Related papers: Earthshine as an Illumination Source at the Moon
We analyse the detectability of vegetation on a global scale on Earth's surface. Considering its specific reflectance spectrum showing a sharp edge around 700 nm, vegetation can be considered as a potential global biomarker. This work,…
Impact flashes on the moon are caused by high-speed collisions of celestial bodies with the lunar surface. The study of the impacts is critical for exploring the evolutionary history and formation of the Moon, and for quantifying the risk…
We characterize the near-IR sky background from 308 observations with the FIRE spectrograph at Magellan. A subset of 105 observations selected to minimize lunar and thermal effects gives a continuous, median spectrum from 0.83 to 2.5…
The absolute brightness temperature of the Sun at millimeter wavelengths is an important diagnostic of the solar chromosphere. Because the Sun is so bright, measurement of this property usually involves the operation of telescopes under…
We observed the 2019 January total lunar eclipse with the Hubble Space Telescope's STIS spectrograph to obtain the first near-UV (1700-3200 $\r{A}$) observation of Earth as a transiting exoplanet. The observatories and instruments that will…
In the pursuit of lunar exploration and the investigation of water presence on the lunar surface, a comprehensive understanding of plasma-surface interactions is crucial since the regolith's space weathering can create H$_2$O. However, the…
The Moon's optical characteristics in visible and long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) have long been observed with our eyes or with instruments. What the mid-infrared (MIR) Moon looks like is still a mystery. For the first time we present…
Investigating the overall brightness of planets (and moons) provides insight into their envelopes and energy budgets [1, 2, 3, 4]. Titan phase curves (a representation of overall brightness vs. Sun-object-observer phase angle) have been…
On January 20th, 2019, a total lunar eclipse was possible to be observed in Santiago, Chile. Using a smartphone attached to a telescope, photographs of the phenomenon were taken. With Earth's shadow on those images, and using textbook…
Scattering processes in the atmospheres of planets cause characteristic features that can be particularly well observed in polarisation. For planet Earth, both molecular and scattering by small particles imprint specific signatures in its…
Photosynthesis offers a convenient means of sustaining biospheres. We quantify the constraints for photosynthesis to be functional on the permanent nightside of tidally locked rocky exoplanets via reflected light from their exomoons. We…
We report measurements from which we determine the spatial structure of the lunar contribution to night sky brightness, taken at the LSST site on Cerro Pachon in Chile. We use an array of six photodiodes with filters that approximate the…
We present early results from a project to measure the sky-averaged (global), redshifted $21\,$cm signal from the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR), using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope. Because interferometers are not sensitive to…
The paper contains the result description of the photometric observations of the Moon surface during the total lunar eclipse of June, 15, 2011 conducted in southern Russia and Ukraine in three narrow spectral bands with effective…
Solar system bodies that lack a significant atmosphere and significant internal magnetic fields, such as the Moon and asteroids, have been considered as passive absorbers of the solar wind. However, ion observations near the Moon by the…
Surface solar irradiance varies on scales as small as seconds or meters due to scattering and absorption by the atmosphere. Clouds are the main driver of this variability, but moisture structures in the atmospheric boundary layer and…
The frequency and the characteristics of lunar impacting meteorites are reconsidered under the general assumption of belonging to the sporadic meteoroids. We develop the model for evaluating the luminous energy detected in the visual band…
Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) observed on the surface of the moon, are of high rarity, low repetition rate and very short observation times, resulting in that there is little information about this topic. This necessitates the importance…
The phase or orbital light curves of extrasolar terrestrial planets in reflected or emitted light will contain information about their atmospheres and surfaces complementary to data obtained by other techniques such as spectrosopy. We show…
We investigate the influence of lunar-like satellites on the infrared orbital light curves of Earth-analog extra-solar planets. Such light curves will be obtained by NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and ESA's Darwin missions as a…