Related papers: Solar Oblateness from Archimedes to Dicke
The figure of the Sun reflects its inner structure and dynamics, influencing also the perihelion precession of close orbiting bodies, like Mercury. To study the solar figure from ground, the deformation on the solar image induced by the…
The great meridian line in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome was built in 1701/1702 with the scope of measuring the obliquity of the Earth's orbit in the following eight centuries, upon the will of Pope Clement XI. During the…
The six-degree obliquity of the sun suggests that either an asymmetry was present in the solar system's formation environment, or an external torque has misaligned the angular momentum vectors of the sun and the planets. However, the exact…
We introduce a new method to perform high resolution astrometry of the solar diameter from the ground, through the observations of eclipses. A discussion of the solar diameter and its variations is linked to the Limb Darkening Function…
The lifetime of a satellite is limited, and its calibration may be not stable, it is necessary to continue ground-based measures of the solar diameter with methods less affected by atmospheric turbulence, and optical aberrations: planetary…
The Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory observed the transits of Mercury on 2003 May 7 and 2006 November 8. Contact times between Mercury and the solar limb have been used since the 17th century to…
The diameter of the Sun has been measured using Baily's beads during central eclipses, observed with portable telescopes. A blend of tiny emission lines produced in the first several hundred kilometers above the photosphere gives a light…
The possibility to measure the solar diameter using the transits of Mercury has been exploited to investigate the past three centuries of its evolution and to calibrate these measurements made with satellites. This measurement basically…
The measurement of an exoplanet's oblateness and obliquity provides insights into the planet's internal structure and formation history. Previous work using small differences in the shape of the transit light curve has been moderately…
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…
The classical tests of general relativity - light deflection, time delay and perihelion shift - are applied, along with the geodetic precession test, to the five-dimensional extension of the theory known as Kaluza-Klein gravity, using an…
Mindful of the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury discovered by U. Le Verrier in the second half of the nineteenth century and its successful explanation by A. Einstein with his General Theory of Relativity in the early years of the…
The balloon-borne Solar Disk Sextant (SDS) experiment has measured the angular size of the Sun on seven occasions spanning the years 1992 to 2011. The solar half-diameter -- observed in a 100-nm wide passband centred at 615 nm -- is found…
We introduce a method to measure with high resolution the solar diameter from the ground, through the eclipse observations by reconsidering the definition of the solar edge. The outer part of the Limb Darkening Function (LDF) is recovered…
This work deals with the comparison of different parameters (French/IMCCE and US/JPL ephemerides) used to calculate the extension of the umbral shadow and the location of the centre line in the total solar eclipse that took place on March,…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
We investigate the prospects for characterizing extrasolar giant planets by measuring planetary oblateness from transit photometry and inferring planetary rotational periods. The rotation rates of planets in the solar system vary widely,…
Models of the Sun's long-term evolution suggest that its luminosity was substantially reduced 2-4 billion years ago, which is inconsistent with substantial evidence for warm and wet conditions in the geological records of both ancient Earth…
The variation of the solar diameter in time and in position angle has implications in astrophysics and in general relativity, as the long series of studies attest. The Transits of Venus in 2004 and 2012 have been carefully studied because…
Here we explore a novel approach in order to try to measure the post-Newtonian 1/c^2 Lense-Thirring secular effect induced by the gravitomagnetic field of the Sun on the planetary orbital motion. Due to the relative smallness of the solar…