SLAC Today is available online at:
http://today.slac.stanford.edu
In this issue:
Major Gifts Bring LSST Closer to Reality
From the Director: All Hands Meeting
Word of the Week: Bunch Compressor
Communications Office Launches New Website

SLAC Today

Friday - January 4, 2008

KIPAC leads the R&D effort for the LSST camera, pictured here in cutaway view. (Image courtesy of LSST Corporation.)

Major Gifts Bring LSST Closer to Reality

The proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) that will scan deep space to understand dark matter and dark energy has just been gifted with $30 million.

The Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, created by former Microsoft executive and space tourist Simonyi, donated $20 million to the LSST. His once-colleague, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, joined in with $10 million. The money will enable the construction of three specialized large mirrors, which take more than five years to manufacture, and other key components for what will be the world's most powerful survey telescope.

"These exciting gifts come at a good time for the LSST and are vital for the LSST's ability to help us understand the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy,” said Steven Kahn, director of Particle Physics and Astrophysics at SLAC.  Read more...

From the Director:
All Hands Meeting

(Photo - Persis Drell)Welcome back and happy New Year; I trust you all had a restful and enjoyable holiday. As you know, before the shutdown we received disappointing news of the FY08 budget. Over the past several weeks, I have been working with laboratory management to determine how to best move forward given these challenging figures.

Please join me in Panofsky Auditorium for an All Hands meeting at 10 a.m. on Monday, January 7, where I will discuss how the lab will respond to the budget. As there will only be one All Hands session and the Auditorium will likely fill quickly, a live broadcast of the talk will also be shown in the Auditorium Breezeway, the Kavli Auditorium, the Orange Room, the Cypress Room and the Redwood Rooms. (A meeting room map is available online.)

A link to video of the event will be posted to SLAC Today shortly after the All Hands concludes.

Word of the Week:
Bunch Compressor

The two LCLS bunch compressors each comprise a set of four precision dipole magnets designed to shorten the length of the electron bunches in the linac. Creating very short electron pulses will enable the LCLS to generate the high intensity, ultra-fast x-ray laser pulses used to probe matter on atomic scales of length and time.

Communications Office Launches New Website

(Screenshot of Communications Website)
The new Communications Office website, designed by SLAC InfoMedia Solutions.

The beating virtual heart of SLAC's Office of Communications has a new homepage, where employees, users and visitors from around the world can explore the work that goes on beneath the pink flamingos of Buildings 266 and 267.

The site, developed by SLAC InfoMedia Solutions and the Office of Communications, provides information on the latest news about SLAC and offers access to the Office's diverse offerings: Community Outreach, Education, Press and Media and Staff Resources.  Read more...

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