Related papers: Two amateur astronomers at Berkeley

The Solar System motivates students to interest themselves in sciences, as a large number of concepts may be easily introduced through the observation and understanding of planet's motion. Using a large representation of the Solar System at…

We look at what astronomy from the Moon might be like in the visible over the next few decades. The Moon offers the possibility of installing large telescopes or interferometers with instruments larger than those on orbiting telescopes. We…

Towards the end of nineteenth century, Celestial Mechanics provided the most powerful tools to test Newtonian gravity in the solar system, and led also to the discovery of chaos in modern science. Nowadays, in light of general relativity,…

The classical three-body problem arose in an attempt to understand the effect of the Sun on the Moon's Keplerian orbit around the Earth. It has attracted the attention of some of the best physicists and mathematicians and led to the…

In this paper we describe a simple conceptual problem, regarding the actual position of the Sun at sunset or sunrise. Although this problem can be easily explained in terms of rotating frames of references and standard Coriolis Effect, it…

The classical tests of general relativity - light deflection, time delay and perihelion shift - are applied, along with the geodetic precession test, to the five-dimensional extension of the theory known as Kaluza-Klein gravity, using an…

Tests of gravity performed in the solar system show a good agreement with general relativity. The latter is however challenged by observations at larger, galactic and cosmic, scales which are presently cured by introducing "dark matter" or…

Astrophysical measurements away from the 1 AU orbit of Earth can enable several astrophysical science cases that are challenging or impossible to perform from Earthbound platforms, including: building a detailed understanding of the…

We describe calculations of the evolution of an ensemble of small planetesimals in the outer solar system. In a solar nebula with a mass of several times the Minimum Mass Solar Nebula, objects with radii of 100-1000 km can form on…

The selective light absorption in space has been raised in astronomical literature. The substance producing the absorption must have some mass; thus the question is how large it is. We develop a dynamical model of the Milky Way system,…

While obviously having a common root, solar and planetary dynamo theory have taken increasingly divergent routes in the last two or three decades, and there are probably few experts now who can claim to be equally versed in both.…

Solar radius measurements and their variations -- if any -- are a difficult problem that has vexed researchers for decades. In this paper, we have attempted to clarify the various ways of expressing the definition ''solar diameter'', from a…

We have studied the science rationale, goals and requirements for a mission aimed at using the gravitational lensing from the Sun as a way of achieving high angular resolution and high signal amplification. We find that such a mission…

Here we explore a novel approach in order to try to measure the post-Newtonian 1/c^2 Lense-Thirring secular effect induced by the gravitomagnetic field of the Sun on the planetary orbital motion. Due to the relative smallness of the solar…

We explain the solution of the following two problems: obtaining of Kepler's laws from Newton's laws (so called two bodies problem) and obtaining the fourth Newton's law (the formula for gravitation) as a corollary of Kepler's laws. This…

The interval approach to computation of dynamics of celestial bodies in the planetary problem has been considered. It is based on the refusal from idealization of infinitely high resolving capacity of measuring tools, and forms an…

We investigate the Kepler problem using a symplectic structure consistent with the commutation rules of the noncommutative quantum mechanics. We show that a noncommutative parameter of the order of $10^{-58} \text m^2$ gives observable…

The parts contributed by the author in recent discussions with several physicists and mathematicians are reviewed, as they have been occasioned by the 2006 book "The Trouble with Physics", of Lee Smolin. Some of the issues addressed are the…

Mindful of the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury discovered by U. Le Verrier in the second half of the nineteenth century and its successful explanation by A. Einstein with his General Theory of Relativity in the early years of the…

Let m(i) be the mass of i-th planet and M be the Solar mass. From astronomical data it is known that ratios r(i)=m(i)/(m(i)+M) are of order 10^(-3)-10^(-6) for all planets. The same is true for all satellites of heavy planets. These results…