Related papers: Detectability of Artificial Lights from Proxima b
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will allow observations with a unique combination of spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution for the study of outer planet satellites within our Solar System. We highlight the infrared spectroscopy…
The era of precision cosmology has revealed that about 85% of the matter in the universe is dark matter. Two well-motivated candidates are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and weakly interacting sub-eV particles (WISPs) (e.g.…
We report new methods for evaluating realistic observing programs that search stars for planets by direct imaging, where observations are selected from an optimized star list, and where stars can be observed multiple times. We show how…
The previous decade saw the discovery of the first four known interstellar objects due to advances in astronomical viewing equipment. Future sky surveys with greater sensitivity will allow for more frequent detections of such objects,…
I present the results of a new approach to the intensity and photon density spectrum of the intergalactic background light as a function of redshift using observational data obtained in many different wavelength bands from local to deep…
The very first light captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) revealed a population of galaxies at very high redshifts more massive than expected in the canonical $\Lambda$CDM model of structure formation. Barring, among others, a…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…
It is challenging to measure the starlight reflected from exoplanets because of the extreme contrast with their host stars. For hot Jupiters, this contrast is in the range of $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-4}$, depending on their albedo, radius and…
In this paper we investigate the opportunities provided by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for significant scientific advances in the study of solar system bodies and rings using stellar occultations. The strengths and weaknesses of…
A small fraction of gravitational-wave (GW) signals detected by ground-based observatories will be strongly lensed by intervening galaxies or clusters. This may produce multiple copies of the signals (i.e., lensed images) arriving at…
Two planetary mass objects in the far outer Solar System --- collectively referred to here as Planet X --- have recently been hypothesized to explain the orbital distribution of distant Kuiper Belt Objects. Neither planet is thought to be…
Ground-based optical astronomy necessarily involves sensing the light of astronomical objects along with the contributions of many natural sources ranging from the Earth's atmosphere to cosmological light. In addition, astronomers have long…
We propose the use of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in simultaneous observations with an Earth-based telescope for parallax measurements to tightly constrain the orbital trajectory of hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). We…
We demonstrate that microlensing can be used for detecting planets in binary stellar systems. This is possible because in the geometry of planetary binary systems where the planet orbits one of the binary component and the other binary star…
Gamma-ray observations of Milky Way dwarf galaxies have been used to place stringent constraints on the dark matter's annihilation cross section. In this paper, we evaluate the sensitivity of the proposed Advanced Particle-astrophysics…
We have found that Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our Sun, will pass close to a pair of faint background stars in the next few years. Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images obtained in 2012 October, we determine that the passage…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the search for and characterization of terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres in the habitable zone via transmission spectroscopy. However, relatively little work has been done to use solar…
We propose that astronomers will be eventually be able to discriminate between extrasolar Earth-like planets with surface oceans and those without using the shape of phase light curves in the visible and near-IR spectrum. We model the…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) provides the opportunity for ground-breaking observations of asteroids. It covers wavelength regions that are unavailable from the ground, and does so with unprecedented sensitivity. The main-belt and…
High-contrast observations in optical and infrared astronomy are defined as any observation requiring a technique to reveal a celestial object of interest that is in such close angular proximity to another source brighter by a factor of at…