Related papers: Persephone: A Pluto-System Orbiter and Kuiper Belt…
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will conduct a close flyby of the cold classical Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) designated (486958) 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019. At a heliocentric distance of 44 AU, "MU69" will be the most distant object ever…
The surprising discovery by the Rosetta spacecraft of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Bieler et al. 2015) challenged our understanding of the inventory of this volatile species on and inside bodies…
The latest and most advanced effort towards a space-based optical cosmic ray detector developed within the Joint Experiment Mission for the Extreme Universe Space Observatory (JEM-EUSO) collaboration was the Extreme Universe Space…
I show that the WFIRST microlensing survey will enable detection and precision orbit determination of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) down to H_=28.2 over an effective area of about 17 sq.deg. Typical fractional period errors will be about 1.5%…
The Kuiper belt includes tens of thousands of large bodies and millions of smaller objects. The main part of the belt objects is located in the annular zone between 39.4 au and 47.8 au from the Sun, the boundaries correspond to the average…
(Abridged) The orbits of the recently discovered satellites of Pluto, S/2005 P2 and S/2005 P1, are significantly non-Keplerian, even if P2 and P1 have negligible masses, because the mass ratio of Charon-Pluto is ~0.1. We present an analytic…
The New Horizons spacecraft's nominal trajectory crosses the planet's satellite plane at $\sim 10,000\ \rm{km}$ from the barycenter, between the orbits of Pluto and Charon. I have investigated the risk to the spacecraft based on…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will perform a two-year survey of nearly the entire sky, with the main goal of detecting exoplanets smaller than Neptune around bright and nearby stars. There do not appear to be any…
The Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon 2, EUSO SPB2, mission was designed to take optical measurements of extensive air showers, EASs, from suborbital space. The EUSO SPB2 payload includes an optical Cherenkov…
The population of the Kuiper Belt within 50 AU of the Sun has likely been severely depleted by gravitational perturbations from the giant planets, particularly Neptune. The density of Kuiper Belt objects is expected to be two orders of…
The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) primary mission extends seven years and consists of 24 orbits of the Sun with descending perihelia culminating in a closest approach of ($\sim 9.8~R_\odot$). In the course of these orbits PSP will pass through…
The NASA New Horizons spacecraft flies past Pluto on July 14, 2015, carrying two instruments that detect charged particles. Pluto has a tenuous, extended atmosphere that is escaping the weak gravity of the planet. The interaction of the…
Open clusters have been the focus of several exoplanet surveys but only a few planets have so far been discovered. The \emph{Kepler} spacecraft revealed an abundance of small planets around small, cool stars, therefore, such cluster members…
An important testable prediction of dynamical instability models for the early evolution of the Solar System is that Jupiter Trojans share a source population with the Kuiper belt. Concrete evidence of this prediction remains elusive, as…
The surface and subsurface of worlds beyond Mars remain largely unexplored. Yet these worlds hold keys to fundamental questions in planetary science - from potentially habitable subsurface oceans on icy moons to ancient records preserved in…
The LOng-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is the high resolution imaging instrument for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, its giant satellite Charon, its small moons Nix and Hydra, and the Kuiper Belt, which is the vast region of icy…
Neptune's largest satellite, Triton, is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic bodies in the solar system. Among its numerous interesting traits, Triton appears to have far fewer craters than would be expected if its surface was…
Pits on the Moon and Mars are intriguing geological formations that have yet to be explored. These geological formations can provide protection from harsh diurnal temperature variations, ionizing radiation, and meteorite impacts. Some have…
In its 16 years of scientific measurements, the Spitzer Space Telescope performed a number of ground breaking and key infrared measurements of Solar System objects near and far. Targets ranged from the smallest planetesimals to the giant…
Pandora is a SmallSat mission designed to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, and was selected as part of NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers Program. Transmission spectroscopy of transiting exoplanets provides our best opportunity to identify…