Related papers: Occultation Searches for Kuiper Belt Objects

We numerically integrated the orbits of 1458 particles in the region of the classical Kuiper Belt (41 AU < a < 47 AU) to explore the role of dynamical instabilities in sculpting the inclination distribution of the classical Kuiper Belt…

We present a procedure for determination of positions and orbital elements, and associated uncertainties, of outer Solar System planets. The orbit-fitting procedure is greatly streamlined compared to traditional methods because acceleration…

In this paper we investigate the opportunities provided by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for significant scientific advances in the study of solar system bodies and rings using stellar occultations. The strengths and weaknesses of…

The Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) exhibit an orbital clustering of the outer planets lying at perihelion distances larger than Neptune and semimajor axes greater than 150 AU from the Sun. This implies a hitherto unknown dynamical mechanism to…

Using all the RXTE archival data of Sco X-1 and GX 5-1, which amount to about 1.6 mega seconds in total, we searched for possible occultation events caused by Oort Cloud Objects. The detection efficiency of our searching approach was…

The search for minor bodies in the solar system promises insights into its formation history. Wide imaging surveys offer the opportunity to serendipitously discover and identify these traces of planetary formation and evolution. We aim to…

All the fields of the extended space mission Kepler/K2 are located within the ecliptic. Many solar system objects thus cross the K2 stellar masks on a regular basis. We aim at providing to the entire community a simple tool to search and…

We present the results of a search for occultation events by objects at distances between 100 and 1000 AU in lightcurves from the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS). We searched for consecutive, shallow flux reductions in the…

The eccentricity distribution of exoplanets is known from radial velocity surveys to be divergent from circular orbits beyond 0.1 AU. This is particularly the case for large planets where the radial velocity technique is most sensitive. The…

Using data from the Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES), we investigate the inclination distributions of objects in the Kuiper Belt. We present a derivation for observational bias removal and use this procedure to generate unbiased inclination…

Stellar occultation is a powerful technique that allows the determination of some physical parameters of the occulting object. The result depends on the photometric accuracy, the temporal resolution, and the number of chords obtained. Space…

Distant objects in the solar system are crucial to better understand the history and evolution of its outskirts. The stellar occultation technique allows the determination of their sizes and shapes with kilometric accuracy, a detailed…

The Taiwan-America Occultation Survey (TAOS) aims to determine the number of small icy bodies in the outer reach of the Solar System by means of stellar occultation. An array of 4 robotic small (D=0.5 m), wide-field (f/1.9) telescopes have…

Recent stellar occultations have allowed accurate instantaneous size and apparent shape determinations of the large Kuiper belt object (50000)~Quaoar and the detection of two rings with spatially variable optical depths. In this paper we…

The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) operates four fully automatic telescopes to search for occultations of stars by Kuiper Belt Objects. It is a versatile facility that is also useful for the study of initial optical GRB…

We present a survey for bright Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Centaurs, conducted at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) 0.9 m telescope with the KPNO 8k Mosaic CCD. The survey imaged 164 sq deg near opposition to a limiting red…

Statistical analyses of large surveys for transiting planets such as the Kepler mission must account for systematic errors and biases. Transit detection depends not only on the planet's radius and orbital period, but also on host star…

The fields of occultation and microlensing are linked historically. Early this century, occultation of the Sun by the Moon allowed the apparent positions of background stars projected near the limb of the Sun to be measured and compared…

Discovery of transneptunian object (TNO) satellites and determination of their orbits has recently enabled estimation of the size and albedo of several small TNOs, extending the size range of objects having known size and albedo down into…

The Oort cloud is presumably a pristine relic of the Solar System formation. Detection of the Oort cloud may provide information regarding the stellar environment in which the Sun was born and on the planetesimal population during the outer…