Bright flashes of light off of bodies of water, known as sun glints, give scientists a way to pick out planets beyond our solar system likely to have expanses of liquid water.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has broken the distance limit for galaxies and uncovered a never-seen primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies.
Aki Roberge selected to serve on NASA Advisory Committee
Aki Roberge has been appointed to the Exoplanetary Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG). The first meeting of the group is in Jan 2010. This group reports to the NASA Advisory Committee (NAC) astrophysics subcommittee (APS). Sally Heap serves on this subcommittee.
Release Date: 11/18/2009
Several ASD scientists have been selected to serve on important NASA advisory committees/working groups.
Aki Roberge (667) has been appointed to the Exoplanetary Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG). This group reports to the NASA Advisory Committee (NAC) astrophysics subcommittee (APS). Sally Heap (667) serves on this subcommittee. Dominic Benford (665) has recently been selected to serve on the JDEM Interim Science Working Group (ISWG). This working group will advise the JDEM Project on mission concept design and science requirements.
The ExoPlanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory studies the formation and evolution of stars and planetary systems using advanced telescopes and theoretical techniques. We develop new technology and ideas that help us understand our place in the universe. Research also contributes to the search for Earth-like planets and habitable environments around other stars. Key areas of research include exoplanet searches and theoretical modeling, stellar debris disks, young stellar objects, stellar astrophysics, and numerical modeling of planetary system evolution.
As part of the EPOXI mission's objectives to characterize the Earth as a planet for comparison with planets around other stars, the spacecraft looked back at Earth collecting a series of images.
