Located across San Martin Drive from the Physics/Astronomy Department on the western edge of the Homewood campus, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts the science program of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for NASA. In addition, STScI assists with technical and scientific expertise in several other ongoing and future NASA science missions including the Hopkins Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) and the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). STScI is also closely involved with Goddard Space Flight Center in developing plans for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), which will be the successor to HST in the decades following 2010.

Besides the technical and engineering work carried out at STScI, many of the staff maintain active research programs in astronomy and astrophysics, using data both from the ground and from space instruments spanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum from meter-wave radio to gamma rays. Residing at STScI are more than 50 professional astronomers, with appointments equivalent to academic tenure-track positions. Several of the senior astronomers also have adjunct faculty appointments at JHU, which facilitates contact with students and staff in the Physics/Astronomy Department. In addition to the research staff, STScI is host to more than 25 postdoctoral fellows and 15 graduate students from all over the world. All this makes for a stimulating and vibrant research atmosphere at STScI, and it has been jokingly remarked that one could spend all day every day just keeping up with the many seminars and scientific talks organized on both sides of San Martin Drive. A "backwards" spiral galaaxy; By showing which side of this galaxy, NGC 4622, is closer to Earth, Institute astronomers have found that it appears to be spinning clockwise.

    Of special interest to JHU graduate students in Physics and Astronomy is the Graduate Student Program at STScI, which offers the opportunity for qualified students to work with the STScI research staff on some of the most exciting new results from HST. Under this program, staff members with research grants provide assistantships for graduate students to work on projects that often lead to thesis topics.

For further information on academic programs at STScI,
please contact Ron Allen,
head of the Research Programs Office
rjallen@stsci.edu
410-338-4574.