Related papers: Ceres' opposition effect observed by the Dawn fram…
During its year-long orbital mission, the Dawn spacecraft has mapped the surface of main-belt asteroid Vesta multiple times at different spatial resolutions and illumination and viewing angles. The onboard Framing Camera has acquired…
The obliquity of a terrestrial planet is an important clue about its formation and critical to its climate. Previous studies using simulated photometry of Earth show that continuous observations over most of a planet's orbit can be inverted…
Context. Ceres is the most massive body of the asteroid belt and contains about 25 wt.% (weight percent) of water. Understanding its thermal evolution and assessing its current state are major goals of the Dawn Mission. Constraints on…
We present HST Faint Object Camera observations of the asteroid 1 Ceres at near-, mid-, and far-UV wavelengths (lambda = 3636, 2795, and 1621 A, respectively) obtained on 1995 June 25. The disk of Ceres is well-resolved for the first time,…
The Cassini cameras have captured the opposition effect in Saturn rings with a high radial resolution at phase angles down to 0.01o in the entire main ring system. We derive phase functions from 0.01 to 25 degrees of phase angle in the…
Common envelope evolution (CEE) physics plays a fundamental role in the formation of binary systems, such as mergering stellar gravitational wave sources, pulsar binaries and type Ia supernovae. A precisely constrained CEE has become more…
Space weathering is an important surface process occurring on the Moon and other airless bodies, especially those that have no magnetic field. The optical effects of the Moon's space weathering have been largely investigated in the…
The behavior of the dark energy equation of state (EOS) is crucial in distinguishing different cosmological models. With a model independent approach, we constrain the possible evolution of the dark energy EOS. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) of…
(1) Ceres, the largest reservoir of water in the main-belt, was recently visited by the Dawn spacecraft that revealed several areas bearing H$_2$O-ice features. Independent telescopic observations showed a water exosphere of currently…
Bright deposits in permanently shadowed craters on Ceres are thought to harbor water ice. However, the evidence for water ice presented thus far is indirect. We aim to directly detect the spectral characteristics of water ice in bright…
Detailed studies of hot subdwarf B stars with red dwarf or brown dwarf companions can shed light on the effects of binarity on late stellar evolution. Such systems exhibit a strong, quasi-sinusoidal reflection effect due to irradiation of…
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the main driver of Space Weather. Therefore, a precise forecasting of their likely geo-effectiveness relies on an accurate tracking of their morphological and kinematical evolution throughout the…
We explore oscillations of the solar $^8$B neutrinos in the Earth in detail. The relative excess of night $\nu_e$ events (the Night-Day asymmetry) is computed as function of the neutrino energy and the nadir angle $\eta$ of its trajectory.…
The common envelope evolution (CEE) is vital in forming short orbital period compact binaries. It covers many objects, such as double compact merging binaries, type Ia supernovae progenitors, binary pulsars, and X-ray binaries. Knowledge…
Common-envelope events (CEEs), during which two stars temporarily orbit within a shared envelope, are believed to be vital for the formation of a wide range of close binaries. For decades, the only evidence that CEEs actually occur has been…
Dwarf-planet (1) Ceres is one of the two targets, along with (4) Vesta, that will be studied by the NASA Dawn spacecraft via imaging, visible and near-infrared spectroscopy, and gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy. While Ceres' visible and…
In this study, we introduce a novel late-time effective dark energy model characterized by a quadratic equation of state (EoS) and rigorously examine its observational constraints. Initially, we delve into the background dynamics of this…
The equation of state (EOS) of the dark energy is the key parameter to study the nature of the dark energy from the observation. Though the dark energy is found to be well consistent with the cosmological constant with a constant EOS of…
Equations of cosmic dynamics for a model of the opaque Universe are derived and tested on supernovae (SNe) Ia observations. The model predicts a cyclic expansion/contraction evolution of the Universe within a limited range of scale factors.…
The sky observed by space telescopes in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) can be dominated by stray light from multiple sources including the Earth, Sun and Moon. This stray light presents a significant challenge to missions that aim to make a secure…