NASA Exoplanet Science Institute Headlines
NExScI is the science operations and analysis center for NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program. We provide tools and archives for the exoplanet community, administer the Sagan program of fellowships and workshops, and support the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer and administration of the NASA Keck telescope time. Click here to see past headlines and events.
NExScI scientist Peter Plavchan is the lead author on a recent paper
that studies how hot Jupiters arrive and stay in their present-day
orbits. The research uses data from the Kepler mission and confirmed
exoplanets available at the
NASA Exoplanet
Archive. Click for the
press
release and for the
ApJ paper.
Nikole Lewis, a Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT, is the lead author on a recent paper that discusses the results of the longest Spitzer observation yet of a hot Jupiter. "These planets are much hotter and more dynamic than our own Jupiter. Strong winds are churning material up from below, and the chemistry is always changing," said Lewis. Click for the
press release and for the
ApJ paper.
NExScI director Chas Beichman is a co-author on a new
ApJ paper that examines the first simultaneous spectroscopic observations of multiple planets in a planetary system other than our own. Click for the
press release and for the
ApJ paper.
For an introduction to NExScI's managed and supported data tools, archives, telescope time, meetings, and fellowships, click
here. This PDF file contains the NExScI brochures and handouts prepared for the January 2013 AAS meeting in Long Beach. The movie that we show at the NExScI booth can be viewed
here.
Read the
statement of Dr. John M. Grunsfeld, NASA's Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, before the Congressional Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Space.
The 2013 Sagan Summer Workshop on
Imaging Planets and Disks has been
cancelled due to impacts of the Federal Budget sequestration (
full statement).
NExScI is pleased to announce the
2013 Sagan Postdoctoral Fellows. Click
here for more information on the Fellowship program.
The 2013B call is now
closed. It included opportunities for Kepler Key Science and Comet ISON observations. Details can be found
here.
This was the largest summer workshop to date, with over 150 attendees.
View presentations and videos from the workshop.
The Keck Observatory Archive (KOA) has released raw and calibrated images from the Near Infrared Camera 2 (NIRC2). As of May 7, 1,240 nights of NIRC2 data have been archived, and 932 nights are public. These data include all four observing modes. Access NIRC2 data
here.
May 28, 2013: The Kepler project has opened the
Q1-12 Kepler Objects of Interest (KOI) activity table, adding 1,924 new KOIs detected over a 34-month baseline. None of the new KOIs have yet been dispositioned into planet candidates and false positives, so this list contains many objects that will ultimately become false positives. The dispositioning of these KOIs will occur incrementally over the coming months. Read the Kepler mission description of the process
here. The Exoplanet Archive is funded by NASA to serve the user community working with exoplanet data.
exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu
Why Hot Jupiters Aren't Eaten by Their Stars (Very Often)