Current Research Projects

Posters and Handouts from AAS meetings

This link contains posters we have presented at AAS meetings, and handouts we have provided with the posters.

Young Stars in IC 2118

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Year One Cool Cosmos Web Page and Year Two Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

The IC 2118 team is working to characterize the young star population of a small cloud near Rigel that is (probably) part of the greater Orion star forming ecosystem. We have used about 12.5 hours of Spitzer time (!) to map a large region of the cloud with both IRAC and MIPS. We have taken several posters to AAS meetings -- see the posters and handouts page. We have obtained a lot of optical data in support of this analysis. We are working on writing up the journal article.

Please see our quick introduction to IC 2118 and more lengthy introduction to IC 2118. You may also be interested in general information on studying young stars.

Star Formation in Lynds Clouds

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web page (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

This team, which ran from Jan 2008 - Jan 2009, observed two Lynds clouds to characterize the young star population that might be found there. Much of the background information found above for the IC 2118 team also applies to this team as well.

Star Formation in CG4

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web page (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

This team, which started in Jan 2010 (one of the first under the NITARP banner), is working with multi-wavelength observations of CG4 to characterize the young star population that might be found there. Much of the background information found above for the IC 2118 and Lynds teams also applies to this team as well.

Luminous Data Miners

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web page (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

This team, which started in Jan 2010 (one of the first under the NITARP banner), is working with multi-wavelength data to study active galactic nuclei (AGN).

Epsilon Aurigae

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

This team, which started in Jan 2010 (one of the first under the NITARP banner), is working with multi-wavelength data to study the variable star Epsilon Aurigae.

Variability of the Mid-IR Sky

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

This team, which started in Jan 2010 (one of the first under the NITARP banner), is examining Spitzer IRAC data from the archive for fields which have been looked at for many hours or longer. They plan to measure photometry for all point sources in the FOV and put together many many light curves. They will then explore 1) the variability of the mid-IR sky, 2) what interesting types of objects will we find and 3) comparison of the interesting ones to 2MASS optical, x-ray etc. surveys where we might get SED information.

Observing Iron Stars with Spitzer

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

Intergalactic Star Formation in Tidal Dwarf Galaxies of M81

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

The M81 project obtained IRAC and MIPS imaging of a region near M81 to look for regions of star formation in M81's tidal dwarf companions. We took a science poster to the January 2007 AAS: Hedden et al., "Multiwavelength Observations of Tidally Induced Star Formation in the M81 Group.

Please see our quick introduction to M81. You may also be interested in general information to Tidal Dwarf Galaxies.

AGN Spectral Energy Distributions of GLAST Telescope Network Program Objects

This team has their own website and blog and places to share information and results.

Year One Cool Cosmos Web Page and Year Two Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

The Supermassive Black Hole in Arp102B

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

Detecting Brown Dwarfs in Interacting Cataclysmic Binaries

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Year One Cool Cosmos Web Page, and Year Two Cool Cosmos Web Page. (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

Spitzer Light Curve of Z Cha

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos web page for this project (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

NEW JAN 2009: there are some teacher-developed classroom activities linked in to the Cool Cosmos site... Check them out! (bottom of that page)

Star Formation in High-Redshift Clusters

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos web page for this project (includes abstract, proposal, people, etc.)

Radio and Infrared Imaging of 3C Galaxies with Known Black Hole Masses

CLICK HERE for current research activities associated with this project.

Cool Cosmos web page to come?

This project uses IRAC imaging. The galaxies we have targeted are called Active Galactic Nuclei, or AGN. They are called "active" because they emit large amounts of energy at many wavelengths above and beyond what we would calculate based on the total numbers of stars at their center. We believe the excess energy is generated by material flowing into a huge black hole at their centers. Our measurements of the infrared emission from these objects will be combined with our measurements of the radio emission from these same objects, as well as estimates made by professional astronomers of the masses of the black holes at their centers. We hope that we will learn more about how AGNs work by determining if and how their infrared and radio emissions depend on the mass of the black hole.