| Program Number | Principal Investigator | Program Title |
|---|---|---|
| 14096 | Dan Coe, Space Telescope Science Institute - ESA | RELICS: Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey |
| 14114 | Pieter van Dokkum, Yale University | A Wide-Field WFC3 Imaging Survey in the COSMOS Field |
| 14594 | Rich Bielby, Durham Univ. | QSAGE: QSO Sightline And Galaxy Evolution |
| 14601 | Matthew James Hayes, Stockholm University | The Energetically Complete Picture of a Starburst Superwind |
| 14606 | Brooke Devlin Simmons, University of California - San Diego | Secular Black Hole Growth and Feedback in Merger-Free Galaxies |
| 14611 | Or Graur, Harvard University | Going gently into the night: constraining Type Ia supernova nucleosynthesis using late-time photometry |
| 14618 | Michael Shara, American Museum of Natural History | Ultraviolet Flashers in M87: Rapidly Recurring Novae as SNIa Progenitors |
| 14628 | Danielle Berg, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee | The Evolution of C/O in Low Metallicity Dwarf Galaxies |
| 14629 | Marc W. Buie, Southwest Research Institute | Astrometry of 2014MU69 for New Horizons encounter |
| 14633 | Kevin France, University of Colorado at Boulder | A SNAP UV Spectroscopic Study of Star-Planet Interactions |
| 14636 | Igor Dmitrievich Karachentsev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Special Astrophysical Obs. | TRGB Distances to the Edge Between the Local Sheet and Virgo Infall: Last of the Low Hanging Fruit |
| 14644 | Pieter van Dokkum, Yale University | Exploring the extremely low surface brightness sky: distances to 23 newly discovered objects in Dragonfly fields |
| 14652 | Benne Willem Holwerda, University of Louisville Research Foundation, Inc. | Super-Eight: The brightest z~8 Galaxies |
| 14654 | Peter Milne, University of Arizona | A Second Ladder: Testing for Bias in the Type Ia Distance Scale with SBF |
| 14658 | Eric W. Peng, Peking University | Massive Star Clusters and the Origin of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies |
| 14668 | Alex V. Filippenko, University of California - Berkeley | Continuing a Snapshot Survey of the Sites of Recent, Nearby Supernovae: Cycle 24 |
| 14675 | Julia Christine Roman-Duval, Space Telescope Science Institute - ESA | Metal Evolution and TrAnsport in the Large Magellanic Cloud (METAL): Probing Dust Evolution in Star Forming Galaxies |
| 14677 | Tim Schrabback, Universitat Bonn, Argelander Institute for Astronomy | Probing the most distant high-mass galaxy clusters from SPT with HST weak lensing observations |
| 14683 | Jean-Claude Bouret, CNRS, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille | Before the Burst: The Properties of Rapidly Rotating, Massive Supergiants |
| 14699 | David Sobral, Lancaster University | The hosts of the early ionized bubbles: the nature and diversity of the most luminous Lyman-alpha emitters at z~6-7 |
| 14706 | Eilat Glikman, Middlebury College | Testing the Triggering Mechanism for Luminous, Radio-Quiet Red Quasars in the Clearing Phase: A Comparison to Radio-Loud Red Quasars |
| 14708 | Smita Mathur, The Ohio State University | Probing the circumgalactic medium of galaxies with deep observations. |
| 14729 | Rajib Ganguly, University of Michigan | A New Twist in the Quasar Radio Dichotomy: The Case of the Missing Outflows |
| 14734 | Nitya Kallivayalil, The University of Virginia | Milky Way Cosmology: Laying the Foundation for Full 6-D Dynamical Mapping of the Nearby Universe |
| 14762 | Justyn Robert Maund, University of Sheffield | A UV census of the sites of core-collapse supernovae |
| 14767 | David Kent Sing, University of Exeter | The Panchromatic Comparative Exoplanetary Treasury Program |
| 14772 | Bart P. Wakker, University of Wisconsin - Madison | Observing gas in Cosmic Web filaments to constrain simulations of cosmic structure formation |
| 14776 | Trent J. Dupuy, University of Texas at Austin | Mapping the Substellar Mass-Luminosity Relation Down to the L/T Transition |
| 14779 | Melissa Lynn Graham, University of Washington | A NUV Imaging Survey for Circumstellar Material in Type Ia Supernovae |
| 14811 | Laurent Lamy, Observatoire de Paris - Section de Meudon | The Grand Finale : probing the origin of Saturn s aurorae with HST observations simultaneous to Cassini polar measurements |
| 14840 | Andrea Bellini, Space Telescope Science Institute | Schedule Gap Pilot |
| 14876 | Eduardo Banados, Carnegie Institution of Washington | Spectacular mergers at the cosmic dawn: a HST, ALMA, and JWST synergy |
| 14896 | Matthew Bayliss, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Precise Photometric Redshifts For Two Bright z>8 Galaxies |
| 14923 | Goeran Oestlin, Stockholm University | LYCAT - LYman Continuum and Alpha in Tol1214-277 |
| 14926 | Marc W. Buie, Southwest Research Institute | Astrometry of occultation stars for 2014MU69, New Horizons extended mission target |
GO 14618:Ultraviolet Flashers in M87: Rapidly Recurring Novae as SNIa Progenitors
The giant elliptical, M87 |
Novae are generally believed to originate in binary systems with a white dwarf paired with a non-degenerate companion. The orbital separation of the components is sufficiently small that the non-degenerate star fills its Roche lobe, leading to accretion onto the surface of the white dwarf. That material accumulates until a runaway nuclear reaction occurs, leading to the nova outburst. Typcially, the system survives to undergo subsequent outbursts. In some cases, the mass loss is sufficiently high that the time between outbursts is a measured in years rather centuries. These systems are known as recurrent novae; the companion is generally a subgiant or a red giant star, rather than the main sequence star in classical novae. One of the most remarkable such systems is M31 2008-12a, originally discovered in Deecmber 2008. Since that date, this system has undergone no less than eight outbursts. This indicates a very high accretion rate. Moreover, models suggest that typically 30% of the accreted material is retained after each outburst. Thus, the mass of the white dwarf is likely growing significantly with each outburst. This system is therefore a strong candidate as a progenitor of a supernova, triggered when the white dwarf mass exceeds the Chandrasekhar limit. The present program aims to use HST observations to monitor the giant elliptical galaxy, M87, and search for counterparts in that system. The observations are being taken using the F275W and F606W filters on the WFC3 UVIS camera, and with a 5-day cadence. These observations should be capable of detecting novae a faint as 27th magnitude. |
GO 14668: Continuing a Snapshot Survey of the Sites of Recent, Nearby Supernovae - Cycle 24
A recent supernova in M100 |
Supernovae mark the (spectacular) evolutionary endpoint for a subset of stellar systems. Standard models predict that they originate from massive stars and (probably) close binaries with a compact (WD, neutron star) component, but there are still some questions remaining over whether we fully understand the range of possible progenitors. The last decade has seen the development of a number of large-scale programs, usually using moderate-sized telescopes, that are dedicated to monitoring (relatively nearby galaxies, searching for new supernovae. This program builds on observations taken in several previous cycles, and aims to obtain follow-up multi-waveband images of nearby galaxies, focusing on the sites of recent supernovae. The program concentrates on systems within 20 Mpc of the Milky Way. The observations are taken well after maximum, with the aim of using the unparalleled angular resolution of WFC3 to identify the fading remnant, search for evidence for light echoes,characterise the local stellar population and perhaps determine the nature of the likely progenitor. |
GO 14677: Probing the most distant high-mass galaxy clusters from SPT with HST weak lensing observations
The South Pole Telescope at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station |
The overwhelming majority of galaxies in the universe are found in clusters. As such, these systems offer an important means of tracing the development of large-scale structure through the history of the universe. Galaxy clusters can be identified at moderate redshifts by searching for signatures of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect: high energy electrons in the hot intercluster medium interact with radiation from the cosmic microwave background to distort the microwave spectrum. The South Pole Telescope is a 10-metre microwave/millimetre telescope located at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on the Antarctiva high plateau, close to the geographic South Pole. That telescope has been used to search for galaxy clusters. As intense mass concentrations, these systems are highly efficient gravitational lenses, capable of concentrating and magnifying light from background high redshift galaxies to allow detailed spectropic investigations of star formation in the early universe. Hubble imaging has already revealed lensed arcs and detailed sub-structure within a handful of rich clusters. At the same time, the lensing characteristics provide information on the mass distribution within the lensing cluster. The present program targets nine high-mass galaxy clusters that represent the strinbgest SZ detections. The Wide Field Camera on the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3 near-IR camera will be used to image those systems to measure the shapes of background galaxies. Those observations will be combined with Chandra X-ray data and Spitzer infrared data with the goal using weak lensing to characterise the cluster mass distributions. |
GO 14916: Astrometry of occultation stars for 2014MU69, New Horizons extended mission target
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. Following the Pluto fly-by on Bastille day 2015, the program is redirecting the probe towards one or more smaller members of the Kuiper Belt, with the goal of providing a closer look at these icy bodies. Based on Hubble imaging, a suitable prime target has been identified: 2014 MU69, a ~30 km diameter KBO lying ~44 AU from the Sun. In addition, New Horizons is expected to take longer-range, monochromatic images of up to 10 other KBOs. The present observations are being used to refine the orbital parameters for the prime target to optimize the New Horizon encounter. |