Don Savage

Headquarters, Washington, DC May 7, 1996

(Phone: 202/358-1727)

Mary Beth Murrill

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone: 818/354-5011)

RELEASE: 96-86

NASA TO JOIN IN USE OF KECK TELESCOPES

NASA researchers are preparing to use the giant twin

telescopes of the W.M. Keck Observatory together as a single,
high-powered instrument in coming years to search for planets
and planetary systems around nearby stars.

The recently completed Keck II Telescope, the second of

the ten-meter (33-foot) diameter telescopes atop Hawaii's
Mauna Kea, will be formally dedicated in ceremonies at the
observatory on Wednesday, May 8.

Using the Keck telescopes in interferometric studies,

wherein the two telescopes will make concurrent observations
of the same object in space, will provide a dramatic increase
in light-gathering and resolution over a single telescope.
These studies will lay much of the groundwork for NASA's
Origins Program, one goal of which is to seek planets around
nearby stars.

"We're excited about the capability to combine the

world's two largest telescopes into one very large 'light
bucket,'" said Dr. Wesley Huntress, NASA's Associate
Administrator for Space Science. "It will enable us to test
this technique on the ground, and learn how to operate such
systems, before we build a large interferometer in space to
search for Earth-like planets."

"We now know that there are Jupiter-like planets around

some other stars," said Dr. Edward C. Stone, Vice President
of the California Institute of Technology, Director of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, and Chairman of the
Board of the California Association for Research in Astronomy
(CARA). CARA, a partnership of the Caltech and the
University of California, constructed and manages the
observatory.

- more -

-2-

"One of the objectives of the Keck telescopes is to

detect even more planets around nearby stars. We'll be
looking primarily for Jupiter-like planets because Jupiters
are so much easier to detect than much smaller Earth-like
planets. But if there's a Jupiter-like planet around a given
star, that would be a prime place to look with more sensitive
space-based instruments for Earth-like planets."

The Keck II Telescope, like its twin Keck I, uses a

mirror composed of 36 hexagonal pieces of glass, individually
polished and assembled to form a huge, perfectly parabolic
reflecting surface. This segmented mirror is much thinner,
and therefore lighter in weight, than a solid mirror could
be, which is the key to building such a large instrument.

Keck II also will have an adaptive optics facility, a

method of compensating for the slight distortions caused by
atmospheric turbulence. People see distorted starlight as
twinkling, but for a telescope making a long exposure, the
star looks slightly blurry. The adaptive optics system will
be able to detect these tiny distortions and make one hundred
tiny adjustments per second to the mirror to compensate for
them and maintain the sharpest possible image.

In addition to doubling the amount of observing time

available at the Keck Observatory, Keck II will allow a wider
array of observing instruments to be used. Scientists have
designed and built three specialized spectrographs --
instruments for recording an object's spectrum -- for use on
Keck II that will make possible an observational program with
great flexibility and range.

The W. M. Keck Foundation provided more than $150

million toward funding the telescopes. NASA has committed to
provide $7 million a year for a total of $44 million for
construction and $2 million a year for operating costs as
part of a cooperative effort to develop and use infrared and
optical interferometry. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, CA, manages the agency's participation in the W.M.
Keck Observatory for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington, DC.

- end -

NASA press releases and other information are available

automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message
to domo@hq.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the
subject line) users should type the words "subscribe press-
release" (no quotes). The system will reply with a
confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. A second
automatic message will include additional information on the
service. NASA releases also are available via CompuServe
using the command GO NASA.