Project Grant 80NSSC25K7898

This Project Grant award of $118,673 from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) supports a collaborative research project focused on "Polarimetric Asteroseismology of Massive Hot Stars." A team of astronomers from the Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy, Florida Gulf Coast University, SETI Institute, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and University of Wisconsin-Madison, along with international partners, will...

This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $950,000 will fund the acquisition of instrumentation for a node in the Global SONG Observing Network for ultra-high-precision seismology of bright stars located in Sunspot, New Mexico. The node, to be operated by New Mexico State University, will consist of a robotic telescope and ultra-precise spectrograph to conduct asteroseismology of stars through near-continuous observations of oscillating stars as part of the international Stellar...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences provides $587,441 to the University of Delaware over 3 years, from August 2023 to July 2026. The purpose is to adapt time-domain data analysis tools previously used in other scientific fields for application in astronomy, specifically for searches of Earth-like exoplanets around distant stars. The key deliverables include: Developing new variance-suppressing power spectrum estimators, like the...

The National Science Foundation (NSF), through its Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), awarded a $335,047 Project Grant to the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to conduct a study on photospheric bright points as drivers of solar coronal heating. The 3-year project, starting on Sep 1, 2023, will utilize observations from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope to identify, track, and measure the properties of photospheric bright points - small, short-lived features on the...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences program, with a total funding amount of $441,642, supports research to deepen the understanding of the final stages of stellar evolution, specifically focusing on red giants and their mass-shedding processes. The key objectives of this 2-year research project, which runs from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2026, are to: Employ very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations,...

This three-year National Science Foundation project grant of $189,753 awarded on September 1, 2022 supports research into the evolution of magnetic complexity in older sun-like stars under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). Principal investigators Metcalfe and Van Saders will obtain polarized spectra of 12 stars using the Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument at the Large Binocular Telescope and the Las Cumbres Observatory's Network of Robotic...

This $525,731 National Science Foundation project grant will support the creation of precision models for a reference set of Mira variable stars. The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology will analyze archival data spanning several years from multiple space missions, along with recent observations, to provide fundamental parameters for each star. These parameters include variability periods, bolometric fluxes, radii, masses, luminosities, effective temperatures and distances. The work...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences, under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), will fund a $697,725 project over 3 years to detect and characterize new low-mass planets orbiting distant stars. The award will support a team at San Francisco State University, which will use the EXPRES high-precision radial velocity spectrograph to find small, long-period planets in systems similar to our own solar system....

This federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program provides $346,927 to Florida State University (FSU) to enable Cepheids and RR Lyrae variable stars to serve as precision indicators of distance and metallicity for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time at the Vera Rubin Observatory (Rubin/LSST). The key objectives of this 3-year project are to: 1) Calibrate photometric metallicity relations to derive iron abundance...

The National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical Sciences awarded a $462,848 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (47.049) program to The SETI Institute. The grant will fund a comprehensive analysis of period changes in eclipsing binary stars from 2022-2025. Researchers will measure decades-long period changes in hundreds of eclipsing binaries to constrain the internal structure of individual stars and probe for additional bodies like planets or stars. They will use...