Related papers: An "Okay" Method for Observing Solar Eclipses
Like all natural hazards, space weather exhibits occasional extreme events over timescales of decades to centuries. Historical events provoked much interest but had little economic impact. However, the widespread adoption of advanced…
We have made high resolution observations of the Sun in which we identify individual sunquakes and see power from these seismic events being pumped into the resonant modes of vibration of the Sun. A typical event lasts about five minutes.…
The ESA Euclid mission is a space telescope that will survey ~15,000 square degrees of the sky, primarily to study the distant universe (constraining cosmological parameters through the lensing of galaxies). It is also expected to observe…
Solar sails enable missions to observe the solar environment from unique vantage points, such as sustained observations away from the Sun-Earth line; sub-L1 station keeping; high inclination solar orbits; Earth polar-sitting and…
Remote observing can be broadly defined as those observations where the astronomer is not physically present at the telescope. Different implementations presently in use include robotic telescopes, service observing with or without…
The non-spherical shape of the Sun has been invoked to explain the anomalous precession of Mercury. A brief history of some methods for measuring solar diameter is presented. Archimedes was the first to give upper and lower values for solar…
A model based on celestial geometry and atmospheric physics predicts the dimming and the color of lunar eclipses. Corresponding visual magnitudes and color indices for eclipses from year 2000 through 2050 are listed. The enlargement of the…
For the majority of optical observing programs, the sky brightness provides the fundamental limit to signal detection such that the scientific feasibility is largely dictated by the moon phase. Since most observatories do not have the…
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…
The electric solar wind sail (E-sail) propellantless propulsion device uses long, charged metallic tethers to tap momentum from the solar wind to produce spacecraft propulsion. If flying through planetary or moon eclipse, the long E-sail…
Meteor showers on the Earth occur at well known times, and are associated with the decay of comets or other minor bodies whose orbital paths pass close to the Earth's trajectory. On the surface, determining the closest proximity of two…
The exploration of kilometre-sized trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) is one of the ultimate goals in the search for the origin and evolution of the Solar System. However, such exploration is challenging because these small bodies are too faint…
The article describes observations of the crescent of Venus and other bright planets using a large camera obscura. The goal of the article is to demonstrate that these observations can be successfully performed. Achieving positive results…
Remote observing seeks to simulate the presence of the astronomer at the telescope. While this is useful, and necessary in some circumstances, simulation is not reality. The drive to abstract the astronomer from the instrument can have…
A Bayesian approach to solar flare prediction has been developed, which uses only the event statistics of flares already observed. The method is simple, objective, and makes few ad hoc assumptions. It is argued that this approach should be…
Two decades ago, astronomers began detecting planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, so-called exoplanets. Since that time, the rate of detections and the sensitivity to ever-smaller planets has improved dramatically with several…
The five-minute oscillations in the Sun have provided a wealth of information about the solar interior. After many attempts, positive detections of similar oscillations in solar-type stars have now been made. This review discusses the…
Remote-sensing observations of Solar System objects with a space telescope offer a key method of understanding celestial bodies and contributing to planetary formation and evolution theories. The capabilities of Twinkle, a space telescope…
Recording a stellar occultation is one powerful method that gives direct information about the physical properties of the occulting solar system object. In order to obtain reliable and accurate results, simultaneous observations from…
In a classic 1982 paper in this journal, Jean Meeus used a statistical approach for finding the mean frequency of a total and an annular eclipse of the Sun at a given place on the surface of the Earth. In this current paper we tackle the…