Related papers: How to Weigh a Star Using a Moon
We point out that by comparing the total mass (in gravitational units) of the earth-moon system, as determined by lunar laser ranging, with the sum of the lunar mass as independently determined by its gravitational action on satellites or…
When extrasolar planets are observed to transit their parent stars, we are granted unprecedented access to their physical properties. It is only for transiting planets that we are permitted direct estimates of the planetary masses and…
Exoplanet properties depend on how well the host star is characterized. For instance, the stellar atmospheric parameters (i.e., effective temperature, surface gravity and overall metallicity) are needed to derive the stellar mass and radius…
From a minimum of total energy of celestial bodies, their basic parameters are obtained. The steady-state values of the mass, radius, and temperature of stars and white dwarfs, as well as masses of pulsars are calculated. The luminosity and…
The radius of an exoplanet may be affected by various factors, including irradiation, planet mass and heavy element content. A significant number of transiting exoplanets have now been discovered for which the mass, radius, semi-major axis,…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…
The Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) survey used transit photometry to discover nearly 200 gas-giant exoplanets and derive their planetary and stellar parameters. Reliable determination of the planetary density depends on accurate…
All 4 giant planets in the Solar System host systems of multiple moons, whereas the terrestrial planets only host up to 2 moons. The Earth can capture small asteroids as temporary satellites, which begs the question as to how many moons…
We analyze the effect of companion stars on the bulk density of 29 planets orbiting 15 stars in the Kepler field. These stars have at least one stellar companion within 2", and the planets have measured masses and radii, allowing an…
The Chandrasekhar limit for strange stars described by a linear equation of state (describing quark matter with density-dependent quark masses) is evaluated. The maximum mass and radius of the star depend on the fundamental constants and on…
The properties of matter at ultra-high densities, low temperatures, and with a significant asymmetry between protons and neutrons can be studied exclusively through astrophysical observations of neutron stars. We show that measurements of…
In the context of the space-based mission CoRoT, devoted to asteroseismology and search for planet transits, we analyse the accuracy of fundamental stellar parameters (mass, radius, luminosity) that can be obtained from asteroseismological…
We present empirical measurements of the radii of 116 stars that host transiting planets. These radii are determined using only direct observables-the bolometric flux at Earth, the effective temperature, and the parallax provided by the…
Just as the ordinary Doppler effect serves as a tool to measure radial velocities of celestial objects, so can the relativistic Doppler effect be implemented to measure a combination of radial and transverse velocities by using recent…
Batygin and Brown (2016) have suggested the existence of a new Solar System planet supposed to be responsible for the perturbation of eccentric orbits of small outer bodies. The main challenge is now to detect and characterize this putative…
A key to understand exoplanets is characterisation of their host stars. One of the most powerful tools to characterise stellar properties like effective temperature, surface gravity and metallicity, is spectroscopy based on observations of…
Accuracies reached in space astrometry now permit the accurate determination of astrometric radial velocities, without any use of spectroscopy. Knowing this true stellar motion, spectral shifts intrinsic to stellar atmospheres can be…
We obtain full information on the orbital parameters by combining radial velocity and astrometric measurements by means of Bayesian inference. We sample the parameter probability densities of orbital model parameters with a Markov chain…
Dark matter comprises the bulk of the matter in the universe but its particle nature and cosmological origin remain mysterious. Knowledge of the dark matter density distribution in the Milky Way Galaxy is crucial to both our understanding…
The holy grail of exoplanet searches is an exo-Earth, an Earth mass planet in the habitable zone around a nearby star. Mass is the most important parameter of a planet and can only be measured by observing the motion of the star around the…