| MOST RECENT NEWS
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August 27th, 2008
MOST and NASA collaborate
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA), NASA and the MOST
Science Team have announced an agreement that will give
U.S. researchers access to observing time with Canada’s
MOST space telescope.
MOST science target selection has been done exclusively
by the MOST Science Team, with the support of CSA, and
they have collaborated with members of the Canadian and
international astronomical communities on some MOST
observations. With this MOST NASA Guest Observer
Program, up to 2 months of the science observation time
during February 2009 through January 2010 will be made
available to American astronomers. The submitted
proposals will be evaluated and ranked by the MOST
Science Team and three NASA-appointed scientists. They
will seek out the best science proposals exploiting the
unique capabilities of MOST. The final selection based
on this ranking will be made by NASA’s Science Directorate.
NASA will provide research funding to the Principal
Investigators of the successful proposals.
The high scientific value of the MOST satellite, since
starting operations in 2003, has been well demonstrated
and recognized widely throughout the international
community. This new program illustrates the enduring
collaboration between the Canadian and American space
agencies, and opens up new scientific opportunities for
the MOST mission to benefit an even broader research
community.
August 27th, 2008
THE SKY’S NOT THE LIMIT FOR CANADIANS -
Amateur astronomers win time on the MOST space telescope
Two Canadian amateur stargazers will trade in their backyard
telescopes for one above their backyards... 820 kilometres
above their backyards. Last year, the MOST team created an
opportunity to make MOST mean "My Own Space Telescope".
Amateur astronomers and students across Canada were invited
to submit proposals for science to be done from orbit. The
MOST Science Team has just selected the first two winners:
David Gamey, from Toronto, who inspires his Scout packs to
look to the stars, and Gordon Sarty, from Saskatoon, whose
day job is to peer into the human brain.
Read the
full story.
June 30th, 2008
NEW MOST RESULTS ON PROCYON RELEASED
MOST's first primary science target was the bright star Procyon,
observed in January 2004. MOST returned to Procyon the next year,
and again last year during January - February 2007. The 2007
observing run returned the best photometry MOST had collected in
its entire mission. The results have just been accepted for
publication in The Astrophysical JOurnal, in a paper entitled
"The nature of p-modes and granulation in Procyon: New MOST
photometry and new Yale convection models" with lead author and
MOST Science Team member Dr. David Guenther (St. Mary's University,
Halifax). Collaborating on this research are Yale astronomers
Frank Robinson and Pierre Demarque, who have generated numerical
hydrodynamical 3D models of the turbulence in the atmosphere of
the star Procyon for comparison with the MOST observations.
Precise photometry of Procyon by the MOST satellite has generated
debate over the nature of acoustic oscillations (p-modes) in that
well-studied star. We present new photometry of Procyon obtained
by MOST during a 38-day run in 2007 and frequency analyses of
those data. The long time coverage and very low point-to-point
scatter of the light curve yield an average noise amplitude of
about 1.5 – 2.0 parts per million in the frequency range where
p-modes are expected in Procyon. This is half the noise level
obtained from each of the previous two Procyon campaigns by MOST
in 2004 and 2005, thanks to enhanced satellite and instrument
performance.
The new data and theoretical models indicate that the dynamics of
the atmosphere of a star like Procyon are more complicated than
previously understood and different than what is seen in our Sun.
The MOST spacebased photometry was obtained at the same time as a
global multi-observatory campaign of spectroscopy to measure the
oscillations of Procyon in radial velocity. The direct comparison
of the two simultaneous data sets will almost certainly reveal
even more insights into the nature of Sun-like stars.
The new MOST paper is available on the Science page and the
data are now available in the MOST Public Data Archive (through a
link on the Science page).
June 30th, 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOST!
MOST was launched five years ago today and the MOST Team is in a
party mood. “After five years in space, MOST is making us feel
like five-year-olds – curious, excited, and full of wonder at the
new things we see every day,” said Dr. Jaymie Matthews, MOST
Mission Scientist. “And while MOST is only five years old, it’s
actually entering middle age, in a life of exploration that was
supposed to last only twelve months.”
The size of a suitcase, with a cost of only Can $10M, MOST was
nicknamed by its creators the “Humble Space Telescope.” But its
accomplishments have been anything but modest. It was originally
intended to probe the hidden interiors of stars through their
vibrations, by a technique called asteroseismology. “We’re
literally listening to the music of the stars,” explains Matthews.
“It’s like using a space telescope as an interstellar iPod.” MOST
data have already turned up important – and sometimes controversial –
results about the nature of stars, sending many theorists back to
their computer screens to revise stellar models.
MOST turned out to be a precocious child. The team of scientists
and engineers – located from coast to coast across Canada and in
Harvard and Vienna – has extended the capabilities of this ‘little
telescope that could’ to explore exoplanets: alien worlds around
other stars. MOST has measured the properties of several of these
planets, which are invisible even to the largest telescopes. Among
the findings: A planet whose atmosphere is either so clear or so
hazy that it reflects only 4% of the light it receives from its
parent sun. “Who could have imagined a planet darker than charcoal,
whose sun is 400 times brighter in its sky than our Sun, except
possibly a science fiction writer?” asks Matthews, “Well, MOST has
turned us into real estate agents to science fiction and fantasy
writers. The exoplanetary systems we are studying will be the
settings of future novels and movies.”
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