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The Nearest Stars: a Guided Tour by Sherwood Harrington, Astronomical Society of the Pacific
www.astrosociety.org/uitc No. 5 - Spring 1986 © 1986, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112. The Nearest Stars: A Guided Tour by Sherwood Harrington, Astronomical Society of the Pacific A tour through our stellar neighborhood As evening twilight fades during April and early May, a brilliant, blue-white star can be seen low in the sky toward the southwest. That star is called Sirius, and it is the brightest star in Earth's nighttime sky. Sirius looks so bright in part because it is a relatively powerful light producer; if our Sun were suddenly replaced by Sirius, our daylight on Earth would be more than 20 times as bright as it is now! But the other reason Sirius is so brilliant in our nighttime sky is that it is so close; Sirius is the nearest neighbor star to the Sun that can be seen with the unaided eye from the Northern Hemisphere. "Close'' in the interstellar realm, though, is a very relative term. If you were to model the Sun as a basketball, then our planet Earth would be about the size of an apple seed 30 yards away from it — and even the nearest other star (alpha Centauri, visible from the Southern Hemisphere) would be 6,000 miles away. Distances among the stars are so large that it is helpful to express them using the light-year — the distance light travels in one year — as a measuring unit. In this way of expressing distances, alpha Centauri is about four light-years away, and Sirius is about eight and a half light- years distant. -
Arxiv:1809.07342V1 [Astro-Ph.SR] 19 Sep 2018
Draft version September 21, 2018 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 11/10/09 FAR-ULTRAVIOLET ACTIVITY LEVELS OF F, G, K, AND M DWARF EXOPLANET HOST STARS* Kevin France1, Nicole Arulanantham1, Luca Fossati2, Antonino F. Lanza3, R. O. Parke Loyd4, Seth Redfield5, P. Christian Schneider6 Draft version September 21, 2018 ABSTRACT We present a survey of far-ultraviolet (FUV; 1150 { 1450 A)˚ emission line spectra from 71 planet- hosting and 33 non-planet-hosting F, G, K, and M dwarfs with the goals of characterizing their range of FUV activity levels, calibrating the FUV activity level to the 90 { 360 A˚ extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) stellar flux, and investigating the potential for FUV emission lines to probe star-planet interactions (SPIs). We build this emission line sample from a combination of new and archival observations with the Hubble Space Telescope-COS and -STIS instruments, targeting the chromospheric and transition region emission lines of Si III,N V,C II, and Si IV. We find that the exoplanet host stars, on average, display factors of 5 { 10 lower UV activity levels compared with the non-planet hosting sample; this is explained by a combination of observational and astrophysical biases in the selection of stars for radial-velocity planet searches. We demonstrate that UV activity-rotation relation in the full F { M star sample is characterized by a power-law decline (with index α ≈ −1.1), starting at rotation periods & 3.5 days. Using N V or Si IV spectra and a knowledge of the star's bolometric flux, we present a new analytic relationship to estimate the intrinsic stellar EUV irradiance in the 90 { 360 A˚ band with an accuracy of roughly a factor of ≈ 2. -
Materials Challenges for the Starshot Lightsail
PERSPECTIVE https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0075-8 Materials challenges for the Starshot lightsail Harry A. Atwater 1*, Artur R. Davoyan1, Ognjen Ilic1, Deep Jariwala1, Michelle C. Sherrott 1, Cora M. Went2, William S. Whitney2 and Joeson Wong 1 The Starshot Breakthrough Initiative established in 2016 sets an audacious goal of sending a spacecraft beyond our Solar System to a neighbouring star within the next half-century. Its vision for an ultralight spacecraft that can be accelerated by laser radiation pressure from an Earth-based source to ~20% of the speed of light demands the use of materials with extreme properties. Here we examine stringent criteria for the lightsail design and discuss fundamental materials challenges. We pre- dict that major research advances in photonic design and materials science will enable us to define the pathways needed to realize laser-driven lightsails. he Starshot Breakthrough Initiative has challenged a broad nanocraft, we reveal a balance between the high reflectivity of the and interdisciplinary community of scientists and engineers sail, required for efficient photon momentum transfer; large band- Tto design an ultralight spacecraft or ‘nanocraft’ that can reach width, accounting for the Doppler shift; and the low mass necessary Proxima Centauri b — an exoplanet within the habitable zone of for the spacecraft to accelerate to near-relativistic speeds. We show Proxima Centauri and 4.2 light years away from Earth — in approxi- that nanophotonic structures may be well-suited to meeting such mately -
Identify the Following
1. This planet appears to be lying on its side. A. Jupiter B. Saturn C. Neptune D. Uranus E. none of these 2. This planet is the hottest on the solar system. This is due to the swirling clouds pf sulfur and sulfuric acid that obscure its surface making its atmosphere heavy and dense. A. Mercury B. Venus C. Earth D. Mars E. none of these 3. The only asteroid known to have a satellite. A. Ceres B. Eris C. Makemake D. Ida E. none of these 4. It is an anticyclonic storm on Jupiter that has been existing for 180 years and it is expected to last for another 345 years. A. GDS B. GBS C. GSS D. SSS E. none of these 5. It is the second largest planet and it has spectacular rings that can be seen on Earth by telescope. A. Jupiter B. Saturn C. Neptune D. Uranus E. none of these 6. It divides the planets into Inner Planets and Outer Planets. A. Kuiper Belt B. Asteroid Belt C. Oort Cloud D. heliopause E. none of these 7. Pluto is now considered a ____. A. Giant Planet B. Dwarf Planet C. Elf Planet D. Little Solar System E. none of these 8. It is made up of many small comets orbiting around the sun. It is the area wherein scientists believed Pluto to be a part of. A. Kuiper Belt B. Asteroid Belt C. Oort Cloud D. heliopause E. none of these 9. The belt in number 8 was discovered by ___. A. Nicolaus Copernicus B. -
Arxiv:2107.05688V1 [Astro-Ph.GA] 12 Jul 2021
FERMILAB-PUB-21-274-AE-LDRD Draft version September 6, 2021 Typeset using LATEX twocolumn style in AASTeX63 RR Lyrae stars in the newly discovered ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Centaurus I∗ C. E. Mart´ınez-Vazquez´ ,1 W. Cerny ,2, 3 A. K. Vivas ,1 A. Drlica-Wagner ,4, 2, 3 A. B. Pace ,5 J. D. Simon,6 R. R. Munoz,7 A. R. Walker ,1 S. Allam,4 D. L. Tucker,4 M. Adamow´ ,8 J. L. Carlin ,9 Y. Choi,10 P. S. Ferguson ,11, 12 A. P. Ji,6 N. Kuropatkin,4 T. S. Li ,6, 13, 14 D. Mart´ınez-Delgado,15 S. Mau ,16, 17 B. Mutlu-Pakdil ,2, 3 D. L. Nidever,18 A. H. Riley,11, 12 J. D. Sakowska ,19 D. J. Sand ,20 G. S. Stringfellow ,21 (DELVE Collaboration) 1Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF's NOIRLab, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile 2Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA 3Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago IL 60637, USA 4Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA 5McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA 6Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara St., Pasadena, CA 91101, USA 7Departamento de Astronom´ıa,Universidad de Chile, Camino El Observatorio 1515, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile 8Center for Astrophysical Surveys, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA 9Rubin Observatory/AURA, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ, 85719, USA 10Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA 11George P. -
Prospects of Detecting the Polarimetric Signature of the Earth-Mass Planet Α Centauri B B with SPHERE/ZIMPOL
A&A 556, A64 (2013) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201321881 & c ESO 2013 Astrophysics Prospects of detecting the polarimetric signature of the Earth-mass planet α Centauri B b with SPHERE/ZIMPOL J. Milli1,2, D. Mouillet1,D.Mawet2,H.M.Schmid3, A. Bazzon3, J. H. Girard2,K.Dohlen4, and R. Roelfsema3 1 Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG), University Joseph Fourier, CNRS, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected] 2 European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile 3 Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland 4 Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM),13388 Marseille, France Received 12 May 2013 / Accepted 4 June 2013 ABSTRACT Context. Over the past five years, radial-velocity and transit techniques have revealed a new population of Earth-like planets with masses of a few Earth masses. Their very close orbit around their host star requires an exquisite inner working angle to be detected in direct imaging and sets a challenge for direct imagers that work in the visible range, such as SPHERE/ZIMPOL. Aims. Among all known exoplanets with less than 25 Earth masses we first predict the best candidate for direct imaging. Our primary objective is then to provide the best instrument setup and observing strategy for detecting such a peculiar object with ZIMPOL. As a second step, we aim at predicting its detectivity. Methods. Using exoplanet properties constrained by radial velocity measurements, polarimetric models and the diffraction propaga- tion code CAOS, we estimate the detection sensitivity of ZIMPOL for such a planet in different observing modes of the instrument. -
Curriculum Vitae - 24 March 2020
Dr. Eric E. Mamajek Curriculum Vitae - 24 March 2020 Jet Propulsion Laboratory Phone: (818) 354-2153 4800 Oak Grove Drive FAX: (818) 393-4950 MS 321-162 [email protected] Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Mamajek/ Positions 2020- Discipline Program Manager - Exoplanets, Astro. & Physics Directorate, JPL/Caltech 2016- Deputy Program Chief Scientist, NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program, JPL/Caltech 2017- Professor of Physics & Astronomy (Research), University of Rochester 2016-2017 Visiting Professor, Physics & Astronomy, University of Rochester 2016 Professor, Physics & Astronomy, University of Rochester 2013-2016 Associate Professor, Physics & Astronomy, University of Rochester 2011-2012 Associate Astronomer, NOAO, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory 2008-2013 Assistant Professor, Physics & Astronomy, University of Rochester (on leave 2011-2012) 2004-2008 Clay Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 2000-2004 Graduate Research Assistant, University of Arizona, Astronomy 1999-2000 Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Arizona, Astronomy 1998-1999 J. William Fulbright Fellow, Australia, ADFA/UNSW School of Physics Languages English (native), Spanish (advanced) Education 2004 Ph.D. The University of Arizona, Astronomy 2001 M.S. The University of Arizona, Astronomy 2000 M.Sc. The University of New South Wales, ADFA, Physics 1998 B.S. The Pennsylvania State University, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Physics 1993 H.S. Bethel Park High School Research Interests Formation and Evolution -
The Search for Another Earth – Part II
GENERAL ARTICLE The Search for Another Earth – Part II Sujan Sengupta In the first part, we discussed the various methods for the detection of planets outside the solar system known as the exoplanets. In this part, we will describe various kinds of exoplanets. The habitable planets discovered so far and the present status of our search for a habitable planet similar to the Earth will also be discussed. Sujan Sengupta is an 1. Introduction astrophysicist at Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru. He works on the The first confirmed exoplanet around a solar type of star, 51 Pe- detection, characterisation 1 gasi b was discovered in 1995 using the radial velocity method. and habitability of extra-solar Subsequently, a large number of exoplanets were discovered by planets and extra-solar this method, and a few were discovered using transit and gravi- moons. tational lensing methods. Ground-based telescopes were used for these discoveries and the search region was confined to about 300 light-years from the Earth. On December 27, 2006, the European Space Agency launched 1The movement of the star a space telescope called CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and plan- towards the observer due to etary Transits) and on March 6, 2009, NASA launched another the gravitational effect of the space telescope called Kepler2 to hunt for exoplanets. Conse- planet. See Sujan Sengupta, The Search for Another Earth, quently, the search extended to about 3000 light-years. Both Resonance, Vol.21, No.7, these telescopes used the transit method in order to detect exo- pp.641–652, 2016. planets. Although Kepler’s field of view was only 105 square de- grees along the Cygnus arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, it detected a whooping 2326 exoplanets out of a total 3493 discovered till 2Kepler Telescope has a pri- date. -
A Review on Substellar Objects Below the Deuterium Burning Mass Limit: Planets, Brown Dwarfs Or What?
geosciences Review A Review on Substellar Objects below the Deuterium Burning Mass Limit: Planets, Brown Dwarfs or What? José A. Caballero Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), ESAC, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, E-28692 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain; [email protected] Received: 23 August 2018; Accepted: 10 September 2018; Published: 28 September 2018 Abstract: “Free-floating, non-deuterium-burning, substellar objects” are isolated bodies of a few Jupiter masses found in very young open clusters and associations, nearby young moving groups, and in the immediate vicinity of the Sun. They are neither brown dwarfs nor planets. In this paper, their nomenclature, history of discovery, sites of detection, formation mechanisms, and future directions of research are reviewed. Most free-floating, non-deuterium-burning, substellar objects share the same formation mechanism as low-mass stars and brown dwarfs, but there are still a few caveats, such as the value of the opacity mass limit, the minimum mass at which an isolated body can form via turbulent fragmentation from a cloud. The least massive free-floating substellar objects found to date have masses of about 0.004 Msol, but current and future surveys should aim at breaking this record. For that, we may need LSST, Euclid and WFIRST. Keywords: planetary systems; stars: brown dwarfs; stars: low mass; galaxy: solar neighborhood; galaxy: open clusters and associations 1. Introduction I can’t answer why (I’m not a gangstar) But I can tell you how (I’m not a flam star) We were born upside-down (I’m a star’s star) Born the wrong way ’round (I’m not a white star) I’m a blackstar, I’m not a gangstar I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar I’m not a pornstar, I’m not a wandering star I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar Blackstar, F (2016), David Bowie The tenth star of George van Biesbroeck’s catalogue of high, common, proper motion companions, vB 10, was from the end of the Second World War to the early 1980s, and had an entry on the least massive star known [1–3]. -
Astronomical Distances
The Act of Measurement I: Astronomical Distances B. F. Riley The act of measurement causes astronomical distances to adopt discrete values. When measured, the distance to the object corresponds through an inverse 5/2 power law – the Quantum/Classical connection – to a sub-Planckian mass scale on a level or sub-level of one or both of two geometric sequences, of common ratio 1/π and 1/e, that descend from the Planck mass and may derive from the geometry of a higher-dimensional spacetime. The distances themselves lie on the levels and sub-levels of two sequences, of common ratio π and e, that ascend from the Planck length. Analyses have been performed of stellar distances, the semi-major axes of the planets and planetary satellites of the Solar System and the distances measured to quasars, galaxies and gamma-ray bursts. 1 Introduction Using Planck units the Quantum/Classical connection, characterised by the equation (1) maps astronomical distances R – in previous papers only the radii of astronomical bodies [1, 2] – onto sub-Planckian mass scales m on the mass levels and sub-levels1 of two geometric sequences that descend from the Planck mass: Sequence 1 of common ratio 1/π and Sequence 3 of common ratio 1/e.2 The sequences may derive from the geometry of a higher-dimensional spacetime [3]. First, we show that several distances associated with the Alpha Centauri system correspond through (1) to the mass scales of principal levels3 in Sequences 1 and 3. We then show that the mass scales corresponding through (1) to the distances from both Alpha Centauri and the Sun to the other stars lie on the levels and sub-levels of Sequences 1 and 3. -
A Terrestrial Planet Candidate in a Temperate Orbit Around Proxima Centauri
A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri Guillem Anglada-Escude´1∗, Pedro J. Amado2, John Barnes3, Zaira M. Berdinas˜ 2, R. Paul Butler4, Gavin A. L. Coleman1, Ignacio de la Cueva5, Stefan Dreizler6, Michael Endl7, Benjamin Giesers6, Sandra V. Jeffers6, James S. Jenkins8, Hugh R. A. Jones9, Marcin Kiraga10, Martin Kurster¨ 11, Mar´ıa J. Lopez-Gonz´ alez´ 2, Christopher J. Marvin6, Nicolas´ Morales2, Julien Morin12, Richard P. Nelson1, Jose´ L. Ortiz2, Aviv Ofir13, Sijme-Jan Paardekooper1, Ansgar Reiners6, Eloy Rodr´ıguez2, Cristina Rodr´ıguez-Lopez´ 2, Luis F. Sarmiento6, John P. Strachan1, Yiannis Tsapras14, Mikko Tuomi9, Mathias Zechmeister6. July 13, 2016 1School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, 327 Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK 2Instituto de Astrofsica de Andaluca - CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronoma S/N, E-18008 Granada, Spain 3Department of Physical Sciences, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK 4Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism 5241 Broad Branch Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20015, USA 5Astroimagen, Ibiza, Spain 6Institut fur¨ Astrophysik, Georg-August-Universitat¨ Gottingen¨ Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Gottingen,¨ Germany 7The University of Texas at Austin and Department of Astronomy and McDonald Observatory 2515 Speedway, C1400, Austin, TX 78712, USA 8Departamento de Astronoma, Universidad de Chile Camino El Observatorio 1515, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile 9Centre for Astrophysics Research, Science & Technology Research Institute, University of Hert- fordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK 10Warsaw University Observatory, Aleje Ujazdowskie 4, Warszawa, Poland 11Max-Planck-Institut fur¨ Astronomie Konigstuhl¨ 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany 12Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier, Universit de Montpellier, Pl. -
Abstracts of Extreme Solar Systems 4 (Reykjavik, Iceland)
Abstracts of Extreme Solar Systems 4 (Reykjavik, Iceland) American Astronomical Society August, 2019 100 — New Discoveries scope (JWST), as well as other large ground-based and space-based telescopes coming online in the next 100.01 — Review of TESS’s First Year Survey and two decades. Future Plans The status of the TESS mission as it completes its first year of survey operations in July 2019 will bere- George Ricker1 viewed. The opportunities enabled by TESS’s unique 1 Kavli Institute, MIT (Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States) lunar-resonant orbit for an extended mission lasting more than a decade will also be presented. Successfully launched in April 2018, NASA’s Tran- siting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is well on its way to discovering thousands of exoplanets in orbit 100.02 — The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Sur- around the brightest stars in the sky. During its ini- vey: Giant Planet and Brown Dwarf Demographics tial two-year survey mission, TESS will monitor more from 10-100 AU than 200,000 bright stars in the solar neighborhood at Eric Nielsen1; Robert De Rosa1; Bruce Macintosh1; a two minute cadence for drops in brightness caused Jason Wang2; Jean-Baptiste Ruffio1; Eugene Chiang3; by planetary transits. This first-ever spaceborne all- Mark Marley4; Didier Saumon5; Dmitry Savransky6; sky transit survey is identifying planets ranging in Daniel Fabrycky7; Quinn Konopacky8; Jennifer size from Earth-sized to gas giants, orbiting a wide Patience9; Vanessa Bailey10 variety of host stars, from cool M dwarfs to hot O/B 1 KIPAC, Stanford University (Stanford, California, United States) giants. 2 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology TESS stars are typically 30–100 times brighter than (Pasadena, California, United States) those surveyed by the Kepler satellite; thus, TESS 3 Astronomy, California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, Califor- planets are proving far easier to characterize with nia, United States) follow-up observations than those from prior mis- 4 Astronomy, U.C.