Related papers: A Note on the Rapanui Lunar Calendar
Thousands of extrasolar planets have been discovered, and it is clear that the galactic planetary census draws on a diversity greatly exceeding that exhibited by the solar system's planets. We review significant landmarks in the chronology…
The Cislunar region is crucial for expanding human presence in space in the forthcoming decades. This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent and anticipated Earth-Moon missions, and ongoing space domain awareness initiatives. An…
Structure in the planet distribution provides an insight into the processes that shape the formation and evolution of planets. The Kepler mission has led to an abundance of statistical discoveries in regards to planetary radius, but the…
Given the renewed scientific interest in lunar exploration missions, complete understanding of lunar near surface environment and its exosphere under different conditions is of paramount importance. Lunar exosphere has been extensively…
We conduct a thorough analysis of seismic and acoustic data from the so-called `Interstellar Meteor' which entered the Earth's atmosphere off the coast of Papua New Guinea on 2014-01-08. We conclude that both previously-reported seismic…
A dozen of high-magnitude solar eclipses accumulated near New Zealand in the 15th century AD when the Maori inhabited the two main islands. Taking today's capital Wellington as the point of reference, we counted ten events with magnitude…
We give a popular account of the present state of the research in the field of extra-solar planetary systems, popularly termed as exoplanets, with a brief overview of the techniques employed. We also discuss the question of habitability and…
The presence of rings and moons around exoplanets is likely to be one of the next great discoveries in exoplanet research. Using theories developed for the Solar System, we explore the possibility of coupled ring-moon cycles around…
Future exploration efforts of the Moon, Mars and other bodies are poised to focus heavily on persistent and sustainable survey and research efforts, especially given the recent interest in a long-term sustainable human presence at the Moon.…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
Between 1875 and 1899, Mars occupied a prominent and recurring position in newspaper reporting across Europe, North America and beyond. Although the scientific and cultural dimensions of this "Mars excitement" have been well studied in…
The Mayan calendar is proposed to derive from an arithmetical model of naked-eye astronomy. The Palenque and Copan lunar equations, used during the Maya Classic period (200 to 900 AD) are solution of the model and the results are expressed…
We point out some advantages of making observations of extrasolar planets in linearly polarized (LP) light. Older cool stars have quite low levels (~ 10^-4 to 10^-5) of fractional LP, while extrasolar planets can have relatively high…
In its all-sky survey, Gaia will monitor astrometrically hundreds of thousands of main-sequence stars within $\approx200$ pc, looking for the presence of giant planetary companions within a few AUs from their host stars. Indeed, Gaia…
Recent astronomical observations obtained with the Kepler and TESS missions and their related ground-based follow-ups revealed an abundance of exoplanets with a size intermediate between Earth and Neptune. A low occurrence rate of planets…
The dataset collected at the Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine (CR-OPM) reserve on the North Island of New Zealand is rather unique. It describes the cyclic time evolution of a rocky intertidal community, with the relative abundances of the…
The heartland of the Khmer empire is literally crowded by magnificent monuments built in the course of many centuries. These monuments include the world-famous state-temples, such as Angkor Wat, but also many other temples and huge water…
It is shown that the refraction near the horizon is introducing an additional bias into the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, which is able to influence the interpretation of the data. We then discuss the attempts to link certain solar eclipses…
Transiting exoplanet atmospheric characterization is currently in a golden age as dozens of exoplanet atmospheres are being studied by NASA's Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes. This trend is expected to continue with NASA's Pandora…
Tremendous progress in the science of extrasolar planets has been achieved since the discovery of a Jupiter orbiting the nearby Sun-like star 51 Pegasi in 1995. Theoretical models have now reached enough maturity to predict the…