Great news from the Hubble Space Telescope: Our observing proposal “Andromeda and the Seven Dwarfs: M31 Mass, Satellite Orbits, and the Nature of the Satellite Plane”, was awarded observing time. The proposal is lead by Tony Sohn and is part of the HSTPROMO collaboration. For a whopping 48 orbits, the Space Telescope will observe our targets (green stars in my figure on the right). These measurements will reveal the proper motions (i.e. motions on the sky) of seven M31 satellite galaxies. This will be the first time that we will be able to study the full 3D motions (and thus 6D phase-space coordinates) of a sample of satellite galaxies outside of our Milky Way. And it will be a first step in determining how dynamically stable (or rotationally supported) the plane of satellite galaxies around Andromeda is.

Some great news today: I am happy to announce that I have been selected as one of the 11 fellows of the Klaus Tschira Boost Fund 2020. It is an honor to be included in such a group of amazing scientists (read about the other new fellows here), and I am grateful to be given this opportunity by German Scholars Organization and of course the Klaus Tschira Stiftung (check out their press release, German only).

The funding will support my research into phase-space correlations of satellite galaxies and the nature of Dark Matter. Among other things, I am especially excited that it will also allow me to organize a small, interdisciplinary hackathon-style workshop in late 2021 or early 2022. Stay tuned for further details.

Update: The AIP has also issued a press release about this, in German and English.