Announcements

21 December 2017: As you all know, James Webb is a joint mission between NASA, ESA and CSA. It will be a versatile observatory allowing astronomers to study targets ranging from our own Solar System to the most distant galaxies: James Webb has been built to observe galaxies as they form. We will be able look back at the first few 100 million years of the Universe — which involves seeing much further than Hubble can — and investigate galaxy formation at that time. The telescope will also be able to see and analyse the clouds of gas and dust where stars form. Another fascinating field in which James Webb will contribute is the study of exoplanets. It will be able to provide detailed analysis of the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars — that’s really exciting! In all these domains, James Webb is expected to achieve significant breakthroughs but the most spectacular …

21 December 2017: As we approach the end of the year, it is always fun to look back on all of the beautiful science that Hubble has produced within the last twelve months. 2017 has been a very productive scientific year for our (still) favourite telescope. As of December 20, 775 refereed papers based on Hubble data were published in 2017! As always, we rejoice to see the strong involvement of ESA Member States astronomers in the exploitation and dissemination of Hubble science data: 38% of the total Hubble papers in 2017 were authored by scientists from ESA Members States. Germany wins the prize this year for the highest number of Hubble-related publications, closely followed by the UK, and then Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden and many others. This is a lot of published science, but what were the hot science topics of 2017? I think that we all agree that the …

21 December 2017: The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Early Release Observations (ERO) will be among the first images and spectra taken during the commissioning of the observatory after its launch, now planned for the second quarter of 2019. They represent JWST’s debut to the world and are intended to have immediate and dramatic appeal for a broad audience. The JWST ERO Committee welcomes the collective expertise of the astronomical community and invites suggestions for ERO observations. The committee is looking for observations that will showcase JWST’s instruments and scientific capabilities. The data will become public when the ERO products are released at the end of commissioning. Your input, while appreciated, will not be formally acknowledged, and there will be no grant funding or pre-release access to the data. However, your input will be a valued contribution to JWST’s mission! Please keep the following in mind as you make your suggestions: The …

21 December 2017: I just finished my 3-year term as an ESA representative on the Space Telescope User’s Committee (STUC) and this seems like a good moment to look back and reflect on my experience on the committee. Firstly, a few words about how the STUC operates: The committee meets twice a year at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and has about 12 members, two to three of which come from ESA member states. The meetings usually last two days, during which we hear presentations about a broad range of topics concerning the status of the telescope, its instruments, the time allocation process, outreach activities, policies, etc. The agenda also includes an update on Hubble-related ESA activities by the ESA HST Project Scientist. The STUC discusses any issues that may come up during these presentations and at the end of the meeting, a report with recommendations and remarks is drafted and discussed …

18 May 2017: On 20 March, we have convened in Venice to host the 5th conference in the signature series Science with the Hubble Space Telescope. This time, the conference expanded to include the synergy with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Hubble is still going strong, and is expected to remain a viable observatory well into 2022. Webb is planned to launch in the autumn of 2018, which offers a very exciting scientific opportunity with possibly several years of overlap between the two missions. As astronomers are preparing to use JWST to further their science, we felt it was very timely to dedicate this conference to both Hubble and Webb, and to how the community can best prepare to take immediate advantage of the amazing opportunities that will be presented. Almost 150 astronomers from all over the world attended, filling the ornate conference room of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed …

18 May 2017: Even before its launch, the press began to report on the new Hubble travelling exhibition Our Place in Space. Mainly Italian national and regional media covered the launch of the exhibition in Venice, Italy, but international media picked up the new exhibition as well. Digital Trends announced it as an exhibition “quite literally out of this world.” Italy24 described the exhibition and the idea behind Our Place in Space in a few more elegant words: “What could two of the most fascinating sciences, astronomy and art, have in common? At first sight they seem different: on one hand there are logic and mathematics, on the other hand creativity and irrationality. Two worlds which seem distant, of course, while at the same time the duty of artists is to reflect their era, and this is the era of the space exploration. So it’s time to review this way of thinking.” And …

18 May 2017: Earlier this year, astronomy and art met amongst the picturesque scenery of Venice, Italy, in the form of Our Place in Space, an art & science exhibition inspired by the iconic images and ground-breaking discoveries of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The exhibition opened on 1 February 2017 in the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, on the banks of the Grand Canal, and was shown there until 17 April. During that period it was visited by nearly 30,000 people. Our Place in Space is a travelling exhibition, and it is now moving to the city of Chiavenna, in northern Italy. The show will be hosted from 13 May until 20 August 2017 at the Convento dei Cappuccini, Piazza Bertacchi. There will be more opportunities to visit Our Place in Space during this year and next at other locations in Europe. Claudia Mignone interviewed the two …

18 May 2017: Since the first release of the European Hubble Archive eHST in October 2015, several new features and improvements have been added, further increasing its use for the scientific community. The current version, as of April 2017, is version 1.2.6. This version adds three new main features. The developers of eHST are constantly searching for new ways to improve the usability of the archive to make it more appealing to the scientific community. The revamped design of the new webpage of the archive is a direct consequence of this effort. With this new home page, users can access the whole set of Hubble observations by simply introducing a target name. The new webpage also provides one-click access to search for all Hubble data of either fixed targets or of Solar System objects. It also provides the option to search specifically for Hubble data without known publications. As well as the new …

18 May 2017: One of the key roles of ESA/Hubble is to advertise and promote science from European astronomers. ESA/Hubble provides the resources, the connections and the infrastructure to develop and disseminate Hubble science stories for European astronomers. 2016 was very successful in this respect, with a high number of produced press releases covering a wide variety of different topics, all associated with discoveries made by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In total, 23 press releases were produced. 11 of these focused on images taken with Hubble — either taken from the archive or new ones — while the remaining 12 presented new breakthrough results published in peer-reviewed journals. All of the science releases were coordinated with our partners at STScI, and we cooperated local science institutions wherever possible to further increase the impact factor of the results. We know from experience that not every story interesting for the astronomical community is also …

12 October 2016: The organisation of the upcoming conference “Science with the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes V” in Venice is doing very well. A Science Organisation Committee has been assembled and they are working hard to shape the scientific programme. A number of prominent invited speakers have already confirmed their participation and with the abstract submission deadline just passed, a large number of abstracts have been received. We thank you all for your interest in this conference. These are interesting times: the Hubble Space Telescope has just celebrated 26 years in orbit and is expected to be a powerful observatory even beyond 2022. The James Webb Space Telescope is planned to launch in the autumn of 2018, so there will most likely be an overlap of several years between the two missions. This is a unique and very exciting scientific opportunity. Accordingly, the conference is dedicated to the synergy between Hubble …

12 October 2016: As it does every year in June, the Time Allocation Committee met. More than a hundred astronomers, representatives of a worldwide community of almost 7000, descended on Baltimore for a science-filled week, discussing, arguing and negotiating the most innovative and creative ideas that have been proposed to define Hubble’s scientific legacy. Antonella Nota, HST Project Scientist at STScI, participated as the ESA Observer. The end result of this dense week is a complete and balanced science program that is presented to the Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute for final acceptance, and is quickly translated into commands to the observatory to fulfil the schedule for the following year. The role of the ESA Observer, together with the NASA Observer, is to follow the process and validate its integrity and fairness, qualities that are the highest priorities for the STScI organizers. ESA supports the participation of a large contingent of …

12 October 2016: David Sing, from the University of Exeter, UK, will lead a wide international and interdisciplinary collaboration in respect of the largest exoplanet Treasury Program on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in Cycle 24. Already 14 years have passed since Hubble made the first detection of an atmosphere surrounding an exoplanet, thereby opening up the field of studying exoplanet atmospheres, and it remains unrivaled in its capabilities. This program will help Hubble to have a legacy lasting well into the future of exoplanet science, as the field prepares for the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Hubble has played a definitive role in the characterisation of exoplanets. From the available data on exoplanet atmospheres, we have learned that they are incredibly diverse. Now a new era of atmospheric studies is beginning, in which large-scale comparative planetology is possible, and able to provide insight into the underlying physical processes through comparative studies. …

9 June 2016: The signature series of conferences sponsored by ESA highlighting the scientific impact of the Hubble Space Telescope continues next year with a new event planned in Venice, Italy, from 20 to 24 March 2017. This time, the scope will be broader. With the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope expected to be a viable observatory well into the 2022 and beyond, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope planned launch in the autumn 2018, we can start planning for possibly several years of overlap between the two missions — a very exciting scientific opportunity! Both missions have a significant European involvement. So it is very appropriate to organize a conference in Europe, dedicated primarily to the synergy between Hubble and Webb, and to how the community can best prepare to take immediate advantage of the amazing opportunities that will be presented. We will of course also showcase the latest Hubble results. Because …

9 June 2016: Our place in Space is a travelling exhibition designed to get people thinking about where humanity fits in the grand scheme of our Universe. Astronomers and artists will present their own interpretations of where we are, where we belong, what our past might have been and what our future might look like. For this images made by Hubble — one of the most ambitious and successful space astronomy missions ever flown and a great example of a successful international partnership — artworks and installations are used. Not only has Hubble transformed our knowledge of the Universe — it has also greatly impacted culture, society and art for more than two decades. Hubble has broadened the reach of astronomical research and brought the Universe to our homes. For more than two decades, Hubble’s images have inspired artists all over the world. They have provided a stunning pictorial landscape to the deep …

9 June 2016: With the European Hubble Archive (eHST) now fully integrated with the other ESA astronomy archives at the ESAC Science Data Centre in Madrid (see sci15010), Hubble users can unleash their scientific curiosity and start exploring their favourite targets from gamma rays to radio wavelengths with a simple click, using ESASky. ESASky is a recently developed web application that allows you to compare and download public observations from ESA astronomy missions and to study an object in different wavelengths. ESASky does not replace the mission archives — rather it integrates them by projecting the footprints of the observation onto the sky. Using ESASky, these footprints and the corresponding observations can be overlaid on any existing “all-sky” progressive background image derived from ground or space observations. These all-sky maps show more and more detail as you zoom in. Many backgrounds are available on ESASky, including INTEGRAL (Gamma-ray and hard X-ray), XMM-Newton (X-ray, …

9 June 2016: As a European Hubble user, you can access ESA/Hubble’s resources to promote your work to the media and the general public. ESA/Hubble can help by producing and distributing press releases, image processing, web articles, artists’ impressions, and high-definition videos. We can also feature your work on the Hubblecast, which is among the world’s most popular science video podcasts. ESA/Hubble science writers and image processing experts work closely with scientists while preparing releases, ensuring scientific accuracy. You can see examples of ESA/Hubble press products at www.spacetelescope.org. As well as being a key part of the Hubble mission, education and public outreach work can also have benefits for you, your field of research and your institution. If you think any part of your research could be of interest to the public at large, or your observations might produce an image suitable for public release, please contact Mathias Jäger (email: [email protected]) so we …

9 March 2016: Before becoming Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) Director Ken Sembach had already been heavily involved with science operations for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope for many years. At STScI he served as Hubble Project Scientist, Hubble Mission Head, and most recently as Interim Deputy Director. Previously, from 1992 to 1995, Ken Sembach was the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) Deputy Project Scientist for Large Science Programmes at the Johns Hopkins University. He was also a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sembach received a B.A. in physics with honors in 1988 from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1992 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ken Sembach is a UV spectroscopist. He has a longstanding scientific interest in the physical properties of the intergalactic medium, the interactions between galaxies, and the origin and evolution of the chemical elements over cosmic time. He has formulated …

9 March 2016: Since its launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has enjoyed a close relationship with its community of users through a variety of mechanisms: newsletters, surveys, ad-hoc working groups. In this context, the Space Telescope User Committee (STUC), continues to provide sound advice on Hubble science operations and observing policies. Having celebrated the Hubble 25th anniversary last year, we also understand that, from time to time, a short refresher is needed on what the STUC role is and why you, the user, should care. The STUC has a membership of approximately twelve scientists. Typically, members are appointed for a three-year term. At least two of the twelve members are astronomers from ESA member states and are jointly appointed with ESA. Currently three members on the STUC are appointed by ESA. The scope of the STUC is quite broad: they can set their own agenda and if necessary can establish an ad-hoc subcommittee …

9 March 2016: Three members of the Space Telescope User Committee (STUC) are currently appointed by ESA: Stephane Charlot (France), Søren Larsen (The Netherlands) and David Sing (UK). They each bring unique scientific expertise and they all want to hear from you. David Sing is an Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Exeter. His speciality is atmospheric characterization of transiting exoplanets. As exoplanet observations have played an ever increasing important role in Hubble’s overall science programme, Ken Sembach, Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) Director, formed an Advisory Committee to explore the priorities in exoplanet research and provide advice for implementing an exoplanet science programme with Hubble. The committee, of which David is part, is chaired by Professor Drake Deming. The committee has asked for input from the community, and is reviewing the evolution of Hubble usage by the exoplanet community. It is investigating mechanisms to coordinate Hubble observations with the priorities …

9 March 2016: Since the first release of the new European Hubble Science Archive (eHST) in October 2015 (see the announcement in the previous ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter), development has continued and the next major release is planned for Summer 2016. This release will include the integration of the Hubble Source Catalog with advanced catalogue visualisation features. In particular, the development team is looking into ways of enhancing the user experience in the exploitation of the Hubble Source Catalog together with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) and High-Level Science Products (HLSP) data collections in the archive. In the meantime, work is going on to redirect the former HST web services to the new eHST web services. This redirection affects the programmatic access to the archive and will be completely transparent for users. No users who are currently running scripts to download the data will be affected. The new eHST programmatic …