Related papers: Theoretical Limits of Star Sensor Accuracy
Precise measurements of tiny forces and displacements play an important role in science and technology. The precision of recent experiments, while beginning to reach the limits imposed by quantum mechanics, is necessarily spoiled by the…
The signal measured with a curvature sensor is here analyzed. In the outset, we derive the required minimum number of sensing elements at the pupil edges, in dependence on the total number of sensing elements. The distribution of the sensor…
This paper is a continuation of our previous analysis (i.e. Turyshev 2002a, 2002b) of the relativistic stellar aberration requirements for the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). Here we have considered a problem of how the expected…
In the last years the direct measurement of cosmic rays received a push forward by the possibility of conducting experiments on board long duration balloon flights, satellites and on the International Space Station. The increase in the…
Stars are powerful sources for weakly interacting particles that are produced by nuclear or plasma processes in their hot interior. These fluxes can be used for direct measurements (e.g. solar or supernova neutrinos) or the back-reaction on…
Weak lensing experiments are a powerful probe of cosmology through their measurement of the mass distribution of the universe. A challenge for this technique is to control systematic errors that occur when measuring the shapes of distant…
We discuss the possibility of an autonomous navigation system for spacecraft that is based on pulsar timing data. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that are observable as variable celestial sources of electromagnetic radiation.…
The discovery of neutrino oscillations has shown that neutrinos, in contradiction to a prediction of the minimal standard model, have mass. Oscillations do not yield a value for the mass, but do set a lower limit of 0.02 eV on the average…
Astrometric measurements of stellar systems are becoming significantly more precise and common, with many ground and space-based instruments and missions approaching 1 microarcsecond precision. We examine the multi-wavelength astrometric…
Motivated by the recognition that variation in the optical transmission of the atmosphere is probably the main limitation to the precision of ground-based CCD measurements of celestial fluxes, we review the physical processes that attenuate…
From simulations of transit observations, it is found that the detectability of extrasolar planets depends only on two parameters: The signal-to-noise ratio during a transit, and the number of data points observed during transits. All other…
Context: Observation of star occultations is a powerful tool to determine shapes and sizes of asteroids. This is key information necessary for studying the evolution of the asteroid belt and to calibrate indirect methods of size…
In this paper we perform a comprehensive study of the main sources of random and systematic errors in stellar mass measurement for galaxies using their Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs). We use mock galaxy catalogs with simulated…
We present methodology and mission results from orbit determination of Planet Labs nanosatellites and differential-drag control of their relative motion. Orbit determination (OD) is required on Planet Labs satellites to accurately predict…
Astrometry has long been a promising technique for exoplanet detection. At the theoretical limits, astrometry would allow for the detection of smaller planets than previously seen by current exoplanet search methods, but stellar activity…
Pulsar glitches are thought to be probes of the superfluid interior of neutron stars. These sudden jumps in frequency observed in many pulsars are generally assumed to be the macroscopic manifestation of superfluid vortex motion on a…
Because we know little about the Galactic force-field away from the plane, the Galactic mass distribution is very ill-determined. I show that a microlensing survey of galaxies closer than 50 Mpc would enable us to map in three dimensions…
Over the last 20 years Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor interferometric astrometry has produced precise and accurate parallaxes of astrophysical interesting stars and mass estimates for stellar companions. We review parallax…
Pulsars are rotating neutron stars that are renowned for their timing precision, although glitches can interrupt the regular timing behavior when these stars are young. Glitches are thought to be caused by interactions between normal and…
The MONS satellite will have two Star Trackers to sense the spacecraft attitude, and we plan to use them as scientific instruments to perform high-precision photometry of thousands of stars. We briefly describe the current plans for the…