March 13, 2007
(PLANETQUEST) -- Pioneering instruments that illustrate key techniques in the search for planets orbiting other stars are on public display this spring at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The exhibit includes the original Michelson stellar interferometer, on loan from the Mount Wilson Institute and the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution in Washington.
The instrument was developed and used in the 1920s by Albert Michelson to measure stellar diameters for the first time. Michelson's interferometer is a precursor to NASA's SIM PlanetQuest, a future space observatory that will use similar techniques to search for Earthlike planets.
Also on display is the Johns Hopkins Adaptive Optics Coronagraph, which is part of museum's permanent collection. In the 1990s, Dr. Ben R. Oppenheimer, assistant curator for astrophysics, and his colleagues used the Hopkins coronagraph to discover the first brown dwarf. Coronagraphs block out starlight to allow the observation of dim companions, such as planets. Coronography is considered a key technology in the study of extrasolar planets.
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The exhibit is on display at New York's American Museum of Natural History |
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The exhibit was made possible through a grant from the Michelson Science Center at Caltech and is part of the education and public outreach efforts of NASA's Navigator Program, which is focused on the search for Earthlike planets around neighboring stars.
"This exhibit provides a glimpse into the history behind the ongoing quest for Earthlike planets beyond our solar system," said Michael Greene, manager of the Navigator Public Engagement Program.
"The American Museum of Natural History is one of the world's premier science institutions, and we're very please to be affiliated with their presentations."
The American Museum of Natural History is located at Central Park West at 79th Street in New York City. For admissions information, visit the museum website at http://www.amnh.org.
