Related papers: Torqued Accelerator using Radiation from the Sun (…
The POLAR Investigation of the Sun (POLARIS) mission uses a combination of a gravity assist and solar sail propulsion to place a spacecraft in a 0.48 AU circular orbit around the Sun with an inclination of 75 degrees with respect to solar…
New measurements using radio and plasma-wave instruments in interplanetary space have shown that nanometer-scale dust, or nanodust, is a significant contributor to the total mass in interplanetary space. Better measurements of nanodust will…
Electromagnetic propulsion technology has been thought to provide a potential form of future spacecraft propulsion for some time. In contrast to ion thrusters, which utilize the Coulomb force to accelerate positively charged species,…
Understanding the mechanism(s) of the solar wind acceleration is important in astrophysics and geophysics. A promising model of the solar wind acceleration is known as the wave/turbulence-driven (WTD) model, in which Alfv\'en waves feed…
Prototypes for hot-carrier solar cells based on type-II InAs/AlAsSb multiple quantum wells are examined for AC photoconductivity as a function of lattice temperature and photoexcitation energy to determine the photoexcited charge carrier…
Observations of interplanetary scintillation (IPS - the scintillation of compact radio sources due to density variations in the solar wind) enable the velocity of the solar wind to be determined, and its bulk density to be estimated,…
The Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) enables resolved imaging and spectroscopy of nearby terrestrial exoplanets, but useful science begins only after a spacecraft reaches roughly 650-900 astronomical units (AU). A 20 yr lower-bound trip to…
Galactic Internet may already exist, if all stars are exploited as gravitational lenses. In fact, the gravitational lens of the Sun is a well-known astrophysical phenomenon predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity. It implies…
Solar energetic particles such as electrons can be accelerated to mildly-relativistic velocities in the solar corona. These electrons travel through the turbulent corona generating radio waves, which are then severely affected by…
Aims. Relativistic jets launched from active galactic nuclei accelerate up to highly relativistic velocities within a few parsecs to tens of parsecs. The precise way in which this process takes place is still under study. While magnetic…
Tip enhanced Raman scattering (TERS) amplifies the intensity of vibrational Raman scattering by employing the tip of a probe interacting, in ultra close proximity, with a surface. Although a general understanding of the TERS process is…
The Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope (FASR) has been strongly endorsed as a top community priority by both Astronomy & Astrophysics Decadal Surveys and Solar & Space Physics Decadal Surveys in the past two decades. Although it was…
Author offers conclusions from his research of a revolutionary new idea - transferring electric energy in the hard vacuum of outer space wirelessly, using a plasma power cord as an electric cable (wire). He shows that a certain minimal…
In the solar atmosphere, jets are prevalent and they are significant for the mass and energy transport. Here we conduct numerical simulations to investigate the mass and energy contributions of the recently observed high-speed jets to the…
AIMS. The non-conservative gravitational potential of barred galaxies, or of any other non-axisymmetric structure, produces a loss of energy in infalling particles of the intergalactic medium into the galaxy, which are trapped in its…
The rich absorption spectra of Sun-like stars are enticing probes for variations in the fine-structure constant, $\alpha$, which gauges the strength of electromagnetism. While individual line wavelengths are sensitive to $\alpha$, they are…
Pre-main-sequence stars are observed to be surrounded by both accretion flows and some kind of wind or jet-like outflow. Recent work by Matt and Pudritz has suggested that if classical T Tauri stars exhibit stellar winds with mass loss…
The laser-ranged satellite LARES is expected to provide new refined measurements of relativistic physics, as well as significant contributions to space geodesy and geophysics. The very low area-to-mass ratio of this passive and dense…
In this study we considered a solar sail coated with materials that undergo thermal desorption at a specific temperature, as a result of heating by solar radiation at a particular heliocentric distance. Three different scenarios, that only…
During solar flares a large amount of electrons with energies greater than 20 keV is generated with a production rate of typically $10^{36}$ s$^{-1}$. A part of them is able to propagate along open magnetic field lines through the corona…