Related papers: 2005 VL1 is not Venera-2

Recently, Seligman et. al. (2024) identified a population of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that exhibit statistically significant non-gravitational accelerations with no coma, and labeled them dark comets. Here, we show that one of these…

Loeb & Cloete (2025) intriguingly suggest that the near-Earth object 2005 VL$_1$ could be the lost Soviet probe Venera 2. Here I evaluate the plausibility of such a claim against the available data. I have re-determined the orbit of 2005…

I show that the small differences between the orbital parameters of the dark comet 2005 VL1 and the Venera 2 spacecraft (reported in arXiv:2503.07972) are of the magnitude expected from gravitational deflection by a close encounter of…

Historically, there is no doubt that the early years of the USSR space program put them way ahead of the competition (the USA). Nonetheless, although this was not what the Russians wished to present to the world, the interplanetary…

Venus has no known satellites, but has four known co-orbitals: (322756) 2001 CK32, 2002 VE68, 2012 XE133, and 2013 ND15. Here, we present numerical evidence suggesting that 2015 WZ12 is a possible Venus co-orbital; it might have been until…

On January 10 and 13, 2001, Venus was observed for the first time with an X-ray astronomy satellite. The observation, performed with the ACIS-I and LETG/ACIS-S instruments on Chandra, yielded data of high spatial, spectral, and temporal…

On January 10 and 13, 2001, Venus was observed for the first time with an X-ray astronomy satellite. The observation, performed with the ACIS-I and LETG/ACIS-S instruments on Chandra, yielded data of high spatial, spectral, and temporal…

We report on recent VLBA/VERA/IVS observational tests of General Relativity. First, we will summarize the results from the 2005 VLBA experiment that determined gamma with an accuracy of 0.0003 by measuring the deflection of four compact…

Apart from Mercury that has no known co-orbital companions, Venus remains as the inner planet that hosts the smallest number of known co-orbitals (two): (322756) 2001 CK32 and 2002 VE68. Both objects have absolute magnitudes 18 < H < 21 and…

Transits of Mercury and Venus across the face of the Sun are rare. The 20th century had 15 transits of Mercury and the 21st century will have 14, the two most recent occuring on 15 November 1999 and 7 May 2003. We report on our observations…

This document is the EnVision Venus orbiter proposal, submitted in October 2016 in response to ESA's M5 call for Medium-size missions for its Science Programme, for launch in 2029. Why are the terrestrial planets so different? Venus should…

The data of 2012 transit of Venus are compared with the ones of 2004. The thickness of the atmosphere of Venus, its aureole and the effect of oblateness and other asphericities in the figure of the Sun are taken into consideration, as well…

Minor planet 2002 VE68 was identified as a quasi-satellite of Venus shortly after its discovery. At that time its data-arc span was only 24 days, now it is 2,947 days. Here we revisit the topic of the dynamical status of this remarkable…

Venus has three known co-orbitals: (322756) 2001 CK32, 2002 VE68 and 2012 XE133. The first two have absolute magnitudes 18 < H < 21. The third one, significantly smaller at H = 23.4 mag, is a recent discovery that signals the probable…

Explaining the origin of the orbit of 2000 CR105 (a ~ 230AU, q ~ 45AU) is a major test for our understanding of the primordial evolution of the outer Solar System. Gladman et al. (2001) showed that this objects could not have been a normal…

The possibility to measure the solar diameter using the transits of Mercury has been exploited to investigate the past three centuries of its evolution and to calibrate these measurements made with satellites. This measurement basically…

Here we investigate the possibility that the asteroid 1I/2017 U1 actually is a Solar System object, currently expelled from the Solar System by the recent encouter with a Solar System planet. We show that this possibility is extremely…

The mesosphere of Venus is a critical range of altitudes in which complex temperature variability has been extensively studied by the space mission Venus Express (Vex) during its eight-years mission (2006-2014). Data collected at different…

Many observers in the past gave detailed descriptions of the telescopic aspect of Venus during its extremely rare transits across the Solar disk. In particular, at the ingress and egress, the portion of the planet's disk outside the Solar…

On June 30th, 1908, there was a massive explosion over Tunguska, in Central Siberia. A number of scientists have proposed that this Tunguska Phenomenon was caused due to the tangential passage of an astral body that grazed the Earths'…