mapping the `dark energy' acceleration term of cosmic expansion. However, while there are well-established models for the two main types of supernovae (runaway fusion on the surface of a white dwarf in a binary system for Type Ia, or detonation of the core in Type II), some significant uncertainties remain concerning the physical details of the disruption, and, potentially, the overall uniformity of these events. Consequently, there is potential for systematic bias in the distance estimates. The present program aims to set constraints on the various mechanisms associated with white dwarf stars by investigating the rotational properties of over 40 degenerate companions in catclysimic variable systems. All of these systems are in the process of accreting material from the companion star, as the latter voerflows its Roche lobes. The program aims to obtain ultraviolet spectra with the Cosmic origins Spectrograph, probing both the spin rates and the orbital parameters. Over the next decade, these data may lead to the determinaton of reliable masses for both stars once accurate parallax measurements become available from Gaia. |
GO 12902: WISP - A Survey of Star Formation Across Cosmic Time
A region of massive star formation |
Star formation is the key astrophysical process in determining the overall evolution of galactic systems, the generation of heavy elements, and the overall enrichment of interstellar and intergalactic material. Tracing the overall evolution through a wide redshift range is crucial to understanding how gas and stars evolved to form the galaxies that we see around us now. The present program builds on the ability of HST to carry out parallel observations, using more than one instrument. While the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is focused on obtaining ultraviolet spectra of unparalleled signal-to-noise, this program uses the near-infrared grisms mounted on the Wide-Field Camera 3 infrared channel to obtain low resolution spectra between 1 and 1.6 microns of randomly-selected nearby fields. The goal is to search for emission lines characteristic of star-forming regions. In particular, these observations are capable of detecting Lyman-alpha emission generated by star formation at redshifts z > 5.6. A total of up to 40 "deep" (4-5 orbit) and 20 "shallow" (2-3 orbit) fields will be targeted in the course of this observing campaign. |
GO 12939: Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project, HTTP: unraveling Tarantula's web
Hubble image of the central regions, near NGC 2074, of 30 Doradus, the Tarantula Nebula |
The 30 Doradus region, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, is among the most active star-forming regions in the Local Group.
Lying within the Large Magellanic Cloud, the star-forming region has a diameter of 200 pc, a total mass around 106
solar masses and is sufficiently bright to be easily detectable to the naked eye (hence the stellar designation). The stellar
complex includes a number of individual star clusters that are generally agreed to have ages from a few to ~20 million years.
As such, this region is one of the most fruitful for studying both the detailed properties of
high mass stars and their overall mass distribution. The present program will obtain a mosaiced image of the full
200x200 parsec star forming region. The aim is to use deep, multi-wavelength
imaging with ACS and WFC3 to push observations into the sub-solar mass regime,
potentially reaching stars with masses as low as 0.4-0.5 M |
GO 13475: Hubble Imaging of a Newly Discovered Main Belt Comet
Asteroid 596-Scheila, the prototype main-belt coment, imaged by Peter Lake in December, 2010 |
The term 'comet" is generally associated with low-mass, volatile-rich solar system objects that spend most of their life at very lage distances from the Sun, plunging only rarely into the inner regions where they acquire extended tails due to outgassing. Sometimes those obejcts are captured into short-period, eccentric orbits, leading to rapid depletion of the volatile content in rapidly-successive perihelion passages. However, recent years have seen growing evidence of another class of cometes exist: comets with near-circular orbits that place them between Mars and Jupiter, within the realm of the Main Belt of asteroids. One of the first candidate main belt comets, as these objects have been dubbed, is the asteroid Scheila. Discovered by the Heidelberg astronomer August Kopff in 1906, and named after an English student with whom he was acquainted, this is one of the larger known asteroids, with a diameter estimated as ~110 km. Early December 2010, Steve Larson (of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory) noted that Scheila had sprouted a coma halo in observations taken by the Catalina Sky Survey. An examination of archival images revealed no evidence for activity throughout October and November, but a possible onset on December 3rd. The asteroid 1979 OW7/1996 N2 exhibited similar behaviour in 1996 and again in 2002; the initial outburst was ascribed to a collision, but the second event suggests that the activity is intrinsic rather than externally stimulated. More recently, the Pan-STARRS survey has contributed two objects: the asteroid 2006 VW139, imaged during an outburst; and Main Belt Comet 2013-P5. The present HST target-of-opportunity program has been triggered in response to the latter discovery, using high-resolution visual imaging with Wide-Feld Camera 3 to probe the detailed nature of the outburst. The first set of observations were taken on September 10, and follow-up observations on September 23 will test for variability. |