Related papers: The Venus Tablet and Refraction
The pyramids of ancient Egypt are said to have shone brilliantly in the sun. Surfaces of polished limestone would not only have reflected diffusely in all directions, but would also likely have produced specular reflections in particular…
We report Venus image observations around the two maximum elongations of the planet at June and October 2015. From these images we describe the global atmospheric dynamics and cloud morphology in the planet before the arrival of JAXA…
An exact formulation of the propagation of a monochromatic wave packet impinging upon a transparent, homogeneous, isotropic and parallel slab at oblique incidence is presented. Approximate formulas are derived for low divergence Gaussian…
The short timescale of the solar flare reconnection process has long proved to be a puzzle. Recent studies suggest the importance of the formation of plasmoids in the reconnecting current sheet, with quantifying the aspect ratio of the…
We compute a general expression for the contribution of vector perturbations to the redshift-space distortion of galaxy surveys. We show that they contribute to the same multipoles of the correlation function as scalar perturbations and…
Long-standing unexplained Venus atmosphere observations and chemical anomalies point to unknown chemistry but also leave room for the possibility of life. The unexplained observations include several gases out of thermodynamic equilibrium…
The rotation of a planet located in the habitable zone of a solar-type star can be reversed by a smooth process associated with the formation of its atmosphere and the increase of stronger torques, opposite to normal tidal torques. Our…
The phase velocity of light is co-parallel to the direction of energy flow in classical vacuum. However, in certain uncommon materials, these two vectors can be oppositely directed, in which case the phase velocity is termed `negative'.…
In order to probe nanostructures on a surface we present a microscope based on the quantum recurrence phenomena. A cloud of atoms bounces off an atomic mirror connected to a cantilever and exhibits quantum recurrences. The times at which…
A planewave incident on an active etalon with net roundtrip gain may be expected to diverge in field amplitude, yet Maxwell's equations admit only a convergent solution. By examining a Gaussian beam obliquely incident on such a cavity, we…
The light scattered by an extrasolar Earth-like planet's surface and atmosphere will vary in intensity and color as the planet rotates; the resulting light curve will contain information about the planet's properties. Since most of the…
The obliquity of a terrestrial planet is an important clue about its formation and critical to its climate. Previous studies using simulated photometry of Earth show that continuous observations over most of a planet's orbit can be inverted…
It is argued that apart from the well known dependence of the Am phenomenon on the mass, age (effective temperature, gravity) and rotation there is also a complex dependence on the orbital parameters in binary systems. This is why the…
This is a comment inspired by recently published results [Y. Zhang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 157404 (2003)] that introduced the name "amphoteric refraction" for the fact that at the interface with an optically anisotropic material there…
Inverse techniques are used to extract information about an exoplanet's atmosphere. These techniques are prone to biased results if the appropriate forward model is not used. One assumption used in a forward model is to assume that the…
Atmospheric tides can have a strong impact on the rotational dynamics of planets. They are of most importance for terrestrial planets located in the habitable zone of their host star, where their competition with solid tides is likely to…
In this letter we identify similarities amongst sunspots and terrestrial vortices. The dark appearance of the central part of any sunspot is currently justified by an anticipated cooling effect experienced by the ionized gas. However, it…
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…
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…
The gravitational influence of a second satellite on the rotation of an oblate moon is numerically examined. A simplified model, assuming the axis of rotation perpendicular to the (Keplerian) orbit plane, is derived. The differences between…