Related papers: Autonomous software: Myth or magic?
Kepler, K2, TESS, and similar time-domain photometric projects, while designed with exoplanet detection in mind, are also well-suited projects for searches for large artificial structures orbiting other stars in the Galaxy. An effort to…
A self-adaptive system can dynamically monitor and adapt its behavior to preserve or enhance its quality attributes under uncertain operating conditions. This article identifies key challenges for the development of microservice…
Up to date, only 13 firmly established triple microlensing events have been discovered, so the occurrence rates of microlensing two-planet systems and planets in binary systems are still uncertain. With the upcoming space-based microlensing…
We describe three real time data analysis systems implemented during the third phase of the OGLE survey (OGLE-III). The EWS system is designed to detect on-going microlensing events. The EEWS system monitors the microlensing phenomena for…
As robot autonomy improves, robots are increasingly being considered in the role of autonomous observation systems -- free-flying cameras capable of actively tracking human activity within some predefined area of interest. In this work, we…
It is shown that a significant amount of detectable gravitational microlensing events that could potentially be found by MAssively Parallel Photometry (MAPP) projects (such as the MACHO, EROS and OGLE collaborations) will occur for stars…
Variability in the sky has been known for centuries, even millennia, but our knowledge of it is very incomplete even at the bright end. Current technology makes it possible to built small, robotic optical instruments, to record images and…
This is a personal review of various issues related to massive photometric and astrometric searches. A complete inventory of variable stars down to almost any magnitude limit will improve our understanding of the stellar evolution and the…
SONG aims at setting up a network of small 1m telescopes around the globe to observe stars uninterrupted throughout days, weeks and even months. This paper describes the fundamental aspects for putting up such a network and how we will…
Detecting compact objects by means of their gravitational lensing effect on an observed companion in a binary system has already been suggested almost four decades ago. However, these predictions were made even before the first observations…
Nearby masses can have a high probability of lensing stars in a distant background field. High-probability lensing, or mesolensing, can therefore be used to dramatically increase our knowledge of dark and dim objects in the solar…
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing observations. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, a, greater than ~1.5 R_E.…
Organized Autotelescopes for Serendipitous Event Survey (OASES) is an optical observation project that aims to detect and investigate stellar occultation events by kilometer-sized trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). In this project, multiple…
This paper presents an investigation into the gravitational microlensing of quasars by stars and stellar remnants in the Milky Way. We present predictions for the all-sky microlensing optical depth, time-scale distributions and event rates…
The Safe Trusted Autonomy for Responsible Space (STARS) program aims to advance autonomy technologies for space by leveraging machine learning technologies while mitigating barriers to trust, such as uncertainty, opaqueness, brittleness,…
We describe the Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System (MOPS), a modern software package that produces automatic asteroid discoveries and identifications from catalogs of transient detections from next-generation astronomical survey…
Close-in extrasolar giant planets may be directly detectable by their reflected light, due to the proximity of the planet to the illuminating star. The spectrum of the system will contain a reflected light component that varies in amplitude…
Hundreds of gravitational microlensing events have now been detected towards the Galactic bulge, with many more to come. The detection of fine structure in these events has been theorized to be an excellent way to discover extra-solar…
We show that a space-based gravitational microlensing survey for terrestrial extra-solar planets is feasible in the near future, and could provide a nearly complete picture of the properties of planetary systems in our Galaxy. We present…
Microlensing is proving to be one of the best techniques to detect distant, low-mass planets around the most common stars in the Galaxy. In principle, Earth's microlensing signal could offer the chance for other technological civilisations…