A7 Office of the President TO MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC AND STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: DISCUSSION ITEM For meeting of September 13, 2017 UC’S LAND-BASED ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORIES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The UC Observatories (UCO) is a Multi-campus Research Unit that represents a compelling example of collective excellence. Providing stewardship for Lick and Keck Observatories, with planning underway for the Thirty Meter Telescope, the UCO leverages a central, systemwide investment of funds in core astronomical facilities to enable scientists from across the UC system to collaborate on trailblazing scientific projects. UCO’s capabilities for designing and deploying cutting-edge instruments help UC attract top-notch faculty, postdoctoral scholars, students, and research scientists from around the world. UC faculty members involved with UCO have won many national and international accolades, attesting to the high quality of their scholarly outputs. Three examples of seminal research supported by their access to instrumentation, facilities, and viewing nights attributable in one way or another to UCO – discovery of extrasolar planets, confirmation that the Milky Way galaxy has a black hole at its center, and characterization of galaxies in the early universe – illustrate the scholarly impact of this system-wide investment. UC scientists will be able to continue their groundbreaking astronomical studies through a memorandum of understanding that is being finalized with UC’s partner, Caltech, for maintaining and operating the Keck Observatory. BACKGROUND The University of California’s faculty, students, and research staff have had access to state-of- the-art, ground-based observatories beginning only twenty years after the founding of the University of California itself. They currently make regular use of two major ground-based astronomical observatories (Lick and Keck Observatories, shown in Figure 1), with planned access to the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in the late-2020s. Pooling resources for ground- based observatories across the eight UC campuses that conduct astronomy research has proven to be extraordinarily fruitful. Rather than having each campus build a small telescope on the roof of its own Physics Building, UC systemwide collaboration in astronomy, via UC Observatories (UCO), Lick, and Keck, has allowed access for UC students and researchers to a whole new class of leading facilities. These facilities enable UC to attract and retain outstanding faculty and are simply not available to those at other major universities. Lick Observatory is owned and operated by UC; Keck and TMT are standalone non-profits of which UC is an integral part of the governance and contributes operating funding. UC’s size and stature enable this investment. ACADEMIC AND STUDENT -2- A7 AFFAIRS COMMITTEE September 13, 2017 UCO manages the competition for UC telescope time, builds forefront instruments for these facilities, and catalyzes cross-campus collaborations. UCO’s reputation nationally and internationally is such that competition to become a UC astronomy faculty member is fierce. Moreover, outstanding graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are attracted to UC’s astronomy programs because they know that they will have access to telescopes to carry out world-class research. UC faculty commonly leverage telescope time on Lick and Keck to win time on other large ground and space telescopes, e.g., the Hubble Space Telescope, extending the scope and amplifying the impact of their research programs. Access to UCO and UC-supported facilities also translates into a competitive advantage for extramural funding, bringing millions of dollars in grants each year to the UC astronomical community. The synergy between UCO and the excellence of UC astronomy is reflected not only in publications and citations, but also in the accolades that have been bestowed on current and emeriti astronomy faculty: two Nobel Prizes (Perlmutter, Smoot), 24 National Academy of Sciences members, one National Medal of Science (Faber), one MacArthur Genius Prize (Ghez), four Shaw Prize winners (Jewitt, Marcy, Perlmutter, Shu), three Gruber Prize winners (Davis, Faber, Perlmutter), one Kavli Prize winner (Jewitt), and one Franklin Institute Bower Award (Faber). UCO thus represents a superb example of collective excellence, of “making the whole more than the sum of its parts.” Lick Observatory Keck Observatory Thirty Meter Telescope Figure 1. The three ground-based astronomical observatories available to UC faculty, students, and researchers. Lick Observatory (left) is in the hills east of San Jose CA. Keck Observatory (center) is on Mauna Kea, HI. The Thirty Meter Telescope (right), scheduled for first light in the late 2020’s, will be either in Hawaii or in the Canary Islands. UCO is an example of what UC calls a Multi-Campus Research Unit (MRU). An important part of UCO’s mission is to build advanced instruments that are the key to continuing high-profile scientific discoveries at these telescopes. UCO encourages ambitious scientific collaborations across multiple campuses. The most recent of these is the MOSFIRE Deep Evolution Field (MOSDEF) galaxy survey, which has characterized the star-formation and black hole activity in very young and very distant galaxies, as well as determined their masses, structures, and evolution. MOSDEF involved faculty and students from four UC campuses and studied the Universe when it was only 1.5 to 4.5 billion years old. It is now 13.8 billion years old! Each of UC’s three observatories hosts a significant outreach program. Lick Observatory runs an extensive summer program with concerts, telescope viewing, and astronomy lectures for the general public, as well as an annual workshop for high school science teachers, who reach many pre-college students. Lick will have its first La Noche de las Estrellas event in late September, in which all the usual components of the Summer Programs will be delivered in the Spanish ACADEMIC AND STUDENT -3- A7 AFFAIRS COMMITTEE September 13, 2017 language. Keck and TMT sponsor vigorous Workforce Development Programs that grew out of a pilot project at UC Santa Cruz. History Lick Observatory was founded in 1888, only 20 years after the founding of the University of California. With a large gift to UC from James Lick, a wealthy San Francisco entrepreneur, the 36” refractor telescope was built atop Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, and was the heart of the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory. UC and Lick Observatory grew up together. Initially the Observatory was reachable only via horse and buggy over a custom-built road to the mountaintop. Astronomers and their students lived on the mountain since a plausible commute was impossible (Figure 2). Between 1966 and 1968, the astronomers at Lick Observatory moved to the UC Santa Cruz campus, leaving only the telescope operations staff at Mount Hamilton. At UC Santa Cruz, Lick Observatory retained its role as a research organization while also forming the nucleus of a new Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. The Department has steadily grown in strength. Starting in fiscal year 14-15, the former UCO faculty members have been fully integrated into the UC Santa Cruz Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. When the Keck Observatory opened for business in Hawaii in the early 1990s, the role of UC as Figure 2. 1906 photo of carriage road just steward of Lick Observatory expanded to include below Lick Observatory, on the peak of Mt. Hamilton, CA. the two new Keck Telescopes. At that time, UC’s ground-based astronomy became part of a new organization called the UCO. Today, the total annual budget for UCO and Lick combined is nearly $12 million, including over $7 million from UC, and about $5 million from external contracts and grants, and from sources such as UC Santa Cruz for facilities maintenance, endowments and gifts, and sales and services. The mission of UCO is to bring forefront ground- based astronomy facilities and instruments to UC astronomers systemwide, and to design and build instruments for Lick, Keck, and TMT, using specialized facilities based primarily at UC Santa Cruz and UCLA. The facilities operated and supported by UCO are used annually by approximately 500 UC faculty, postdoctoral scholars, student researchers, and research staff. As a MRU, UCO functions under the auspices of the UC Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies. Today, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, with its twin ten-meter telescopes, is the leading facility available to UC astronomers. Keck is operated by a free-standing, non-profit corporation, the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CARA). The two founding partners of this ACADEMIC AND STUDENT -4- A7 AFFAIRS COMMITTEE September 13, 2017 corporation are UC and Caltech, which jointly govern the Observatory through the CARA Board, of which UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Blumenthal is the chair. The other UC members of the CARA Board are UC Provost Dorr, and UC Observatories Director Claire Max. Under the current operating agreement for the Keck Observatory, UC is responsible for all of the annual operating costs – UC now contributes more than $14 million annually to the Keck budget, as costs have increased annually through a cost of living escalator – until the total operations costs paid by UC grow to equal the total capital expenses borne by Caltech. To cover operations after that time (April 1, 2018), a new Operating Agreement is being negotiated between UC and Caltech; the two will be equal partners in contributing to Keck’s budget. The Regents will consider the proposed new Operating Agreement at an upcoming meeting. Figure 3. Scientific impact measured per telescope for each of the world’s large telescopes (impact metric includes, e.g, journal article citations). The two Keck Telescopes have the largest impact. The scientific impact of the two Keck Telescopes is unsurpassed in the world. Figure 3 shows a graph of the total impact per telescope, for all of the world’s large observatories (indicated by their acronyms along the horizontal axis).