Wise-allsky

IPAC at DPS 2021

The AAS Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) 53rd annual meeting is being held virtually Oct. 3-8, 2021, and IPAC and NExScI staff and scientists will be there! This page describes how and where to find us.

 
This page contains the schedule and links to IPAC projects and science data archives, links to talks and posters from IPAC scientists, and other virtual resources for registered conference attendees. 
 

How to Find Us At DPS 53

Stop by the Caltech/IPAC-Caltech/NExScI booth in the Exhibit Hall to meet our scientists and staff in any of the following ways:

We'll be available to answer your questions about our archives and missions:

Skip to a section:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

 

Event Schedule

 

Registered meeting participants can access the following events from the Join Sessions tab in the meeting's vFairs website

 

Monday, October 4

Active Asteroids & Weakly Active Comets: Sodium volatilization as a potential driver of activity on asteroid (3200) Phaethon

Joe Masiero (Caltech/IPAC)

3:30 pm EDT/12:30-1 pm PDT

110.01 (Live Q&A Session)

Poster

JOIN SLACK

Small bodies of the solar system that contain subsurface volatiles will become active when those volatiles have heated sufficiently to sublimate. Most cometary objects show activity behaviors consistent with the volatilization of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, or water ices. Other active objects can be traced to impacts or spin up. There are, however, unusual cases of objects showing activity that cannot be explained by these processes. The active asteroid (3200) Phaethon is one such object, showing brief periods of activity near perihelion and being associated with the Geminid meteor shower dust stream. We present recent results from investigations of the volatility of sodium at temperatures similar to what Phaethon experiences during its perihelion. We describe our numerical simulations that show the potential for sodium just below Phaethon's surface to be heated sufficiently to volatilize. We also discuss laboratory experiments heating meteoritic materials to these temperatures to constrain the sodium loss that would be experienced from analogous materials during a diurnal cycle on Phaethon.

 

10m Telescope Time for YOUR Planetary Science Program? Yes! (and Other Helpful NExScI Services)

Dawn Gelino (Caltech/IPAC-NExScI)

4-4:30 pm EDT/1-1:30 pm PDT

Zoom webinar (Access from the Join Sessions tab in the meeting's vFairs website.) 

JOIN SLACK

The NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) supports the broad planetary science and astrophysics communities. Listen in to learn how NExScI can support YOUR research!

Do you need observational data?

Learn how to apply for 10-meter Keck telescope time and use the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA) to access all data acquired with these two telescopes since they began operations over 26 years ago. Also, find out about access to southern hemisphere telescopes for exoplanet follow-up observations.

Are you looking for a postdoc?

Learn how to apply to the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program, the premier NASA astrophysics postdoctoral fellowship.

Do you need to learn about or better understand precision radial velocities?

Join in to learn about interacting with the experts and getting hands-on data experience at this year's virtual Sagan Summer Workshop.

Are you interested in exoplanet data and tools?

Come learn about the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which gives you access to just about any type of exoplanet data you’d like, and contribute follow-up exoplanet observations to the Exoplanet Follow-up Observing Program (ExoFOP).

Have more questions?

Just ask or get in touch with our Help Desks!

 


Tuesday, October 5

How to Use Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) Tools for Planetary Science

Luisa Rebull (Caltech/IPAC-IRSA)

2-2:30 pm EDT/11-11:30 am PDT

Zoom webinar (Access from the Join Sessions tab in the meeting's vFairs website.) 

JOIN SLACK

IRSA has the data and tools to help you make your next scientific discovery! Come and learn how to use IRSA's tools and to see all our latest tools and features.

 
 
Scaling K2: 13 Newly Validated Planets from NASA's K2 Mission

Jessie Christiansen (Caltech/IPAC-NExScI)

3 pm EDT/noon PDT

209.01

JOIN SLACK

Our team has recently compiled the first uniform, demographics-ready catalog of planet candidates from K2, spanning campaigns 1-8 and 10-18. This catalog includes several hundred previously published candidates and several hundred newly discovered candidates. Here we present 13 newly validated planets from the catalog, with sufficient follow-up observations to statistically establish their planetary nature. The new planets include a multi-planet system of sub-Neptunes, a planet on the edge of the hot Neptune desert, and a number of super-Earth planets amenable to mass measurements with radial velocity.

 
 
Sodium volatilization as a potential driver of activity on asteroid (3200) Phaethon

Joe Masiero (Caltech/IPAC)

3:30 pm EDT/12:30 pm PDT

210.15

Poster

JOIN SLACK

Small bodies of the solar system that contain subsurface volatiles will become active when those volatiles have heated sufficiently to sublimate. Most cometary objects show activity behaviors consistent with the volatilization of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, or water ices. Other active objects can be traced to impacts or spin up. There are, however, unusual cases of objects showing activity that cannot be explained by these processes. The active asteroid (3200) Phaethon is one such object, showing brief periods of activity near perihelion and being associated with the Geminid meteor shower dust stream. We present recent results from investigations of the volatility of sodium at temperatures similar to what Phaethon experiences during its perihelion. We describe our numerical simulations that show the potential for sodium just below Phaethon's surface to be heated sufficiently to volatilize. We also discuss laboratory experiments heating meteoritic materials to these temperatures to constrain the sodium loss that would be experienced from analogous materials during a diurnal cycle on Phaethon.

 


Wednesday, October 6

Science Chat: Planetary Science Techniques: Polarimetry

Moderators: Joe Masiero, Sean Marshall & Maxime Devogele

Noon-12:25 pm EDT/9-9:25 am PDT

JOIN SLACK

Following the success of last year's Science Chats, we have expanded the number of opportunities for informal conversations as well as the range of topics that will be covered. In addition to topics aligned with the contributed research presentations, we will also be having discussion periods focusing on techniques common in planetary science, bringing together frequent practitioners with people interested in learning more, as well as sessions devoted to open-ended questions in our field. 

 
 
Image Simulation for the NEO Surveyor

J. Surace (Caltech/IPAC) & X. Liu (Caltech/IPAC)

1:30 pm EDT/10:30 am PDT

306.05

JOIN SLACK

We describe the science image simulator for the Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission. The purpose of the simulator is to produce realistic raw image data, with properties similar enough to real instrument data as to exercise all components of the survey data processing system, and sufficient to characterize the likely performance of the processing algorithms relative to the mission requirements. The simulator is intended to support testing of data processing algorithms and system throughput. It is not intended for forward modeling and comparison to real data, or any similar procedure.

The simulator begins with the planned spacecraft pointing centers, expanding these to every planned detector image. The simulator then creates for each image a noiseless calibrated representation of the sky called the "astrophysical scene". A 2-dimensional map of the zodiacal background, cosmic infrared background, and interstellar medium are added. Actual astrophysical sources derived from the ALLWISE Source Catalog (corrected for GAIA proper motion), in addition to much fainter artificial sources derived from deep Spitzer surveys, are injected as point sources. These point sources are modeled using a spatially variant PSF derived from instrument optical modeling, and include the effects of focal plane distortion. Extended sources such as large galaxies are added as either simple gaussian models or as 2-D images derived from WISE. Moving objects such as planets, comets, and asteroids (the latter derived from the NEOS Reference Small Body Population Model) are injected at the correct positions for the time of the simulated observation.

The finished astrophysical scene is then passed to a simulation of the detector readout. The model includes the gain, read noise, flatfield, dark current, cosmic rays, non-linearity, saturation and image persistence. The actual readout pattern of destructive and non-destructive reads is simulated. Upon completion, the finished image is packaged along with simulated header data to mimic the spacecraft raw data product.

The simulator is massively parallel, allowing simulated datasets as large as a full month of spacecraft operations to be computed quickly. The simulator is deployed both at IPAC and on the Amazon AWS cloud. It's modular design makes updating the detector, instrument and survey strategy easy as new test data become available. This feature makes the simulator a key part of the NEO Surveyor systems engineering toolkit to validate overall system performance, and to support trade studies when used in concert with the NEO Surveyor Survey Simulator and Survey Data System.

 


Thursday, October 7

Science Chat: Are there size limits for an ocean world?

Moderators: Jessie Christiansen, Kate Craft & Yashvardhan Tomar

Noon EDT/9 am PDT

JOIN SLACK

Following the success of last year's Science Chats, we have expanded the number of opportunities for informal conversations as well as the range of topics that will be covered. In addition to topics aligned with the contributed research presentations, we will also be having discussion periods focusing on techniques common in planetary science, bringing together frequent practitioners with people interested in learning more, as well as sessions devoted to open ended questions in our field. 

 


Friday, October 8

Science Chat: Null result support group

Moderators: Will Oldroyd, Joe Masiero & Victor Oyiboka

4 pm EDT/1 pm PDT

JOIN SLACK

Following the success of last year's Science Chats, we have expanded the number of opportunities for informal conversations as well as the range of topics that will be covered. In addition to topics aligned with the contributed research presentations, we will also be having discussion periods focusing on techniques common in planetary science, bringing together frequent practitioners with people interested in learning more, as well as sessions devoted to open ended questions in our field.