Related papers: The Dark Side of Pluto

Dark matter may consist of axion-like particles (ALPs). When polarized electromagnetic radiation passes through the dark-matter media, interaction with background ALPs affects the polarization of photons. The condensate of axionic dark…

To date, nearly two hundred planet-forming disks have been imaged with high resolution. Our propensity to study bright and extended objects is however biasing our view of the disk demography. In this work, we contribute to alleviate this…

Aims. 'Earthshine' is the dim light seen on the otherwise dark side of the Moon, particularly when it is close to new. 'Earthlight', or reflected sunlight from the Earth, is the source of Earthshine. Using B and V band CCD images of both…

We present observations of Uranus in northern spring with the VLA from 0.7 cm to 5 cm. These observations reveal details in thermal emission from Uranus' north pole at 10s of bars, including a dark collar near 80N and a bright spot at the…

Telescopes such as the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory, a NASA satellite, collect massive streams of high resolution images of the Sun through multiple wavelength filters. Reconstructing pixel-by-pixel…

Using adaptive optics on the W.M. Keck II telescope we imaged Titan several times during 1999 to 2001 in narrowband near-infrared filters selected to probe Titan's stratosphere and upper troposphere. We observed a bright feature around the…

Planets larger than Earth and smaller than Neptune are some of the most numerous in the galaxy, but observational efforts to understand this population have proved challenging because optically thick clouds or hazes at high altitudes…

We present new deep near-infrared images of dark clouds in the Perseus molecular complex. These images show beautiful extended emission which we model as scattered ambient starlight and name ``cloudshine''. The brightness and color…

We report the detection of phase-locked polarization in the bright ($m_V$=2.98-3.24) semidetached eclipsing binary $\mu^1$ Sco (HD 151890). The phenomenon was observed in multiple photometric bands using two different HIPPI-class (HIgh…

Many round or nearly roundish Planetary Nebulae (PNe) show multiple shells and halo structures during their evolutionary stage near the maximum temperature of their central star. Controversial debate is currently ongoing if these structures…

The geologically active south pole of Enceladus generates a plume of micron-sized particles, which likely form Saturn's tenuous E-ring extending from the orbit of Mimas to Titan. Interactions between these particles and satellites have been…

We report the detection in Ks-band of the secondary eclipse of the hot Jupiter CoRoT-1b, from time series photometry with the ARC 3.5-m telescope at Apache Point Observatory. The eclipse shows a depth of 0.336+/-0.042 percent and is…

We predict how a remote observer would see the brightness variations of giant planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn as they orbit their central stars. We model the geometry of Jupiter, Saturn and Saturn's rings for varying orbital and…

It is usually taken for granted that mutual synchronisation of a tidal two-body system is attained through tidal recession, assuming the reduced Hill sphere is not reached. However, synchronisation can be achieved also via tidal approach,…

We have used spectrophotometric data from the Hubble Space Telescope to eclipse-map the primary component of the RS CVn binary SV Cam over 9 HST orbits. We find from these observations and the HIPPARCOS parallax that the surface flux in the…

We derive efficient, closed form, differentiable, and numerically stable solutions for the flux measured from a spherical planet or moon seen in reflected light, either in or out of occultation. Our expressions apply to the computation of…

We point out some advantages of making observations of extrasolar planets in linearly polarized (LP) light. Older cool stars have quite low levels (~ 10^-4 to 10^-5) of fractional LP, while extrasolar planets can have relatively high…

This study aims to characterise the polarized foreground emission in the ELAIS-N1 field and to address its possible implications for the extraction of the cosmological 21-cm signal from the Low-Frequency Array - Epoch of Reionization…

Spectroscopic observations of a transit event of an extrasolar planet offer the opportunity to study the composition of the planetary atmosphere. We observed a transit of the inflated Hot Jupiter HAT-P-32b with MODS at the LBT to…

We report the methods of and initial scientific inferences from the extraction of precision photometric information for the $>800$ trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) discovered in the images of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Scene-modelling…