Related papers: Easy asteroid phase curve fitting for the Python e…
Asteroidal impact threats to the Earth will be predicted a century or more in advance. Changing an asteroid's albedo changes the force of Solar radiation on it, and hence its orbit. Albedo may be changed by applying a thin ($\sim 0.1\,\mu$)…
The forthcoming space missions, able to detect Earth-like planets by the transit method, will a fortiori also be able to detect the transit of artificial planet-size objects. Multiple artificial objects would produce lightcurves easily…
The field of asteroid thermophysical modeling has experienced an extraordinary growth in the last ten years, as new thermal infrared data became available for hundreds of thousands of asteroids. The infrared emission of asteroids depends on…
To reduce and analyze astronomical images, astronomers can rely on a wide range of libraries providing low-level implementations of legacy algorithms. However, combining these routines into robust and functional pipelines requires a major…
Boulders, rocks and regolith on fast rotating asteroids (<2.5 hours) are modeled to slide towards the equator due to a strong centrifugal force and a low cohesion force. As a result, regions of fresh subsurface material can be exposed.…
Binary systems comprise approximately 15 per cent of the near-Earth asteroid population, yet thermal-infrared data are often interpreted for these bodies as if they are single objects. Thermal-IR light curves of binary asteroids (3905)…
We study the phase curves for the planets of our Solar System; which, is considered as a non-compact planetary system. We focus on modeling the small variations of the light curve, based on the three photometric effects: reflection,…
Many astrophysical phenomena are time-varying, in the sense that their brightness change over time. In the case of periodic stars, previous approaches assumed that changes in period, amplitude, and phase are well described by either…
Asteroids can be eclipsed by other bodies in the Solar System, but no direct observation of an asteroid eclipse has been reported to date. We describe a statistical method to predict an eclipse for an asteroid based on the analysis of the…
Asteroid pairs had a single progenitor that split due to rotational-fission of a weak, rubble-pile structured body. By constructing shape models of asteroid pairs from multiple-apparition observations and using a lightcurve inversion…
We propose to use a modest fraction of the re-purposed Kepler mission time and apertures to greatly increase the quantity and quality of our knowledge of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) rotation and shape. NEAs are important for understanding…
Secondary eclipses and phase curves reveal information about the reflectivity and heat distribution in exoplanet atmospheres. The phase curve is composed of a combination of reflected, and thermally emitted light from the planet, and for…
The obliquity of a terrestrial planet is an important clue about its formation and critical to its climate. Previous studies using simulated photometry of Earth show that continuous observations over most of a planet's orbit can be inverted…
The Python package teareduce has been developed to support teaching activities related to the reduction of astronomical data. Specifically, it serves as instructional material for students participating in practical classes on the…
We investigated the reliability of the genetic algorithm which will be used to invert the photometric measurements of asteroids collected by the European Space Agency Gaia mission. To do that, we performed several sets of simulations for 10…
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…
We present results of polarimetric, photometric, and spectral observations of the near-Earth asteroid (3200) Phaethon carried out at the 6-m BTA telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory and the 2.6-m and 1.25-m telescopes of the…
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…
As a star orbits the center of its host galaxy, the trajectory is encompassed within a 3D toroid. The orbit probes all points in this toroid, unless its orbital frequencies exhibit integer ratios (commensurate frequencies), in which case a…
While of order a million asteroids have been discovered, the number in rigorously controlled samples that have precise orbits and rotation periods, as well as well-measured colors, is relatively small. In particular, less than a dozen…