Related papers: Detecting Interstellar Objects Through Stellar Occ…
Interstellar dust is still a dominant uncertainty in Astronomy, limiting precision in e.g., cosmological distance estimates and models of how light is re-processed within a galaxy. When a foreground galaxy serendipitously overlaps a more…
We present a procedure for determination of positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer Solar System planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared to traditional methods because acceleration…
The first interstellar object, `Oumuamua, was discovered in the Solar System by Pan-STARRS in 2017, allowing for a calibration of the abundance of interstellar objects of its size and an estimation of the subset of objects trapped by the…
We provide a calculation of Pan-STARRS' ability to detect objects similar to the interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 (hereafter 'Oumuamua), including the most detectable approach vectors and the effect of object size on detection efficiency.…
I show that a dedicated space telescope with a meter-size aperture can detect numerous interstellar objects, 10-m in diameter, that pass within ~20 degrees from the Sun. Separating the emitted thermal radiation from the reflection of…
Gravitational scattering events, in which the path of an interstellar object is deflected by a pulsar or the solar system, give rise to reflex motion which can potentially be detected using pulsar timing. We determine the form of the timing…
Here, we show that the detection of Borisov implies that interstellar objects outnumber Solar system objects in the Oort cloud, whereas the reverse is true near the Sun due to the stronger gravitational focusing of bound objects. This…
Detecting compact objects by means of their gravitational lensing effect on an observed companion in a binary system has already been suggested almost four decades ago. However, these predictions were made even before the first observations…
Fast moving celestial objects are characterized by velocities across the celestial sphere that significantly differ from the motions of background stars. In observational images, these objects exhibit distinct shapes, contrasting with the…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The impact of mega-constellations of satellites in low-Earth orbit during nighttime optical observations is assessed. Orbital geometry is used to calculate the impact of stellar occultations by satellites on the photometry of individual…
Recording a stellar occultation is one powerful method that gives direct information about the physical properties of the occulting solar system object. In order to obtain reliable and accurate results, simultaneous observations from…
We present a program of routine lunar occultations, at optical and near-IR wavelengths, recently started at the 1.5m Spanish telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory. Both a CCD and an infrared array detector are used. The program is aimed…
We performed numerical simulations of stellar occultations by extra-solar cometary tails. We find that extra-solar comets can be detected by the apparent photometric variations of the central stars. In most cases, the light curve shows a…
Young stellar objects in their pre-main sequence phase are characterized by irregular changes in brightness, generally attributed to an increase of the mass accretion rate due to various kind of instabilities occurring in the circumstellar…
We present a detection criterion for exo-planets to be used with the space mission COROT. This criterion is based on the transit method, which suggests the observation of star dimming caused by partial occulations by planetary companions.…
Radio wavelength astrometry of stars and other objects has a long and productive history. The use of that technique to determine whether stars have planets around them would cover a nearly unique part of the parameter space for detection of…
Stellar microlensing is a powerful method to constrain compact dark matter models, uncover binary stars, and exoplanets during caustic crossing events. At cosmological distances, {\it James-Webb Space Telescope} ({\it JWST}) is routinely…
We suggest that in the rare case of an Intermediate-Luminosity Optical Transient (ILOTs) event, evaporation of extra-solar Kuiper belt objects (ExtraKBOs) at distances of d ~ 500 - 10000AU from the ILOT can be detected. If the ILOT lasts…
Detecting binary stars in photometric time series is traditionally done by measuring eclipses. This requires the orbital plane to be aligned with the observer. A new method without that requirement uses stellar oscillations to measure…