Related papers: The Puzzling Detection of X-rays From Pluto by Cha…
We present results from a multi-chord Pluto stellar occultation observed on 29 June 2015 from New Zealand and Australia. This occurred only two weeks before the NASA New Horizons flyby of the Pluto system and serves as a useful comparison…
The surprising discovery by the Rosetta spacecraft of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Bieler et al. 2015) challenged our understanding of the inventory of this volatile species on and inside bodies…
We have detected significant X-ray emission from the direction of the young radio pulsar PSR J1105-6107 using the ASCA Observatory. The 11 sigma detection includes 460 background-subtracted source counts derived using data from all four…
Context. Pluto's tenuous nitrogen (N2) atmosphere undergoes strong seasonal effects due to high obliquity and orbital eccentricity, and has been recently (July 2015) observed by the New Horizons spacecraft. Goals are (i) construct a well…
We present 35 ks Chandra ACIS observations of the 42 Myr old radio pulsar PSR B1451-68. A point source is detected 0.32" +/- 0.73" from the expected radio pulsar position. It has ~200 counts in the 0.3-8 keV energy range. We identify this…
The exploration of the Pluto-Charon system by the New Horizons spacecraft represents the first opportunity to understand the distribution of albedo and other photometric properties of the surfaces of objects in the Solar System's "Third…
The New Horizons flyby of Pluto confirmed the existence of hazes in its atmosphere. Observations of a large high- to low- phase brightness ratio, combined with the blue color of the haze, suggest that the haze particles are fractal…
High-resolution spectra of Pluto in the 1.66 um region, recorded with the VLT/CRIRES instrument in 2008 (2 spectra) and 2012 (5 spectra), are analyzed to constrain the spatial and vertical distribution of methane in Pluto's atmosphere and…
Approach images taken by the LORRI imaging system during the New Horizons spacecraft encounter have been used to determine the mean radii and shapes of Pluto and Charon. The primary observations are limb locations derived using three…
During its departure from Pluto, New Horizons used its LORRI camera to image a portion of Pluto's southern hemisphere that was in a decades-long seasonal winter darkness, but still very faintly illuminated by sunlight reflected by Charon.…
Following the detection of CO and HCN in Pluto's atmosphere, we report on new ALMA observations of Pluto with two main goals: (i) obtaining spatially-resolved measurements (~0.06'' on the ~0.15'' disk subtended by Pluto and its atmosphere)…
The Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument on New Horizons will measure the interaction between the solar wind and ions created by atmospheric loss from Pluto. These measurements provide a characterization of the total loss rate and…
Observations of Pluto's companion planet Charon have so far yielded no compelling evidence for a persistent atmosphere. However, with the upcoming encounter of New Horizons at the Pluto-Charon system, sensitivity to detection of a possible…
We report the first unambiguous detection of X-ray emission originating from Saturn with a Chandra observation, duration 65.5 ksec with ACIS-S3. Beyond the pure detection we analyze the spatial distribution of X-rays on the planetary…
X-ray pulsations with a 6.85 s period were recently detected in the SMC and were subsequently identified as originating from the Be/X-ray binary system XTE J0103-728. The recent localization of the source of the X-ray emission has made a…
We analyze two multi-chord stellar occultations by Pluto observed on July 18th, 2012 and May 4th, 2013, and monitored respectively from five and six sites. They provide a total of fifteen light-curves, twelve of them being used for a…
After nearly a decade in quiescence, the accreting millisecond pulsar IGR J17511$-$3057 displayed a new outburst on 2025 February 11, its third since discovery, following previous activity in 2009 and 2015. We report on an XMM-Newton Target…
Observations of the Pluto-Charon system, acquired with the ALMA interferometer on June 12-13, 2015, have yielded a detection of the CO(3-2) and HCN(4-3) rotational transitions from Pluto, providing a strong confirmation of the presence of…
We obtained a 108 ks Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) observation of PSR J1849-0001 and its pulsar wind nebula (PWN), coincident with the TeV source HESS J1849-000. By analyzing the new and archival CXO data, we resolved the pulsar from the…
The radio tracking apparatus of the New Horizons spacecraft, currently traveling to the Pluto system where its arrival is scheduled for July 2015, should be able to reach an accuracy of 10 m (range) and 0.1 mm s^-1 (range-rate) over…