Related papers: Optimum Location to Intercept Interstellar Objects…
The operation of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) marks a transformative moment in humanity's capacity to detect and characterize interstellar objects (ISOs). With projections indicating an increase…
The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) will make precise astrometric measurements that can be used to detect planets around nearby stars. Since observational time will be extremely valuable, it is important to consider how the choice of the…
The earliest confirmed 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 $\sim 100\;$ m. This was followed by the…
The first interstellar object to be discovered, 1I/'Oumuamua, exhibited various unusual properties as it was tracked on its passage through the inner solar system in 2017/2018. In terms of the potential scientific return, a spacecraft…
With the recent discoveries of interstellar objects `Oumuamua and Borisov traversing the solar system, understanding the dynamics of interstellar objects is more pressing than ever. These detections have highlighted the possibility that…
Earth Observation (EO) has traditionally involved the transmission of a large volume of raw data to map the Earth surface. This results in congestion to the satellite network and delays in the availability of the results, invalidating the…
The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) will make precise astrometric measurements that can be used to detect planets around nearby stars. We have simulated SIM observations and estimated the ability of SIM to detect planets with given…
The recently discovered minor body 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua) is the first known object in our Solar System that is not bound by the Sun's gravity. Its hyperbolic orbit (eccentricity greater than unity) strongly suggests that it originated…
I review those properties of the interstellar medium within 15 light-years of the Sun which will be relevant for the planning of future rapid ($v /ge 0.1c$) interstellar space missions to the nearest stars. As the detailed properties of the…
In this paper we outline the considerations required in order to select a target star system for the Icarus interstellar mission. It is considered that the maximum likely range for the Icarus vehicle will be 15 light-years, and a list is…
Object 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua) is the first interstellar small body ever discovered in the solar system. By the time of discovery, it had already passed perihelion. To investigate the behavior of `Oumuamua around perihelion, we searched for…
The low velocity of interstellar asteroid 1I/'Oumuamua with respect to our galaxy's Local Standard of Rest implies it is young. Adopting the young age hypothesis, we assess possible origin systems for this interstellar asteroid and for…
The International X-ray Observatory (IXO) is a joint ESA-JAXA-NASA effort to address fundamental and timely questions in astrophysics: What happens close to a black hole? How did supermassive black holes grow? How does large scale structure…
In terms of scientific output, the best way to study solar system bodies is sending spacecraft to make in-situ measurements or to observe at close distance. Probably, the second best means to learn about important physical properties of…
We modeled the trajectories of material ejected from 20 nearby debris disk stars, including Epsilon Eridani (Ran), Vega, Fomalhaut, and Beta Pictoris, within a simulated Milky Way potential in order to quantify their contribution to the…
We estimate the capture rate of interstellar objects by means of three-body gravitational interactions. We apply this model to the Sun-Jupiter system and the Alpha Centauri A\&B binary system, and find that the radius of the largest…
The ISOPHOT Serendipity Survey (ISOSS) covered approximately 15 % of the sky at a wavelength of 170 micron while the ISO satellite was slewing from one target to the next. By chance ISOSS slews went over many solar system objects (SSOs). We…
(Abridged) The probability of detecting additional companions is essentially unchanged with respect to the single-planet configurations, but after fitting and subtraction of orbits with astrometric signal-to-noise ratio $\alpha/\sigma_d\to…
Any missions to catch 1I/'Oumuamua have the daunting challenge of generating higher hyperbolic excess speeds than the interstellar object's own, i.e. $>$ 26.3 $kms^{-1}$ with respect to the Sun. To accomplish this task using chemical…
Using all the RXTE archival data of Sco X-1 and GX 5-1, which amount to about 1.6 mega seconds in total, we searched for possible occultation events caused by Oort Cloud Objects. The detection efficiency of our searching approach was…