Related papers: Weighing the Sun with five photographs
Newtonian gravity and general relativity give exactly the same expression for the period of an object in circular orbit around a static central mass. However, when the effects of the curvature of spacetime and solar radiation pressure are…
Mean densities of major and dwarf planets are possible to calculate by the values of the planets distance to the Sun, the mean densities of massive natural satellites of planets are computable by the satellites distance to the Sun and the…
It is well-known that the light curve of a transiting planet contains information about the planet's orbital period and size relative to the host star. More recently, it has been demonstrated that a tight constraint on an individual…
Following a technique of Galileo we compute the height on a mountain on the Moon. It is based on a simple observation that precisely on a half Moon day, the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun form the vertices of a right triangle with the Moon at…
Given two distributions $P$ and $S$ of equal total mass, the Earth Mover's Distance measures the cost of transforming one distribution into the other, where the cost of moving a unit of mass is equal to the distance over which it is moved.…
A simple procedure is developed to determine orbital elements of an object orbiting in a central force field which contribute more than three independent celestial positions. By manipulation of formal three point Gauss method of orbit…
We examine the equant model for the motion of planets, which has been the starting point of Kepler's investigations before he modified it because of Mars observations. We show that, up to first order in eccentricity, this model implies for…
Recently published, precise stellar photometry of 72 Sun-like stars obtained at the Fairborn Observatory between 1993 and 2017 is used to set limits on the solar forcing of Earth's atmosphere of $\pm$ 4.5 W m$^{-2}$ since 1750. This…
The Earth, Mars, Sun, Jupiter system allows for a sensitive test of the strong equivalence principle (SEP) which is qualitatively different from that provided by Lunar Laser Ranging. Using analytic and numerical methods we demonstrate that…
The uniform image of the full moon is well known from the beginning of history. In the last decades, there are photos with a similar configuration of the earth observed from the moon and from space, as well as of all the planets and their…
Of all planet-finding techniques, microlensing is potentially the most sensitive to Earth-mass planets. However, microlensing lightcurves generically yield only the planet-star mass ratio: the mass itself is uncertain to a factor of a few.…
The Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) experiment provides precise observations of the lunar orbit that contribute to a wide range of science investigations. In particular, time series of highly accurate measurements of the distance between the…
We consider the capture of galactic dark matter by the Solar System, due to the gravitational three-body interaction of the Sun, a planet, and a dark matter particle. Simple estimates are presented for the capture cross-section, as well as…
The Sun's gravitational field deflects the apparent positions of close objects in accordance with the formulae of general relativity. Optical astrometry is used to test the prediction, but only with the stars close to the Sun and only…
We review two initial orbit determination methods for too short arcs (TSAs) of optical observations of a solar system body. These methods employ the conservation laws of Kepler's problem, and allow to attempt the linkage of TSAs referring…
Discovering other worlds the size of our own has been a long-held dream of astronomers. The transiting planets Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, which belong to a multi-planet system, hold a very special place among the many groundbreaking…
More than 635 000 positional observations (mostly radiotechnical) of planets and spacecraft (1961-2010), have been used for estimating possible changes of the gravitation constant, the solar mass, and semi-major axes of planets, as well as…
The size of the diameter of the Sun has been debated for a very long time. First tackled by the Greek astronomers from a geometric point of view, an estimate, although incorrect, has been determined, not truly called into question for…
The Sun is not quite a perfect sphere, and its oblateness, thought to be induced through its rotation, has been measured using optical observations of its radius. Its gravitational quadrupole moment can then be deduced using solar models,…
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…