Related papers: SETI via Leakage from Light Sails in Exoplanetary …
We discuss the in-flight autonomous assembly as the means to build advanced planetary science payloads to explore the outer regions of the solar system. These payloads are robotically constructed from modular parts delivered by a group of…
The discovery of ubiquitous habitable extrasolar planets, combined with revolutionary advances in instrumentation and observational capabilities, has ushered in a renaissance in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). Large…
We consider the effects of mutual transits by extrasolar planet-companion systems (in a true binary or a planet-satellite system) on light curves. We show that induced changes in light curves depend strongly on a ratio between a…
The structural stability of a lightsail under the laser flux necessary for interstellar flight is studied analytically and numerically. A sinusoidal perturbation is introduced into a two-dimensional thin-film sail to determine if the sail…
In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), the highly incomplete sampling of the technosignature search space is often considered as a plausible explanation for the persistent lack of detections over six decades of searches. If…
Achieving laser-driven, reflective, relativistic light sails would represent a tremendous breakthrough for humankind, allowing us to advance our understanding of the solar system and deep space far beyond what we know from space probes,…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will search for planets transiting bright and nearby stars. TESS has been selected by NASA for launch in 2017 as an Astrophysics Explorer mission. The spacecraft will be placed into a highly…
Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations rely on inter-satellite links (ISLs) to provide global connectivity. However, one significant challenge is to establish and maintain inter-plane ISLs, which support communication between…
The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative is suggested to develop the concept of propelling a nano-scale spacecraft by the radiation pressure of an intense laser beam. If such a nanocraft could be accelerated to 20 percent of light speed, it…
As a major approach to looking for life beyond the Earth, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is committed to detecting technosignatures such as engineered radio signals that are indicative of technologically capable life.…
Ultra Fast Astronomy is a new frontier becoming enabled by improved detector technology allowing discovery of optical transients on millisecond to nanosecond time scales. These may reveal counterparts of energetic processes such as fast…
Observations of our Galaxy at very-high and ultra-high photon energies have revealed a rich population of sources, many of which have significant angular extension and/or are positionally coincident with energetic pulsars. We assessed…
For more than 60 years, the predominant SETI search paradigm has entailed the observation of stars in an effort to detect alien electromagnetic signals that deliberately target Earth. However, this strategy is fraught with challenges when…
Due to the efforts by numerous ground-based surveys and NASA's Kepler and TESS, there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of transiting exoplanets ideal for atmospheric characterization via spectroscopy with large platforms such as JWST and…
Optical observations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) contemporaneous with their prompt high-energy emission are rare, but they can provide insights into the physical processes underlying these explosive events. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey…
If the signals that are being sought in SETI programs do exist but are very brief, for example because they are produced intermittently to conserve energy, then it is essential to know when these signals will arrive at the Earth. Different…
The phenomenon of microlensing has successfully been used to detect extrasolar planets. By observing characteristic, rare deviations in the gravitational microlensing light curve one can discover that a lens is a star--planet system. In…
Achieving relativistic flight to enable extrasolar exploration is one of the dreams of humanity and the long term goal of our NASA Starlight program. We derive a fully relativistic solution for the motion of a spacecraft propelled by…
We report a direct experimental observation and provide a theory of the distribution of trajectories along which a fluctuating system moves over a potential barrier in escape from a metastable state. The experimental results are obtained…
Many hypotheses have been raised to explain the famous Fermi paradox. One of them is that self-replicating probes could have explored the whole Galaxy, including our Solar System, and that they are still to be detected. In this scenario, it…