Program Number | Principal Investigator | Program Title |
---|---|---|
12884 | Harald Ebeling, University of Hawaii | A Snapshot Survey of The Most Massive Clusters of Galaxies |
13284 | Nathalie Degenaar, University of Michigan | Unravelling the evolution and accretion morphology of an extraordinary black hole X-ray binary |
13330 | Bradley M Peterson, The Ohio State University | Mapping the AGN Broad Line Region by Reverberation |
13332 | Seth Redfield, Wesleyan University | A SNAP Survey of the Local Interstellar Medium: New NUV Observations of Stars with Archived FUV Observations |
13335 | Adam Riess, The Johns Hopkins University | HST and Gaia, Light and Distance |
13364 | Daniela Calzetti, University of Massachusetts - Amherst | LEGUS: Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey |
13372 | Ana Ines Gomez De Castro, Universidad Complutense de Madrid | Mapping the magnetospheric structure at outburst of the pre-main sequence close binary AK Sco |
13381 | Marshall Perrin, Space Telescope Science Institute | STIS Coronagraphy of Four Young Debris Disks Newly Uncovered from the NICMOS Archive |
13382 | Mary E. Putman, Columbia University in the City of New York | Warm Gas Flows in the Coma Cluster |
13386 | Steven A. Rodney, The Johns Hopkins University | Frontier Field Supernova Search |
13397 | Luciana C. Bianchi, The Johns Hopkins University | Understanding post-AGB Evolution: Snapshot UV spectroscopy of Hot White Dwarfs |
13424 | Romano L.M. Corradi, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias | The Necklace Nebula as a probe of close binary evolution |
13439 | William B. Sparks, Space Telescope Science Institute | Gas Physics in Cool-Core Clusters: the Virgo Cluster |
13442 | R. Brent Tully, University of Hawaii | The Geometry and Kinematics of the Local Volume |
13448 | Andrew J. Fox, Space Telescope Science Institute - ESA | The Closest Galactic Wind: UV Properties of the Milky Way's Nuclear Outflow |
13465 | Thomas R. Ayres, University of Colorado at Boulder | Alpha Cen: Climbing out of a Coronal Recession? {year 3 continuation} |
13482 | Britt Lundgren, University of Wisconsin - Madison | The Evolving Gas Content of Galaxy Halos: A Complete Census of MgII Absorption Line Host Galaxies at 0.7 < z < 2.5 |
13513 | Julia Comerford, University of Colorado at Boulder | A Pilot Search for Spatially Offset AGN in Galaxy Merger Remnants |
13633 | John R. Spencer, Southwest Research Institute | A Kuiper Belt Object for the New Horizons Mission |
13686 | Adam Riess, The Johns Hopkins University | The Longest Period Cepheids, a bridge to the Hubble Constant |
13796 | Arlin Crotts, Columbia University in the City of New York | Understanding New Structures Ejected from Recurrent Nova T Pyx |
GO 13330: Mapping the AGN Broad Line Region by Reverberation
Simulations of the appearance and velocity structure within an AGN disk (see Keith Horne's webpage ). |
Active galaxies (AGNs) are generally luminous systems, characterised by the presence of strong nuclear emission lines of numerous species including H, He I, He II, and Fe, Ca, O, C and S over a range of ionisations. These features originate from gas clouds in the nuclear regions, with the energy supplied through accretion onto a central massive black hole. The high-temperature, rapidly-rotating gas clouds nearest the central engine are responsible for producing broad emission lines (hence, the "Broad Line Region"). The structure of the BLR can be discerned using a technique known as reverberation mapping: variations in the accretion rate lead to fluctuations in luminosity; those variations lead, in turn, to variations in the photoionisation of the BLR, and corresponding changes in spectral line strengths and velocities; monitoring those changes, and correlating them with the photometric variability of the central source, measures the light travel time from nucleus to BLR gas, and hence maps the size of the BLR. The present prorgam will use the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph to undertake systematic monitoring of the nuclear regions of the Seyfert I galaxy, NGC 5548. The first observations were taken on February 2nd 2014 and the program is reaching its conclusion, having taken observations at a cadence of ~one orbit per day for 179 days. |
GO 13386: Frontier Field Supernova Search
GO 13389: The Ultraviolet Frontier: Completing the Census of Star Formation at Its Peak Epoch
GO 13633: A Kuiper Belt Object for the New Horizons Mission
Hubble Space Telescope images of the Pluto system, including the recently discovered moons, P4 and P5 |
The Kuiper Belt lies beyond the orbit of Neptune, extending from ~30 AU to ~50 AU from the Sun, and includes at least 70,000 objects with diameters exceeding 100 km. Setting aside Pluto, the first trans-Neptunian objects were discovered in the early 1990s. Most are relatively modest in size, with diameters of a few hundred km and photometric properties that suggest an icy composition, similar to Pluto and its main satellite, Charon. In recent years, a handful of substantially larger bodies have been discovered, with diameters of more than 1000 km; indeed, one object, Eris (2003 UB13), is slightly larger than Pluto (2320 km) and 25% more massive. We know the mass for Eris because it has a much lower mass companion, Dysnomia, which orbits Eris with a period of 16 days (see this recent press release ). Pluto itself has at least 5 companions: Charon, which is about 1/7th the mass of Pluto, and the much smaller bodies, Hydra, Nix, P4 and P5 discovered through HST observations within the last few years. The New Horizons Mission was launched on January 19th 2006 with the prime purpose of providing the first detailed examination of Pluto. The Pluto encounter represents the first phase of the originally-proposed mission. Following the fly-by, set for Bastille day in 2015, the aim is to re-direct New Horizons towards one or more smaller members of the Kuiper Belt, with the goal of providing a closer look at these icy bodies. However, New Horizons needs to identify an appropriate target - a KBO with orbital parameters such that New Horizons can use its modest complement of remaining fuel to reach the target. Adding a further complication, Pluto happens to lie within 5 degrees of the Galactic Plane and the consequent high star density has proven a barrier to deep ground-based searches. As a consequence, the New Horizons team was awarded Hubble time to search an area roughly the size of the full moon for a suitable target. These observations are significantly deeper than previous surveys, and as a result will lead to a better understanding of the size distribution of smaller objects (< 20 km diameter) in the Kuiper Belt. |
GO 13686: The Longest Period Cepheids, a bridge to the Hubble Constant