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Marc Kuchner NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory Code 667 Greenbelt, MD 20771 PHONE:(301)286-5165 FAX:(301)286-1752 Marc.Kuchner at nasa.gov CV and Publication List |
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I work on theoretical and observational projects related to directly imaging Extrasolar Planetary Systems. This page describes some of my research interests and provides links to other pages useful to my collaborators. |
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Some White Dwarfs appear to host clouds of dust
similar to cometary dust in the solar system. Our sun will eventually
become a white dwarf; dusty white dwarfs may represent the future of
planetary systems like the solar system. Directly imaging planets
around white dwarfs may be especially easy, because a white dwarf is
smaller than Jupiter!
Powerpoint Press Release Talk on Cometary Dust around a White Dwarf Powerpoint Talk on WDs I gave at Carnegie DTM 2/06 |
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The technique of Coronagraphy increases the dynamic range of a telescope so
it can see planets without being swamped by the glare from the stars they orbit.
Here is an image of Sirius made with a conventional coronagraph.
I am working on a new design concept for a
Terrestrial Planet Finder
telescope in space: a Coronagraph with a Band-Limited Mask..
The latest version of the band-limited mask is the
eighth-order mask.
Another potential way to directly image extrasolar planets is with a groundbased Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope. We may also someday see radio synchrotron emission from extrasolar planets. |
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Imagining New Kinds of Planets can help us decide where and how to look for
extrasolar planets.
Extrasolar planets are not necessarily like the ones in the solar system; they may
have completely different chemistries, like
Water Planets or
Carbon Planets .
Life on a carbon planet would be through-the-looking-glass. The processes of burning and
metabolism on Earth are oxidation (combining things with oxygen); on a carbon planet,
these processes would probably be replaced by reduction (combining things with carbon).
Artist Lynette Cook created this image of a Carbon Planet.
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General Astrophysics with TPF What can the Terrestrial Planet Finder missions do besides look for extrasolar Earths? They can study Jupiters, Neptunes, and debris disks. And with an extra instrument or two, they can potentially search for high-z supernovae, map protoplanetary disks in molecular hydrogen, and image AGNs, AGBs and distant galaxies at a resolution of 1 milliarcsecond. General Astrophysics with TPF Workshop General Astrophysics and Comparative Planetology White Paper |
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Our Sun sports a handsome disk of zodiacal dust, full of structures
due to the dynamical effects of planets. Here is an explanation, with illustrations,
of how planets on low-eccentricity orbits make rings and wakes in an optically thin
circumstellar dust cloud. Zodiacal dust around other stars is called Exozodiacal Dust.
 This animation shows what a few-jupiter-mass planet on an eccentric orbit (e=0.6) can do to a dust cloud. The solar system doesn't have any such planets, but extrasolar planetary systems often do. Millimeter maps of the debris around Vega show two blobs of emission at different distances from the star which may be the same phenomenon. However, this disk and other Debris Disks may be much more complicated than the solar dust cloud. Animation of Dust Orbiting Vega Press Release on Millimeter Maps of Vega Powerpoint Talk on Resonant Signatures in Debris Disks |
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Finding faint objects such as planets and dust disks near bright,
nearby stars takes high resolution and high dynamic range. Optical
and infrared Interferometry
can provide high resolution and high dynamic range by combining the light from
two or more widely-spaced telescopes. Interferometers like the
Palomar Testbed
Interferometer are already capable of resolutions of almost 1 milliarcsecond,
enough to resolve an object the size of a nickel in New York---from a mountaintop
in California.
The Keck
Interferometer will have almost as high resolution as
PTI, and it will harness the collecting area of the two 10-meter Keck telescopes.
This new tool can probe the central 1 AU of debris disks, and
disks around Young Stellar Objects.
Powerpoint Talk on Keck Interferometer Nuller Shared Risk Science Program |
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Here is the ZODIPIC package, an IDL program
for synthesizing images of exozodiacal clouds.
It also has enough tweakable parameters to serve as a
general-purpose modeling tool for optically-thin disks. To use it, you may
download zodipic
to your idl directory. Save the file as "zodipic.2.1.tar". Then
type tar xvf zodipic.2.1.tar to unpack the files (total about 57K). The README.zodipic file describes how to run the code. The picture above was made by running zodipic twice: zodipic, fnu1, 1, 0.5, inclination=60, positionangle=-10, ring=1, blob=1, pixnum=256, /noiterate, /nofan zodipic, fnu2, 1, 0.5, inclination=60, positionangle=-10, ring=1, blob=1, pixnum=256, /noiterate, /nofan, radring=0.72, earthlong=100 NEW! Zodipic Version 2.1. Includes dust with real optical constants, user-specified dust maps, and more! See also Kuchner, M. J., & Serabyn, E. 2001, submitted to ApJ Powerpoint Talk on ZODIPIC | |
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On some cloudy nights, I like to write
Observing Manuals like this
guide to the Palomar 60" CCD Camera.
And here are some of my other Powerpoint Talks |
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I am lucky to work with some talented
Graduate Students and Postdocs: Chris Stark Graduate Student, U. Maryland Physics Dept. Now a Carnegie Fellow at the Carnegie Institute of Science, DTM Daniel Jontof-Hutter Grad. Student, U.M.D. Astronomy Justin Crepp Graduate Student, U. Florida, Astronomy Dept. Now a postdoc at Caltech. Aki Roberge NPP Postdoctoral Fellow, GSFC. Now a staff scientist at GSFC. Ruslan Belikov NPP Postdoctoral Fellow, GSFC. Now a staff scientist at NASA Ames. Hannah Jang-Condell Michelson Postdoctoral Fellow, GSFC/UMD. Now an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming. John Wisniewski NPP Postdoctoral Fellow, GSFC John Debes NPP postdoctoral fellow, GSFC. Thayne Currie NPP postdoctoral fellow, GSFC. | |
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If you are in the DC area, please stop by and give a talk at the Goddard
Exoplanets Club. We meet on Wednesdays at 11am at Goddard
in Building 34, Room E215. |
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Here are some possibly useful
Astronomy Links:
Q&A With Astronomy Magazine Princeton Astronomy Webmail Aspen Conference on Planet Formation and Detection February 6-12, 2005 JPL Docushare Princeton Seminar Series on Extrasolar Planets and Astrobiology Paw Points Database of Observational Mishaps Statistical Consulting Center for Astronomy Cosmic Dust Caltech Ge 167 CfA Star and Planet Formation Journal Club Astronomy Meetings CDS 270 Ephemerides SOFIA Exploring Neighboring Planetary Systems Harvard Extrasolar Planets Site California/Carnegie Extrasolar Planets Site Astrophysics Data System Caltech Astronomy Department Astronomical Pronunciation Guide Simbad astronomical database Skyview virtual telescope RECONS Research Consortium on Nearby Stars NStars astro-ph Preprint Server Division of Dynamical Astronomy ExNPS Exploring Neighboring Planetary Systems site at JPL Protostars and Planets IV Astrobiology Office at NASA Ames Research Center. NED NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. The Large Binocular Telescope The Submillimeter Array Atacama Large Millimeter Array Harvard College Observatory Tennis Club Did you know that Queen guitarist Brian May used to study zodiacal dust? |
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