Author Archives: Franck Marchis

About Franck Marchis

Dr. Franck Marchis is a Researcher at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute since July 2007. Over the past 15 years, he has dedicated his research to the study of our solar system using mainly ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics. More recently he has been also involved in the definition of new generation of AOs for 8 -10 m class telescopes and future Extremely Large Telescopes. He has developed algorithms to process and enhance the quality of images, both astronomical and biological, using fluorescence microscopy. His currently involved in the development of the Gemini Planet Imager, an extreme AO system for the Gemini South telescope which will be capable of imaging and record spectra of exoplanets orbiting around nearby stars.
March 27, 2013

Mercury Craters named after world renowned artists, musicians and authors

Adapted from MESSENGER Mission News (March 26, 2013) The International Astronomical Union (IAU) — the arbiter of planetary and satellite nomenclature since its inception in 1919 — recently approved a proposal from the MESSENGER Science Team to assign names to nine impact ...

March 19, 2013

Progress on the GPI exoplanet imager integration

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a next generation adaptive optics instrument being built for the Gemini Observatory. This is an ambitious project with the goal of directly imaging extrasolar planets orbiting nearby stars. The instrument is currently being integrated at ...

March 5, 2013

Featuring the Women Of Science #WomenOfScience

Today I would like to share with you an idea for the International Women's day on March 8 2013.  If you work in an institution, university, or non-profit related to science, have you taken note of the number of women ...

February 15, 2013

The Russian Meteor and Lessons Learned on Meteor Impacts

Almost 12h after the event, it is time to gather my notes on the Russian meteor event (#RussianMeteor) and my thoughts on this impact and those which may come soon. What do we know? (I collected these pieces of information from numerous ...

February 14, 2013

Act now! Save Your Science from Sequestration

An important message  We are asking YOU, the US-based SETI Institute Fans,  our followers on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to help us save science from sequestration. Send a FAX or write a letter and even send a tweet to your members of ...

January 29, 2013

Kepler Planet-Hunter is Healthy and Back!

I mentioned in my previous post the detection of an issue on the Kepler spacecraft which pushed the engineering team to put the space telescope in safe mode for 10 days. The Kepler team announced today that science operation was reinitiated ...

January 17, 2013

Kepler is Sick and Resting: “Mountain View, we have a problem”

"Mountain View, we have a problem..." NASA Kepler Manager at NASA Ames, Mountain View announced today that they interrupted the science operation of the spacecraft, due an issue with one of the reaction wheels.  Kepler is equipped with four reaction wheels ...

January 13, 2013

An update on the Siding Spring Observatory

A short followup of my post sent last night with a good news through an official announcement by the Australian National University  posted today. In a nutshell, no telescopes have suffered major damages from the bush fire, but the astronomer's lodge, the ...

January 13, 2013

Siding Spring Observatory is being threatened by a bush fire.

This is definitely not the kind of news that astronomers like reading about... The Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, is currently threatened by a large uncontroled bush fire. Siding Spring Observatory part of  Australian National University (ANU)  is home of several ...

January 10, 2013

Live-Tweets of Jim Green Presentation at OPAG

A few days ago, I received in my email the following message from the Division for Planetary Sciences. Community Urged To Hear NASA's Jim Green Presentation On 10 January There has been much discussion of NASA's Planetary Science Division (PSD) budget in ...