Members of the STScI scientific staff participate in a number of scientific research collaborations
and initiatives related to mission, telescope, and instrument development.
Future Missions and Telescopes
- ATLAST
The Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is a NASA strategic mission concept study for the next generation of UVOIR space observatory
- LSST
The 8.4m ground-based Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will survey the entire visible sky deeply in multiple colors every week probing dark matter and dark energy, searching for supernovae, near-Earth asteroids and Kuiper-belt Objects.
- US Virtual Astronomical Observatory
The US Virtual Astronomical Observatory enables researchers to find, retrieve, and analyze astronomical data from ground- and space-based telescopes worldwide.
- PanSTARRS
The Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System is an innovative ground-based telescope with the world's largest digital cameras that will discover and characterize Earth-approaching objects and will produce huge volume of data covering the entire sky valuable for many kinds of research programs.
Instrumentation
- GPI
The Gemini Planet Imager is a high contrast coronagraphic imaging spectrograph and polarimeter designed for observations of nearby planetary systems, installed at Gemini South.
- Russell B. Makidon Optics Lab
A state-of-the-art facility with experiments that include the JWST Optical Simulation Testbed (JOST), the High-contrast Imager for Complex Aperture Telescopes (HiCAT), Non-Redundant Aperture Masking Interferometry, and the Polarimetric Experiment for Zodis (PEZ).
- WHIRC
The WIYN High-Resolution Infrared Camera is a large field-of-view infrared camera installed at the WIYN telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Exploring Dark Energy
- SHOES
The SHOES project uses observations of Type Ia Supernovae at high redshifts to constrain the value of the Hubble constant and explore the nature of dark energy.
Exoplanets: Origins and Properties
- Exoplanetary Systems Imaging
The Exoplanetary Systems Imaging Group develops advanced instrumentation and techniques for high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of planetary systems and circumstellar disks.
- Kepler
NASA's Kepler satellite uses planetary transits to search for Earth-like and larger planets around other stars. The STScI hosts the Kepler data center.
- XO Project
The XO Project is a photometric search for Jovian planets transiting very bright stars.
Galaxies: Formation and Evolution
- Coma Cluster Treasury Program
An HST/ACS Treasury program that studies the richest local cluster of galaxies, the Coma cluster.
- COSMOS
The Cosmological Evolution Survey is designed to probe the formation and evolution of galaxies as a function of cosmic time and large-scale structure environment.
- Deeprange
Project Deeprange is a wide-area I-band survey that studies large-scale structures at high red shifts.
- GOODS
The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey unites extremely deep observations from multiple major observatories to survey the distant universe to the faintest flux limits across the broadest range of wavelengths.
- GRAPES
GRAPES is an ACS grism spectroscopic survey of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
- Hubble Deep Field
The Hubble Deep Field is a Director's Discretionary program on HST to image a typical field at high galactic latitude in four wavelengths as deeply as possible.
- High-Z Cluster Survey
The High Redshift Cluster Survey program compiles extensive multi-wavelength observational data on distant galaxy clusters.
- Hubble Ultra Deep Field
The UDF consists of a single ultra-deep field that probes the tail of the reionization epoch and constrains the early evolution of the Universe.
- Hubble Deep Field South
Similarly to the HDF, the HDF-South provides a very deep, single-pointing view of the early Universe.
- SAGE
The Project Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution traces the life cycle of observable matter that drives the appearance of a galaxy's appearance.
- SINGG
The Survey for Ionization in Netural-gas Galaxies is an NOAO program to measure the emission from ionized hydrogen in a subset of galaxies found by HI Parkes All Sky Survey.
- SINGS
SINGS is a comprehensive imaging and spectroscopic study of 75 nearby galaxies.
- Starbust and Galaxy Evolution
The Starburst team provides evolutionary synthesis models to reproduce observations of galaxies with signatures of violent high-mass star formation.
All Sky Surveys
- MAGPIS
The Multi-Array Galactic Planet Imaging Survey collects images of the Galactic sky at high resolution.
- IAU WG on Sky Surveys
Setup by the IAU working group on Sky Surveys (WGSS) to provide the community with a single entry portal to information and on-line data for imaging and spectroscopic sky surveys at all wavelengths.