Full Explanatory Supplement 28 January 2013

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Full Explanatory Supplement 28 January 2013 Full Explanatory Supplement 28 January 2013 PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:38:09 CET Main Page 1 Main Page Very important information for new users: READ ME FIRST. Very important information for all users: News. If you are reading the printed version of this ES wiki, the online version can be found at the URL: [1] http:/ / www. sciops. esa. int/ wikiSI/ planckpla/ index. php?title=Main_Page& instance=Planck_PLA_ES . For help with editing the Explanatory Supplement consult the User's Guide [2] for a detailed User Guide of the MediaWiki software or the Explanatory Supplement Help page for the guidelines on editing the ES. A set of books (a collection of pages that can easily be printed together as a pdf file) can be found here. We also have a page explaining how to create your own book. PDF Book: A book with the full contents can be found here and a pdf version updated weekly can be found here:. Explanatory supplement By Planck Collaboration The Explanatory Supplement is a reference text to the public data delivered from the operations of the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite during its mission. 1. The Planck mission (Dupac) 2. The satellite 1. The service module 1. Thermal design: Passive cooling | Active cooling | Qualification and performance (Mendes) 2. HFI design, qualification, and performance (Lamarre/Pajot) 3. LFI design, qualification, and performance(Gregorio) 4. The telescope 5. Others 1. The standard radiation environment monitor (Mendes) 2. The fiber optic gyro unit 3. Ground Segment and Operations 1. Ground segment overview (Dupac) 2. Contingencies 3. Operational history 4. Survey scanning and performance (Dupac) 5. Thermal environment 6. Radiation environment (Mendes) 7. Pointing performance (Dupac) 4. Data processing 1. Data flow overview 2. On-board processing 3. MOC processing 4. HFI Data Processing (Bouchet) 1. Pre-processing (Vibert) 2. TOI processing (Desert) Main Page 2 3. Detectors pointing & beam (Crill/Jones/Jaffe) 4. Map-making (Perdereau) 5. Spectral response (Spencer) 6. Internal overall validation (Ganga) 7. Power spectra (Hivon) 8. Summary of HFI data characteristics & the RIMO content (Bouchet) 5. LFI data processing: Introduction (Zacchei) 1. Pre-processing (Frailis) 1. Overview 2. The LFI scientific telemetry 3. From packets to raw TOIs 4. On-board time reconstruction 2. TOI processing (Mennella) 1. To be completed 2. ADC Correction (Galeotta/Watson) 3. Spikes Removal (Tavagnacco) 4. Gaps Filling (Galeotta/Polenta) 5. Gain Modulation Factor 6. Diode Combination 7. Planet Flagging 8. Photometric calibration (Galeotta) 9. Noise estimation (Maino) 1. Overview 2. Operations 3. Fitting Pipeline 4. The final noise parameters 3. Detector Pointing (Maris/Galeotta) 1. Wobble Angle 2. Stellar Aberration 4. Beams (Sandri/Villa) 1. Main Beams and Focal Plane calibration 2. Effective beams 5. Map-making (Keihanen) 1. Frequency Maps (Elina Keihanen) 2. Noise Covariance Matrix (Anna-Stiina Suur-Uski) 3. Half-ring jackknife Noise Maps (Jussi Valiviita) 4. Noise Montecarlo Simulation (Hannu Kurki-Suonio) 6. LFI systematic effects uncertainties (Mennella) 7. LFI internal overall validation (Maino) 8. LFI specific L3 activities: masks, MCQA, etc 1. power spectra: intra-frequency checks & aggregation, LFI specific checks, ...) 2. Band pass information 3. Polarisation information 9. Summary of LFI data characteristics & the RIMO content 6. HFI/LFI joint data processing Main Page 3 1. Compact Source catalogues (Ashdown/Nuevo/Caniego) 2. CMB map cleaning from Foreground emissions (Ashdown/Baccigalupi) 3. CMB Power spectra and Planck likelihood code CLIK(Bouchet/Natoli) 4. Simulations (TBC, bouchet) 7. Scientific analyses products (bouchet) 8. PSO processing (To be removed) 5. Planck Legacy Archive(Dupac) 1. Mission science products 1. Timelines (Not in 1st Release) 2. Single detector maps (Not in 1st Release) 3. Frequency Maps: Types of maps | List of products | FITS file structure 4. Astrophysical component maps: CMB | Synchrotron and free-free | Anomalous dust | Dust opacity | CO emission | Other maps 5. Effective Beams 6. Catalogues: Early Release Compact Source Catalogue | Compact Sources | SZ Clusters 1. Angular power spectra 2. Planck Likelihood Code 3. The RIMO: Detector-level data | Map-level data | Band transmissions | Detector noise spectra | Beam Window Functions 2. Additional Science products 1. Data products 1. Specially processed maps 2. Additional catalogues 3. Additional angular power spectra 4. The Planck Sky Model (Not in 1st Release) 2. Ancillary data 1. Scientific data used to generate Planck products 2. Simulation data 3. Mission history: Survey history data | Satellite history data (Dupac) 4. Payload design, performance and calibration data 1. Instrument performance 2. Telescope 3. Thermal and cooler system 4. Fiber optic gyro (Not in 1st Release) 5. Space radiation environment monitor 5. Software utilities 1. Unpack and display (ESA) 2. Unit conversion and Color correction (DPC) 3. Print and plot (ESA) 4. Analysis (ESA) 5. Format conversion (ESA) 2. Glossary 3. Appendix 4. References Main Page 4 References [1] http:/ / www. sciops. esa. int/ wikiSI/ planckpla/ index. php?title=Main_Page& instance=Planck_PLA_ES [2] http:/ / meta. wikimedia. org/ wiki/ Help:Contents 5 The Planck Mission The Planck mission Introduction Planck is a space telescope of the European Space Agency designed to answer key cosmological questions. Its main goal is to determine the geometry and content of the Universe, and which theories describing the birth and evolution of the Universe are correct. To achieve this ambitious objective, it observed the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB), emitted about 14 billion years ago, just over 300,000 years after the Big Bang. Today the CMB permeates the Universe and is observed to have an average temperature of 2.7 K. Small deviations from this average value (the so-called anisotropies), observable at angular scales larger than ∼5 arcminutes, encode a wealth of information on the properties of the Universe in its infancy. The objective of Planck is to measure these properties with an unprecedented accuracy and level of detail. As with all ESA scientific missions, Planck was developed in a partnership with the European scientific community. Two consortia of scientific institutes, each led by a Principal Investigator, developed and delivered to ESA two instruments designed specifically for Planck. Each of these instruments targets a specific number of wavelength bands within the range in which the CMB is observable. Together, the two instruments are capable of collecting data of a quality adequate to measure the CMB signal and distinguish it from other confusing sources. A large telescope collects the light from the sky and deliver it to the The Planck collaboration institutes. instruments for measurement and analysis. The reflectors of the Planck telescope were developed and delivered to ESA by a Danish consortium of institutes. ESA retains overall management of the project, develops and procures the spacecraft, integrates the instruments into the spacecraft, and launches and operates it. Planck was launched on May 14th 2009 on an Ariane 5 rocket together with the Herschel Space Observatory. After launch, they were both placed into orbits around the L2 Lagrange of the Sun-Earth system, located about 1.5 million km from the Earth. From that far vantage point, Planck sweeped the sky regularly in large swaths, and covered it fully about six times. Each of the two instrument consortia operated their respective instrument and processed all the data into usable scientific products. At the end of the mission the consortia delivered the final products to ESA, which archives them and distributes them to the community. The Planck mission 6 Early operations and transfer to orbit Planck was launched from the Centre Spatial Guyanais in Kourou (French Guyana) on 14 May 2009 at its nominal lift-off time of 13:12 UT, on an Ariane 5 ECA rocket of Arianespace2. ESA’s Herschel observatory was launched on the same rocket. At 13:37:55 UT, Herschel was released from the rocket at an altitude of 1200 km; Planck followed suit at A timeline of the Planck operations and archiving. 13:40:25UT. The separation attitudes of both satellites were within 0.1 deg. of prediction. The Ariane rocket placed Planck with excellent accuracy (semimajor axis within 1.6 % of prediction), on a trajectory towards the second Lagrangian point of the Earth-Sun system (L2) . The orbit describes a Lissajous trajectory around L2 with a ∼6 month period that avoids crossing the Earth penumbra for at least 4 years. After release from the rocket, three large manoeuvres were carried out to place Planck in its intended final orbit. Once in its final orbit, very small manoeuvres are required at approximately monthly intervals (1 ms−1 per year) to keep Planck from drifting away from its intended path around L2. The attitude manoeuvres required to followthe scanning strategy require about 2.6 ms−1 per year. Overall, the excellent performance of launch and orbit manoeuvres will lead to a large amount (∼160 kg, or ∼40% of initial tank loading) of fuel remaining on board at end of mission operations. Planck started cooling down radiatively shortly after launch. Heaters were activated to hold the focal plane at 250 K, which was reached around 5 h after launch. The valve opening the exhaust piping of the dilution cooler
Recommended publications
  • The Sun As a Gravitational Lens : a Target for Space Missions a Target
    “New Trends in Astrodynamics and Applications - V” Po litecn ico di Mil ano, Mil ano (It al y) , 30 J une, 1 -2 Ju ly 2008 The Sun as a Gravitational Lens : A Target for Space Missions Reaching 550 AU to 1000 AU Claudio Maccone Member of the International Academy of Astronautics Home Paggpe: http://www.maccone.com/ E-mail: [email protected] 1 Gravitational Lens of the Sun Figure 1: Basic geometry of the gravitational lens of the Sun: the minimal focal length at 550 AU and the FOCAL spacecraft position. 2 Gravitational Lens of the Sun • The geometry of the Sun gravitational lens is easily described: incoming electromagnetic waves (arriving, for instance, from the center of the Galaxy) pass outside the Sun and pass wihiithin a certain distance r of its center. • Then a basic result following from General Relativity shows that the corresponding dfltideflection angle ()(r) at the distance r from the Sun center is given by (Einstein, 1907): 4GM α (r ) = Sun . c 2 r 3 Gravitational Lens of the Sun • Let’s set the following parameters for the Sun: 1. Assumed Mass of the Sun: 1.9889164628 . 1030 kg, that is μSun = 132712439900 kg3s-2 2. Assumed Radius of the Sun: 696000 km 3. Sun Mean Density: 1408.316 kgm-3 4. Sc hwarzsc hild radi us of th e S un: 2 .953 k m One then finds the BASIC RESULT: MINIMAL FOCAL DISTANCE OF THE SUN: 548.230 AU ~ 3.17 light days ~ 13. 86 times th e Sun-to-Plut o di st ance.
    [Show full text]
  • ESA's Gaia Mission: a Billion Stars with a Billion Pixels
    FOCUS I PHOTONIC TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGIES ESA’S GAIA MISSION: a billion stars with a billion pixels Jos DE BRUIJNE 1 Astrometry is the astronomical discipline of measuring the positions, 2 Matthias ERDMANN and changes therein, of celestial bodies. Accurate astrometry from 1 Directorate of Science, European Space Agency, ESA/ESTEC, the ground is limited by the blurring effects induced by the Earth’s The Netherlands atmosphere. Since decades, Europe has been at the forefront of 2 Directorate of Earth Observation, making astrometric measurements from space. The European Space European Space Agency, ESA/ ESTEC, The Netherlands Agency (ESA) launched the first satellite dedicated to astrometry, [email protected] named Hipparcos, in 1989, culminating in the release of the Hipparcos Catalogue containing astrometric data for 117 955 stars in 1997. Since mid 2014, Hipparcos’ successor, Gaia, has been collecting astrometric data, with a 100 times improved precision, for 10 000 times as many stars. lthough astrometry sounds revolves around the sun – and of pro- the telescope in 1608, the first reliable boring, it is of fundamental per motion – the continuous, true parallax measurement of a star other Aimportance to many branches displacement of a star on the sky as than the sun was only made in 1838. of astronomy and astrophysics. The a result of its velocity in space relative The reason for this late success is the reason for this is that astrometry can to the sun. Measuring the distances fact that stars are located at extremely determine
    [Show full text]
  • Mission to the Solar Gravity Lens Focus: Natural Highground for Imaging Earth-Like Exoplanets L
    Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop 2017 (LPI Contrib. No. 1989) 8203.pdf MISSION TO THE SOLAR GRAVITY LENS FOCUS: NATURAL HIGHGROUND FOR IMAGING EARTH-LIKE EXOPLANETS L. Alkalai1, N. Arora1, M. Shao1, S. Turyshev1, L. Friedman8 ,P. C. Brandt3, R. McNutt3, G. Hallinan2, R. Mewaldt2, J. Bock2, M. Brown2, J. McGuire1, A. Biswas1, P. Liewer1, N. Murphy1, M. Desai4, D. McComas5, M. Opher6, E. Stone2, G. Zank7, 1Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA, 2California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, 3The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA,4Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX 78238, USA, 5Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ 08543, USA, 6Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA, 7University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA, 8Emritus, The Planetary Society. Figure 1: A SGL Probe Mission is a first step in the goal to search and study potential habitable exoplanets. This figure was developed as a product of two Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) workshops on the topic of the “Science and Enabling Technologies for the Exploration of the Interstellar Medium” led by E. Stone, L. Alkalai and L. Friedman. Introduction: Recent data from Voyager 1, Kepler and New Horizons spacecraft have resulted in breath-taking discoveries that have excited the public and invigorated the space science community. Voyager 1, the first spacecraft to arrive at the Heliopause, discovered that Fig. 2. Imaging of an exo-Earth with solar gravitational Lens. The exo-Earth occupies (1km×1km) area at the image plane. Using a 1m the interstellar medium is far more complicated and telescope as a 1 pixel detector provides a (1000×1000) pixel image! turbulent than expected; the Kepler telescope According to Einstein’s general relativity, gravity discovered that exoplanets are not only ubiquitous but induces refractive properties of space-time causing a also diverse in our galaxy and that Earth-like exoplanets massive object to act as a lens by bending light.
    [Show full text]
  • Localization of the Chang'e-5 Lander Using Radio-Tracking and Image
    remote sensing Technical Note Localization of the Chang’e-5 Lander Using Radio-Tracking and Image-Based Methods Jia Wang 1, Yu Zhang 1, Kaichang Di 2,3 , Ming Chen 1, Jianfeng Duan 1, Jing Kong 1, Jianfeng Xie 1, Zhaoqin Liu 2, Wenhui Wan 2,*, Zhifei Rong 1, Bin Liu 2 , Man Peng 2 and Yexin Wang 2 1 Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), Beijing 100094, China; [email protected] (J.W.); [email protected] (Y.Z.); [email protected] (M.C.); [email protected] (J.D.); [email protected] (J.K.); [email protected] (J.X.); [email protected] (Z.R.) 2 State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; [email protected] (K.D.); [email protected] (Z.L.); [email protected] (B.L.); [email protected] (M.P.); [email protected] (Y.W.) 3 CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Hefei 230026, China * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +86-10-64807987 Abstract: Chang’e-5, China’s first unmanned lunar sample-return mission, was successfully landed in Northern Oceanus Procellarum on 1 December 2020. Determining the lander location precisely and timely is critical for both engineering operations and subsequent scientific research. Localization of the lander was performed using radio-tracking and image-based methods. The lander location was determined to be (51.92◦W, 43.06◦N) by both methods. Other localization results were compared for cross-validation. The localization results greatly contributed to the planning of the ascender lifting off from the lander and subsequent maneuvers, and they will contribute to scientific analysis of the returned samples and in situ acquired data.
    [Show full text]
  • Kepler Press
    National Aeronautics and Space Administration PRESS KIT/FEBRUARY 2009 Kepler: NASA’s First Mission Capable of Finding Earth-Size Planets www.nasa.gov Media Contacts J.D. Harrington Policy/Program Management 202-358-5241 NASA Headquarters [email protected] Washington 202-262-7048 (cell) Michael Mewhinney Science 650-604-3937 NASA Ames Research Center [email protected] Moffett Field, Calif. 650-207-1323 (cell) Whitney Clavin Spacecraft/Project Management 818-354-4673 Jet Propulsion Laboratory [email protected] Pasadena, Calif. 818-458-9008 (cell) George Diller Launch Operations 321-867-2468 Kennedy Space Center, Fla. [email protected] 321-431-4908 (cell) Roz Brown Spacecraft 303-533-6059. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. [email protected] Boulder, Colo. 720-581-3135 (cell) Mike Rein Delta II Launch Vehicle 321-730-5646 United Launch Alliance [email protected] Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. 321-693-6250 (cell) Contents Media Services Information .......................................................................................................................... 5 Quick Facts ................................................................................................................................................... 7 NASA’s Search for Habitable Planets ............................................................................................................ 8 Scientific Goals and Objectives .................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Asteroseismology with the Corot and Kepler Space Missions
    Asteroseismology with the CoRoT and Kepler space missions ComparisonComparison spacespace versusversus groundground high-precisionhigh-precision spectroscopyspectroscopy versusversus spacespace photometryphotometry SoHO photometry data of the Sun spectroscopy p. 2 Leuven and Nijmegen Universities CNES-ledCNES-led CoRoTCoRoT spacespace missionmission SpaceSpace photometer,photometer, mountedmounted onon 0.27m0.27m mirror,mirror, VmagVmag 55 toto 1616 LaunchedLaunched 2626 DecemberDecember 20062006 Goal:Goal: asteroseismologyasteroseismology andand detectiondetection ofof exoplanetsexoplanets p. 3 Leuven and Nijmegen Universities CoRoTCoRoT focalfocal planeplane Seismology field Exoplanet field highly defocused focused + prism Focal block 10 targets 12000 targets 5.4<V<9 11<V<16 sampling 1 s sampling 512 s 4 CCDs 2000x4000 px 2.6 ° Frame transfer > 100 stars in the Seismo-field > 100000 stars in the Exo-field 1.3 ° p. 4 Leuven and Nijmegen Universities NASANASA KeplerKepler spacespace missionmission SpaceSpace photometer,photometer, mountedmounted onon 0.95m0.95m mirror,mirror, VmagVmag 99 toto 1616 LaunchedLaunched 77 MarchMarch 20092009 Goal:Goal: detectiondetection ofof Earth-likeEarth-like planetsplanets inin habitablehabitable zonezone ofof starsstars p. 5 Leuven and Nijmegen Universities KeplerKepler spacespace missionmission Monitors > 100000 solar-like stars at ultra-high precision Planet discoveries through transit method 10 confirmed so far, 700 candidates Kepler10b has R=1.4 Earth R (NASA PR, Jan.2010) p. 6 Leuven and Nijmegen
    [Show full text]
  • Descent Trajectory Reconstruction and Landing Site Positioning of Changâ
    ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12278-3 OPEN Descent trajectory reconstruction and landing site positioning of Chang’E-4 on the lunar farside Jianjun Liu1,2, Xin Ren 1, Wei Yan 1, Chunlai Li 1,2, He Zhang 3, Yang Jia3, Xingguo Zeng1, Wangli Chen1, Xingye Gao1, Dawei Liu1, Xu Tan1, Xiaoxia Zhang1, Tao Ni1,2, Hongbo Zhang1, Wei Zuo 1, Yan Su1 & Weibin Wen1 Chang’E-4 (CE-4) was the first mission to accomplish the goal of a successful soft landing on 1234567890():,; the lunar farside. The landing trajectory and the location of the landing site can be effectively reconstructed and determined using series of images obtained during descent when there were no Earth-based radio tracking and the telemetry data. Here we reconstructed the powered descent trajectory of CE-4 using photogrammetrically processed images of the CE-4 landing camera, navigation camera, and terrain data of Chang’E-2. We confirmed that the precise location of the landing site is 177.5991°E, 45.4446°S with an elevation of −5935 m. The landing location was accurately identified with lunar imagery and terrain data with spatial resolutions of 7 m/p, 5 m/p, 1 m/p, 10 cm/p and 5 cm/p. These results will provide geodetic data for the study of lunar control points, high-precision lunar mapping, and subsequent lunar exploration, such as by the Yutu-2 rover. 1 Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. 2 School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
    [Show full text]
  • ESA's 'Billion-Pixel' Camera
    gaia → → ESA’S ‘BIllION-PIxel’ CAMERA The challenges of the Gaia mission Philippe Gare, Giuseppe Sarri & Rudolf Schmidt Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands Gaia is ESA’s global space astrometry mission, Combined with the simultaneously measured photometric designed to map one thousand million stars and and spectrometric information, the Gaia data set will provide hundreds of thousands of other celestial objects in a vast improvement of our knowledge of the early formation our galaxy, so its camera will have to be something of our galaxy and its subsequent dynamical, chemical and star-forming evolution. truly special. As it spins gently in its orbit, 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth, Gaia will scan the entire sky for stars, planets, Indeed, when Gaia lifts off from ESA’s Spaceport in Kourou, asteroids, distant galaxies and everything in between. French Guiana, by the end of 2011, it will be carrying the Conducting a census of over a thousand million stars, it largest digital camera in the Solar System. will monitor each of its target stars up to 70 times over a European Space Agency | Bulletin 137 | February 2009 51 science five-year period, precisely charting positions, distances, Early technology development started in 2000, but by movements and changes in brightness. 2005 the level of confidence in these large-size CCDs was high enough that mass production could be envisaged. The aim is to detect every celestial object down to about a The same year, a procurement contract was placed with million times fainter than the unaided human eye can see.
    [Show full text]
  • Spektr-RG All-Sky Survey Will Be a Major Step Forward for X-Ray Astronomy, Which Celebrated Its 50Th Anniversary a Few Years Ago
    CONTEXT The Spektr-RG all-sky survey will be a major step forward for X-ray astronomy, which celebrated its 50th anniversary a few years ago. 1962. Professor Riccardo Giacconi and his team are the first to identify X-ray emission originating from outside the Solar system (a neutron star dubbed Sco X-1). In 2002, he is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this feat and the following discoveries of distant X-ray sources. 1970–1973. The first X-ray all-sky survey in the 2–20 keV energy band is carried out by the Uhuru space observatory (NASA). It discovers more than 300 X-ray sources in our Milky Way and beyond. 1977–1979. An even more sensitive survey is carried out by the HEAO-1 (NASA) space observatory at energies from 0.25 to 180 keV. 1989-1998. Over the initial four years of directed observations, the Granat astrophysical observatory (USSR) observes many galactic and extra-galactic X-ray sources with emphasis on the deep imaging of the Center of our Galaxy in the hard (40-150 keV) and soft (4-20 keV) X-ray ranges. Unique maps of the Galactic Center in X- and gamma- rays are created; black holes, neutron stars and the first microquasar are discovered. Then Granat carries out a sensitive all-sky survey in the 40 to 200 keV energy band. 1990–1999. In its first six months of operation the ROSAT space observatory (DLR, NASA) performs a deep all-sky survey in the soft X-ray band (0.1–2.4 keV).
    [Show full text]
  • Chang'e Flying to the Moon
    Issue 7 January 2013 All about the Chinese Space Programme GO TAIKONAUTS! Editor’s Note COVER STORY If you are a fan of the Chinese space pro- gramme, you must have heard about Brian Harvey, who is the first Western writer to publish a book on the Chinese space pro- gramme. We are very happy that Mr. Harvey contributed an article to Go Taikonauts! The article about Chinese ... page 2 Quarterly Report October - December 2012 Launch Events China made six space launches in the last three months of 2012, setting a new annual launch record of 19 and overtaking U.S. in number of suc- cessful annual space launches for the first time. In 2011, China also ... page 3 Deep Space Adventure of Chang’e 2 From A Backup Lunar Orbiter to An Asteroid Probe Observation Just before Chang’e 1 (CE-1)’s successful mission to the Moon was completed, Echo of the Curiosity in China China announced that they would send the second lunar probe Chang’e 2 (CE-2) The 6 August 2012 was a special day to an to the Moon in 2010. No one at that time could anticipate the surprises that CE-2 American-Chinese girl. She is Clara Ma, would bring a few years later since it was just a backup ... page 8 a 15-year-old middle school student from Lenexa, Kansas. She waited for this day for more than three years. In May 2009, History Ma won a NASA essay contest for naming the Mars Science Laboratory, the most Chang’e Flying to the Moon complicated machine ..
    [Show full text]
  • The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues
    The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues SP±1200 June 1997 The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues Astrometric and Photometric Star Catalogues derived from the ESA Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission A Collaboration Between the European Space Agency and the FAST, NDAC, TDAC and INCA Consortia and the Hipparcos Industrial Consortium led by Matra Marconi Space and Alenia Spazio European Space Agency Agence spatiale europeenne Cover illustration: an impression of selected stars in their true positions around the Sun, as determined by Hipparcos, and viewed from a distant vantage point. Inset: sky map of the number of observations made by Hipparcos, in ecliptic coordinates. Published by: ESA Publications Division, c/o ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands Scienti®c Coordination: M.A.C. Perryman, ESA Space Science Department and the Hipparcos Science Team Composition: Volume 1: M.A.C. Perryman Volume 2: K.S. O'Flaherty Volume 3: F. van Leeuwen, L. Lindegren & F. Mignard Volume 4: U. Bastian & E. Hùg Volumes 5±11: Hans Schrijver Volume 12: Michel Grenon Volume 13: Michel Grenon (charts) & Hans Schrijver (tables) Volumes 14±16: Roger W. Sinnott Volume 17: Hans Schrijver & W. O'Mullane Typeset using TEX (by D.E. Knuth) and dvips (by T. Rokicki) in Monotype Plantin (Adobe) and Frutiger (URW) Film Production: Volumes 1±4: ESA Publications Division, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands Volumes 5±13: Imprimerie Louis-Jean, Gap, France Volumes 14±16: Sky Publishing Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA ASCII CD-ROMs: Swets & Zeitlinger B.V., Lisse, The Netherlands Publications Management: B. Battrick & H. Wapstra Cover Design: C. Haakman 1997 European Space Agency ISSN 0379±6566 ISBN 92±9092±399-7 (Volumes 1±17) Price: 650 D¯ ($400) (17 volumes) 165 D¯ ($100) (Volumes 1 & 17 only) Volume 2 The Hipparcos Satellite Operations Compiled by: M.A.C.
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:1707.09220V1 [Astro-Ph.CO] 28 Jul 2017
    An Introduction to the Planck Mission David L. Clementsa aPhysics Department, Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2AZ, UK ARTICLE HISTORY Compiled July 31, 2017 ABSTRACT The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is the oldest light in the universe. It is seen today as black body radiation at a near-uniform temperature of 2.73K covering the entire sky. This radiation field is not perfectly uniform, but includes within it temperature anisotropies of order ∆T=T ∼ 10−5. Physical processes in the early universe have left their fingerprints in these CMB anisotropies, which later grew to become the galaxies and large scale structure we see today. CMB anisotropy observations are thus a key tool for cosmology. The Planck Mission was the Euro- pean Space Agency's (ESA) probe of the CMB. Its unique design allowed CMB anisotropies to be measured to greater precision over a wider range of scales than ever before. This article provides an introduction to the Planck Mission, includ- ing its goals and motivation, its instrumentation and technology, the physics of the CMB, how the contaminating astrophysical foregrounds were overcome, and the key cosmological results that this mission has so far produced. KEYWORDS cosmology; Planck mission; astrophysics; space astronomy; cosmic microwave background 1. Introduction The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) was discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson using an absolute radiometer working at a wavelength of 7 cm [1]. It was one of the great serendipitous discoveries of science since the radiometer was intended as a low-noise ground station for the Echo satellites and Penzias and Wilson were looking for a source of excess noise rather than trying to make a fundamental observation in cosmology.
    [Show full text]