相关论文: Mariner 2 and its Legacy: 50 Years on

One reason that the planet Neptune will be remembered for, is to do with the fact that it was the first planet whose existence was postulated before being observed. This was based on analysing deviations in Uranus' orbit. The present study…

Communication with a spacecraft is typically performed using Radio Frequency (RF). RF is a well-established and well-regulated technology that enables communication over long distances as proven by the Voyager 1 & II missions. However, RF…

The search for life on extrasolar planets is based on the assumption that one can screen extrasolar planets for habitability spectroscopically. The first space born instruments able to detect as well as characterize extrasolar planets,…

While lightning activity in Venus is still controversial, its existence in Jupiter and Saturn was first detected by the Voyager missions and later on confirmed by Cassini and New Horizons optical recordings in the case of Jupiter, and…

NASA's Parker Solar Probe and ESA/NASA's Solar Orbiter are encounter missions that are currently both in their nominal science phases, venturing closer to the Sun than ever before. These complementary spacecraft are operating together in…

Finding evidence of extraterrestrial life would be one of the most profound scientific discoveries ever made, advancing humanity into a new epoch of cosmic awareness. The Venus Life Finder (VLF) missions feature a series of three direct…

Context: The superrotation phenomenon in the atmosphere on Venus has been known since the late 60's. But until now no mechanism proposed has satisfactorily explained this phenomenon. Objective: The aim of this research is to propose a…

SPIDER is a balloon-borne instrument designed to map the cosmic microwave background at degree-angular scales in the presence of Galactic foregrounds. SPIDER has mapped a large sky area in the Southern Hemisphere using more than 2000…

Since its formation 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system has most likely crossed numerous magnetized interstellar clouds and bubbles of different sizes and contents on its path through the Milky Way. Having a reference model for how the…

The Mars Spectrometry 2: Gas Chromatography challenge was sponsored by NASA and run on the DrivenData competition platform in 2022. This report describes the solution which achieved the second-best score on the competition's test dataset.…

This paper documents the results from the highly successful Lunar flashlight Optical Navigation Experiment with a Star tracker (LONEStar). Launched in December 2022, Lunar Flashlight (LF) was a NASA-funded technology demonstration mission.…

The New Horizons spacecraft was launched on 19 January 2006. The spacecraft was designed to provide a platform for seven instruments that will collect and return data from Pluto in 2015. The design drew on heritage from previous missions…

The giant planets were the first to form and hold the key to unveiling the solar system's formation history in their interiors and atmospheres. Furthermore, the unique conditions present in the interiors of the giant planets make them…

For the first time in human history the possibility of detecting and studying Earth-like planets is on the horizon. Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), with a launch date in the 2015 timeframe, is being planned by NASA to find and characterize…

A multi-institutional, multi-national science team will soon submit a NASA proposal to build a constellation of spacecraft to fly into the near-Earth solar wind in a swarm spanning a multitude of scales in order to obtain critically needed…

The JUNO mission to Jupiter is planned to measure the water abundance in Jupiter's atmosphere below the cloud layer. This measurement is important because it can be used to reveal valuable information on Jupiter's origin and its…

Near-term studies of Venus-like atmospheres with JWST promise to advance our knowledge of terrestrial planet evolution. However, the remote study of Venus in the Solar System and the ongoing efforts to characterize gaseous exoplanets both…

The Ice Giants represent a unique and relatively poorly characterized class of planets that have been largely unexplored since the brief Voyager 2 flyby in the late 1980's. Uranus is particularly enigmatic, due to its extreme axial tilt,…

Exoplanetary science has reached a historic moment. The James Webb Space Telescope will be capable of probing the atmospheres of rocky planets, and perhaps even search for biologically produced gases. However this is contingent on…

NASA's Kepler Mission revolutionized exoplanet science in the early part of the 2010's. Looking back from the perspective of the end of that decade, Kepler appears to have burst upon the scene ready for battle, like Athena springing forth,…