From the desk of the ESA Hubble and JWST Project Scientist
Another exciting few months to write about. On the HST front, 1019 proposals have been received in response to the Cycle 27 Call by the deadline of April 7. There was a strong showing from the European community, who submitted 202 proposals (20%). The proposals requested a total of 24.454 orbits, the fourth highest in Hubble’s long life. Hubble is in high demand and the Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC) will have a very interesting time choosing the best of the best. We look forward to welcoming all our TAC colleagues to STScI in June. And stay tuned for those “Blacker” emails at the end of June.
Again related to Hubble, a four-year-long project is coming to an end. The Hubble Catalog of Variables will be officially released in September and you all will be able to use and exploit it. This will be a bittersweet moment, as the collaboration with colleagues at the National Observatory of Athens is winding down, but we are excited to anticipate all the creative and inventive ways you will use this catalogue and the great scientific results that will come out of it. Read here about this future announcement: the catalogue will be available for download, but there will also be an interface that will allow you to query the catalogue data interactively. Read here about this interface, which will be available through the eHST and which has been written by the very capable friends of the Archive team at ESAC.
On the JWST front, all is proceeding well — testing on the ground continues smoothly and JWST is on track for a launch date of March 2021. Read here an update from the JWST Project Scientists, and read here about a new initiative that ESA is spearheading in coordination with NASA/STScI and that will be of great interest to you all. If you would like to become an expert in planning JWST observations, here is your opportunity to attend the JWST Master Class that we are planning at ESAC in February 2020. You can find here the details and the application template (deadline is 3 June 2019). Do consider applying!
To our community of actively engaged astronomers: we have a new ESA/Hubble Press Officer! We say goodbye and good luck to Mathias Jäger and we welcome Bethany Downer, who joins our team with an impressive background in astronomical outreach. Read here about Bethany and how she can help you to advertise your scientific research. Do email her and say hi and let her know how she can help you.
Finally, we want to hear from you! Help us to make the science newsletter most useful and informative to you! Tell us what you want to know, tell us what you like and what we can improve. For 2019, we are planning to continue covering Hubble and JWST, and to bring you the most recent information. We would also love to include more of your science. If you’re interested, get in touch at HubbleNewsEurope@stsci.edu. Looking forward to hearing from you all!
Contacts
Antonella Nota
ESA HST Project Scientist, STScI
Email: hubblenewseurope@stsci.edu
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15 May 2019: The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has announced a Call for Applications to attend the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Master Class. The class will provide dedicated JWST proposal training to selected researchers who are willing to share their knowledge with scientists at their local/regional institutions. The original announcement from STScI can be found here.
The European Space Agency ...
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15 May 2019: Antonella Nota (ESA/STScI) & Alceste Bonanos (NOA)
We are only a few months away from unveiling the results of four years of intense effort by astronomers from the National Observatory of Athens, sponsored by ESA and led by Alceste Bonanos. We will present the Hubble Catalog of Variables (HCV): the first full, homogeneous, catalogue of variable sources found in ...
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15 May 2019: Deborah Baines, Maria Arevalo, Javier Durand, Raul Gutierrez, Bruno Merin (ESA/ESAC), Paule Sonnentrucker (ESA/STScI)
The HCV will be available for download both from eHST/ESAC and MAST. Within the eHST framework, individual object searches will be enabled by the HCV Explorer, a visualisation tool designed and implemented at the ESAC Science Data Centre (ESDC). The tool will offer ...
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15 May 2019: Antonella Nota (ESA/STScI) and Pierre Ferruit (ESA)
The James Webb Space Telescope is well on track for launch in March 2021. Extensive, careful testing continues steadily at Northrop-Grumman; at the time of writing, one piece of James Webb, the assembled spacecraft and sunshield is in its last stretch of thermal vacuum testing. When that is completed, the second piece ...
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15 May 2019: As of March 2019, Bethany Downer is the new Public Information Officer for ESA/Hubble. Bethany was born and raised on the island of Newfoundland in Eastern Canada where she studied Geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She then completed her Master in Space Studies at the International Space University through which she completed her internship at ESA’s European ...
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