This week on HST

HST Programs: March 15, 2010 - March 21, 2010

Selected highlights

GO 11696: Infrared Survey of Star Formation Across Cosmic Time

A region of massive star formation

Star formation is the key astrophysical process in determining the overall evolution of galactic systems, the generation of heavy elements, and the overall enrichment of interstellar and intergalactic material. Tracing the overall evolution through a wide redshift range is crucial to understanding how gas and stars evolved to form the galaxies that we see around us now. The present program builds on the ability of HST to carry out parallel observations, using more than one instrument. While the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is focused on obtaining ultraviolet spectra of unparalleled signal-to-noise, this program uses the near-infrared grisms mounted on the Wide-Field Camera 3 infrared channel to obtain low resolution spectra between 1 and 1.6 microns of randomly-selected nearby fields. The goal is to search for emission lines characteristic of star-forming regions. In particular, these observations are capable of detecting Lyman-alpha emission generated by star formation at redshfits z > 5.6. A total of up to 40 "deep" (4-5 orbit) and 20 "shallow" (2-3 orbit) fields will be targeted in the course of this observing campaign.

GO 11730: Continued Proper Motions of the Magellanic Clouds: Orbits, Internal Kinematics, and Distance

The Large Magellanic Cloud (upper left) with the Small Magellanic Cloud (right) and the (foreground) Galactic globular cluster47 Tucanae

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are the most massive satellites of the Milky Way galaxy. The orbital motions of these systems can be used to probe the mass distribution of Milky Way, and backtracking the orbits can shed light on how the three systems have interacted, In particular, the well known Magellanic Stream, stretching between the two Clouds, is thought to be a product either of interactions between the Clouds, or of ram-stripping of gas from the LMC on its last passage through the Plane of the Milky Way. The present program builds on observations obtained at three previous epochs with the now-defunct ACS High Resolution Camera (ACS/HRC) and, in Cycle 16, with the Planetary camera on WFPC2. The previous programs targeted known QSOs lying behind the Clouds; the QSOs serve as fixed reference points for absolute astrometry of the numerous foreground LMC/SMC stars. First epoch observations were made in late 2002 (GO 9462), with the follow-up imaging in late 2004 (GO 10130) and 2007/2008 (GO 11201). The tangential motions of the Clouds amount to only a few milliarcseconds, but the high spatial resolution and high stability of HST imaging makes such measurements possible, even with only a 2-year baseline. Surprisingly, the initial results suggest that the 3-D motions of both clouds are much higher than expected, suggesting either that the LMC/SMC/MW is either dynamically very young, or unbound. The present program will use WFC3 to obtain fourth-epoch data in the same fields, providing a further crucial test of the initial results

GO 11732: The Temperature Profiles of Quasar Accretion Disks

The first Einstein cross, the gravitational lensed QSO, G2237+0305

Gravitational lensing is a consequence the theory of general relativity. Its importance as an astrophysical tool first became apparent with the realisation (in 1979) that the quasar pair Q0957+561 actually comprised two lensed images of the same background quasar. In the succeeding years, lensing has been used to probe the mass distributions on a variety of scales: of galaxies (primarily via multiply-imaged quasars); of galaxy clusters (arcs and arclets); and at the largest scales (weak lensing). However, lensing can also provide insight on the small-scale properties of the object being lensed. In a lensed QSO, the light from the QSO follows different paths to produce the separate images; each of those paths has a different length; consequently, flux variations in the source show up at different times in the separate images. The present program aims to take advantage of this property to probe the structure of the accretion disks surrounding the central black hole in a number of lensed QSOs. The program will combine ultraviolet observations with the WFC3/UVIS camera on HST with GALEX UV data for 5 lenses spanning as broad range of black hole masses. Studying the variation as a function of wavelength should probe the accretion disk structure, since light from the inner regions are expected to dominate at shorter wavelengths, while the outer regions dominate at longer wavelengths.

GO 11741: Probing Warm-Hot Intergalactic Gas at 0.5 < z < 1.3 with a Blind Survey for O VI, Ne VIII, Mg X, and Si XII Absorption Systems

Probing the intergalactic medium via QSO absorption lines

One of the key issues facing modern cosmology is the "missing baryon" problem. In brief, a census of all the constituents in the local universe accounts for less than half of the baryonic mass expected based on measurements of the fractional abundanmce of deuterium and observations of the cosmic microwave background. It is generally believed that the missing material lurks in the form of extremely hot gas in the intergalactic medium. The most effective means of probing that medium, and testing this hypothesis, is to search for the appropriate absorption lines in the spectrum of a background source. QSOs are particularly effective cosmic searchlights, since they have strong continuum flux levels at the ultraviolet wavelengths where most of the important absorption lines fall. Following SM4, and the installation of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, HST is now well equipped to tackle this type of program, and search fgor a full accounting of the baryonic universe. The present program weill use COS to obtain spectra of nine QSOs at redshifts beyond z=0.89, and will search for warm-hot intergalactic gas in the redshift range 0.5 < z < 1.3.