Related papers: Fitting Zodiacal Models
The physical bases of the detection and characterisation of extrasolar planets in the reflected light and thermal emission regimes are reviewed. They both have their advantages and disadvantages, including artefacts, in the determination of…
In addition to its relevant astrophysical and cosmological significance, the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) is a fundamental source of opacity for cosmic high energy photons, as well as a limitation for the propagation of high-energy…
Stray light significantly influences the detection capabilities of astronomical telescopes. The actual stray-light level during observations depends not only on the telescope's inherent stray-light suppression capability but also on its…
Given the extreme accuracy reached by future global space astrometry, one needs a global relativistic modeling of observations. A relativistic definition of astrometric observables is then essential to find uniquely coordinates, parallax…
Model simulations of solar irradiance reaching the Earth's surface during a solar eclipse constitute a useful tool for studying the impact of this phenomenon on the radiance propagation through the atmosphere. A simple approach to extend…
Exoplanets, short for `extra solar planets', are planets outside our solar system. They are objects with masses less than around 15 Jupiter-masses that orbit stars other than the Sun. They are small enough so they can not burn deuterium in…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The light curve of an exoplanetary transit can be used to estimate the planetary radius and other parameters of interest. Because accurate parameter estimation is a non-analytic and computationally intensive problem, it is often useful to…
With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from…
The simulated Doppler shifts of the solar Mg I Fraunhofer line produced by scattering on the solar light by asteroidal, cometary, and trans-Neptunian dust particles are compared with the shifts obtained by Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (WHAM)…
The diffuse extragalactic background light consists of the sum of the starlight emitted by galaxies through the history of the Universe, and it could also have an important contribution from the first stars, which may have formed before…
The detection of exoplanets through direct imaging has produced numerous new positive identifications in recent years. The technique is biased towards planets at wide separations due to the difficulty in removing the stellar signature at…
Extrasolar planetary systems range from hot Jupiters out to icy comet belts more distant than Pluto. We explain this diversity in a model where the mass of solids in the primordial circumstellar disk dictates the outcome. The star retains…
As of 2025, over 6000 planets are known to orbit stars other than our Sun. We can measure their sizes and orbital periods, infer their masses and temperatures, and constrain their compositions. Based on these data, about 1% of extrasolar…
Within the next few years, several instruments aiming at imaging extrasolar planets will see first light. In parallel, low mass planets are being searched around red dwarfs which offer more favorable conditions, both for radial velocity…
The long-term habitability of Earth-like planets requires low orbital eccentricities. A secular perturbation from a distant stellar companion is a very important mechanism in exciting planetary eccentricities, as many of the extrasolar…
Astrometric issues for solar system studies are discussed. An overview gives references and cover all aspects of the solar system where astrometry is important: orbits of planets, moons, asteroids and NEOs, masses of asteroids, occultations…
The solar system's Zodiacal Cloud is visible to the unaided eye, yet the origin of its constituent dust particles is not well understood, with a wide range of proposed divisions between sources in the asteroid belt and Jupiter Family…
We apply the Minimum Description Length model selection approach to the detection of extra-solar planets, and use this example to show how specification of the experimental design affects the prior distribution on the model parameter space…
Astrophysical research into exoplanets has delivered thousands of confirmed planets orbiting distant stars. These planets span a wide ranges of size and composition, with diversity also being the hallmark of system configurations, the great…