相关论文: High Speed AB-Solar Sail
Gravitational 3-body interaction among binary stars and the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of the Milky Way occasionally ejects a hypervelocity star (HVS) with a velocity of ~1000 km/s. Due to the ejection location, such a HVS…
Many astronomers have speculated that the solar system contains undiscovered massive planets or a distant stellar companion. The acceleration of the solar system barycenter can constrain the mass and position of the putative companion. In…
The solar wind, a stream of charged particles originating from the Sun and transcending interplanetary space, poses risks to technology and astronauts. In this work, we develop a prediction model to forecast the solar wind speed at the…
Laser sails propelled by gigawatt-scale ground-based laser arrays have the potential to reach relativistic speeds, traversing the solar system in hours and reaching nearby stars in years. Here, we describe the danger interplanetary dust…
Helioseismology has discovered a thin layer beneath the solar surface where the rotation rate increases rapidly with depth. The normalized rotational shear in the upper 10 Mm of the layer is constant with latitude. Differential rotation…
Recently, we witnessed how the synergy of small satellite technology and solar sailing propulsion enables new missions. Together, small satellites with lightweight instruments and solar sails offer affordable access to deep regions of the…
Light can exert forces on objects, promising to propel a meter-scale lightsail to near the speed of light. The key to address many challenges in such an ambition hinges on the nanostructuring of lightsails to tailor their optical scattering…
For window applications in hot climates, it is desirable to have windows with high visible transparency, while maintaining strong reflectance in both the ultraviolet and near infrared, to minimize unwanted heat gain. Given that more than…
The solar atmosphere is full of complicated transients manifesting the reconfiguration of solar magnetic field and plasma. Solar jets represent collimated, beam-like plasma ejections; they are ubiquitous in the solar atmosphere and…
A novel electronic film solar energy concentrator with embedded micro-mirrors that track the sun is described. The potential viability of this new concept is presented. Due to miniaturization, the amount of material needed for the optical…
Direct Sun light absorption by trace gases can be used to quantify them and investigate atmospheric chemistry. In such experiments, the main optical apparatus is often a grating or a Fourier transform spectrometer. A solar tracker based on…
Spicules are the most ubuiquitous type of jets in the solar atmosphere. The advent of high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and ground-based observatories has revealed the presence of…
Ultrathin lightsails propelled by laser radiation pressure to relativistic speeds are currently the most promising route for flyby-based exoplanet exploration. However, there has been a notable lack of experimental characterization of key…
The solar wind is typically categorized as fast and slow based on the measured speed ($v_\mathrm{sw}$). The separation between these two regimes is often set between 400 and 600 km/s without a rigorous definition. Observations of the solar…
The dynamics of the acceleration of ultrathin foil targets by the radiation pressure of superintense, circularly polarized laser pulses is investigated by analytical modeling and particle-in-cell simulations. By addressing self-induced…
A new electrostatic ramjet space engine is proposed and analyzed. The upper atmosphere (85 -1000 km) is extremely dense in ions (millions per cubic cm). The interplanetary medium contains positive protons from the solar wind. A charged ball…
Lightsail spacecraft, propelled to relativistic velocities via photon pressure using high power density laser radiation, offer a potentially new route to space exploration within and beyond the solar system, extending to interstellar…
Magnetoconvection at the solar surface governs the dynamics in the upper solar atmosphere and sustains the heliosphere. Properties of this fundamental process are poorly described near the solar poles. Here we report the first…
The solar wind is the extension of the Sun's hot and ionized corona, and it exists in a state of continuous expansion into interplanetary space. The radial distance at which the wind's outflow speed exceeds the phase speed of Alfvenic and…
A propulsion concept in which a spacecraft interacts with high-velocity pellets and the interstellar medium is proposed. The pellets are slower than the spacecraft and are accelerated backwards as they are overtaken, imparting a forward…