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Read MoreFirst Starlight for Habitable Zone Planet Finder
The Habitable zone Planet Finder (HPF) obtained its first observations of stars on 5 November. The figure displays a sample spectrum from the HPF’s High Efficiency mode, which shows the sky emission lines and stellar continuum in the 2D echelle image. The insert shows a narrow region of the spectrum near the infrared Calcium triplet lines. Congratulations to the entire HPF team on reaching this...
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Read MoreAstronomers discover sunscreen snow falling on hot exoplanet
Astronomers at Penn State have used the Hubble Space Telescope to find a blistering-hot giant planet outside our solar system where the atmosphere “snows” titanium dioxide — the active ingredient in sunscreen. These Hubble observations are the first detections of this “snow-out” process, called a “cold trap,” on an exoplanet. This discovery, and other observations made...
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Read MoreExtremely Precise Radial Velocities Workshop
Penn State hosted the Third Extremely Precise Radial Velocities workshop August 14-17, 2017. For more details, see the meeting website.
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Read MoreNew planet found to be hotter than most stars
A newly discovered Jupiter-like world is so hot that even its nights are like the flame of a welding torch. The gas giant has a “year” only 1.5 days long, and may have a tail like a comet. Planet KELT-9b is hotter than most stars. With a day-side temperature of more than 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit (4,600 Kelvin), it is only about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 Kelvin) cooler than our own sun. “At these...
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Read MoreUpgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dedicated
CEHW Professor Suvrath Mahadevan spoke on “Songs of Distant Earths” at the dedication for the freshly upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). He described the opportunities created by the Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF), an infrared spectrograph that his team is building for HET. Read more from the McDonald Observatory press...
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Read MoreIntroducing CyberLAMP, the Cyber-Laboratory for Astronomy, Materials, and Physics
National Science Foundation funds supercomputer cluster at Penn State February 21, 2017 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Cyber-Laboratory for Astronomy, Materials, and Physics (CyberLAMP) is acquiring a high-performance computer cluster that will facilitate interdisciplinary research and training in cyberscience and is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The hybrid computer...
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Read MorePandExo: Online Tool for Simulating JWST & HST Observations of Transiting Exoplanets
We are happy to announce the avaliability of PandExo, an online tool and python package for simulating observations of transiting exoplanets with a wide variety of instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope or the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. PandExo uses throughput calculations from STScI’s Exposure Time Calculator, Pandeia. To learn more about the added features in PandExo, visit the PandExo...
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Read MoreA Flip-Flopping Climate Could Explain Mars’s Watery Past
A new hypothesis might reconcile two opposing theories that have tried to explain Mars’s mysterious history for more than 40 years. This study was led by Penn State graduate student, Natasha Batalha, working in collaboration Professor Jim Kastings and two CEHW alumni, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu and Jacob Haqq-Misra. Read more in the Earth and Science News story or the preprint on arxiv. Image Credit:...
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Four synchronized planets reveal clues to how planets form
The search for planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy has revealed an...
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CEHW-led Team Selected to Build Next-Generation Exoplanet-Hunting Spectrograph
The CEHW instrument team added a new planet-finding spectrograph to its...
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CEHW astronomers measure the mass of 10 small exoplanets
Astronomers at the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds have measured...
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The most eccentric known exoplanet
CEHW Astronomers contributed to the recent discovery of the most eccentric...
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CEHW Professor Kasting receives National Academy of Science Early Earth & Life Sciences Award
Evan Pugh University Professor Jim Kasting will receive the 2015 National...
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Shredding Exoplanets, And The Mysteries They May Unravel
CEHW Prof. Jason Wright’s research was featured in ManyWorlds, a blog...
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Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) Gets an Upgrade
Read more about the HET upgrade in the press release. Image...
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A disintegrating minor planet transiting a white dwarf
Astronomers have discovered evidence for a rocky planet being destroyed and...
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