Related papers: Hurst exponent and planetary rings
The lightning activity in Saturn's atmosphere has been monitored by Cassini for more than six years. The continuous observations of the radio signatures called SEDs (Saturn Electrostatic Discharges) combine favorably with imaging…
The so-called "Charming Ringlet" (R/2006 S3) is a low-optical-depth, dusty ringlet located in the Laplace gap in the Cassini Division. This ringlet is particularly interesting because its radial position varies systematically with longitude…
In our solar system, the presence of rings is exclusive to the gas giants, but is this the case for all planetary systems? In principle, it seems that rocky exoplanets could also have rings, which could be searched for by studying their…
Disks are ubiquitous in stellar astronomy, and play a crucial role in the formation and evolution of stars. In this contribution we present an overview of the most recent results, with emphasis on high spatial and spectral resolution. We…
We have applied a powerful numerical approach to compute, with a high resolution, the structure of dusty circumstellar disks with embedded planets. We emphasize some testable implications of our simulations which would verify the presence…
Light scalar fields can drive the accelerated expansion of the universe. Hence, they are obvious dark energy candidates. To make such models compatible with tests of General Relativity in the solar system and "fifth force" searches on…
Results from exoplanet surveys indicate that small planets (super-Earth size and below) are abundant in our Galaxy. However, little is known about their interiors and atmospheres. There is therefore a need to find small planets transiting…
Planetary radar observations offer the potential for probing the properties of characteristics of solid bodies throughout the inner solar system and at least as far as the orbit of Saturn. In addition to the direct scientific value, precise…
Transiting extrasolar planets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation of planets as well as their internal structure. The existence of a secondary eclipse enables further study of the thermal properties of the the planet by…
The Saturn System has been studied in detail by the Cassini-Huygens Mission. A major thrust of those investigations has been to understand how Saturn formed and evolved and to place Saturn in the context of other gas giants and planetary…
Young stellar objects in their pre-main sequence phase are characterized by irregular changes in brightness, generally attributed to an increase of the mass accretion rate due to various kind of instabilities occurring in the circumstellar…
Occulting galaxy pairs have been used to determine the transmission and dust composition within the foreground galaxy. Observations of the nearly face-on ring-like debris disk around the solar-like star HD 107146 by HST/ACS in 2004 and…
As a planet transits the face of a star, it accelerates along the line-of-sight. The changing delay in the propagation of photons produces an apparent deceleration of the planet across the sky throughout the transit. This persistent…
The probability that an existing planetary transit is detectable in one's data is sensitively dependent upon the window function of the observations. We quantitatively characterize and provide visualizations of the dependence of this…
Saturn's C ring contains multiple spiral patterns that appear to be density waves driven by periodic gravitational perturbations. In other parts of Saturn's rings, such waves are generated by Lindblad resonances with Saturn's various moons,…
The detection of exoplanets using any method is prone to confusion due to the intrinsic variability of the host star. We investigate the effect of cool starspots on the detectability of the exoplanets around solar-like stars using the…
We propose an approximate description of basic parameters (radius, mass and oblateness) of general relativistic compact rotating objects in terms of the parameters of the static configuration and of the angular velocity only. The…
We revisit the evidence for a "dust cloud" observed by the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn in 2006. The simultaneous data of 3 instruments are compared to interpret the signatures of a coherent swarm of dust that could have remained floating…
We systematically study pulsar light curves, taking into account the special relativistic effect, i.e., the Doppler factor due to the fast spin of the neutron stars, together with the time delay, which comes from the difference of the…
The specific angular momentum of a Kerr black hole must not be larger than its mass. The observational confirmation of this bound which we call a Kerr bound directly suggests the existence of a black hole. In order to investigate…