Sentences with phrase «occultations of»

Continued observations of stellar occultations of Pluto will show us whether its atmosphere freezes out.

In turn, this opens up the possibility that some of the out - of - eclipse variability could be due to occultations of the central stars by material located at the inner edge or in the central cavity of the circumbinary disk.

We detected planetary occultations of Kepler - 17b with both the Kepler and Spitzer Space Telescopes.

These glitches are apparent from astronomical observations of occultations of stars by the moon — miniature eclipses that occur when the moon passes in front of the distant star.

An instrument called GOMOS — Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Star — will look at a star through the atmosphere and measure how much of its light is absorbed by ozone.

Cassini makes the first radio occultation of Saturn's rings producing this simulated image with green for particles smaller than 5 cm and purple where particles are larger.

While an occultation of the star occurs around 17h UT for observers in Japan, central Asia and the Middle East, skywatchers in the UK will have to settle for a near miss.

This event followed an occultation of the star by Saturn and the rings which was well observed from the Americas and we have been cooperating with the BAA Saturn Section over the collection of data for the events.

On this date the occultation of 28 Sgr by Titan was observable from Europe.

On November 6, 2010, three teams of astronomers using three different telescopes tracking the occultation of a 17th - magnitude star in the north - central part of Constellation Cetus by Eris revealed preliminary results indicating that the dwarf planet may be smaller in diameter than Pluto after all, based on the unexpectedly short times of occultation reported.

Not exact matches

According to the data obtained from the stellar occultation, the ring lies on the equatorial plane of the dwarf planet, just like its biggest satellite, Hi'iaka, and it displays a 3:1 resonance with respect to the rotation of Haumea, which means that the frozen particles which compose the ring rotate three times slower around the planet than it rotates around its own axis.

Elliot crater recognises James Elliot (1943 - 2011), an MIT researcher who pioneered the use of stellar occultations to study the Solar System — leading to discoveries such as the rings of Uranus and the first detection of Pluto's thin atmosphere.

A very efficient but complex method lies in the study of stellar occultations, or the passing of these objects in front of a star (like a small eclipse).

It is called radio occultation, or «RO,» as Conrad Lautenbacher, a former administrator of NOAA, likes to call it.

A detailed ozone model budget analysis was performed with simultaneous observations of O3, HCl, H2O, CH4, NO, and NO2 from the Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) under conditions with the strongest photochemical control of ozone.

[7] The rings of Uranus, and the ring arcs around Neptune, were found in a similar way during occultations in 1977 and 1984, respectively.

Schlichting's group found just a single occultation, caused by a KBO approximately one kilometer in diameter, in 4.5 years of observations.

These so - called occultation surveys are currently the best shot astronomers have at parsing the smallest constituents of the Kuiper Belt.

Even more exciting are the occultation results of Quaoar, a relatively large Kuiper Belt Object named after the creator god of the Tongva Native Americans.

But according to Brazilian physicist Felipe Braga Ribas of the Valongo Observatory in Rio de Janeiro, observations of a stellar occultation by Quaoar on 4 May 2011 indicate a much larger diameter, between 1045 and 1095 kilometers.

Whereas the lower atmosphere (at altitudes of less than 200 kilometers) is consistent with ground - based stellar occultations, the upper atmosphere is much colder and more compact than indicated by pre-encounter models.

That sampling rate was fast enough to discern that there were two flickers before and after the main occultation, or blockage of light — evidence of two dense, narrow rings with a small but distinct gap between them.

So if the occultation results hold up, then the density of Eris must be higher, 2.5 g / cm3 or more, and its albedo (reflectivity) at least 90 per cent.

The relatively brief occultation (it had been predicted to last nearly 2 minutes), combined with negative observations from a pair of telescopes in Argentina, suggested right away that Eris wasn't as large as thought.

«This is a good place for things like an occultation, like the transit of Venus in 2004,» Consolmagno says.

Specifically, they analyzed radio occultations — made when Voyager 2 sent radio waves through the rings to be detected back on Earth — and stellar occultations, made when the spacecraft measured the light of background stars shining through the rings, which helps reveal how much material they contain.

Most of what we know about MU69 comes from pictures taken during occultations — when the little rock passes between a bright star and our telescopes.

That's when telescope observations of distant stars going behind Pluto (known as stellar occultations) showed that it had a methane atmosphere, probably rapidly evaporating to space.

From studying the way the starlight dimmed, Marc Buie of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and James Elliot of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, reported 14 August that Pluto's atmospheric temperature has dropped some 20 kelvin since the last occultation in 1988.

Taiwan - American Occultation Survey Astronomers are using four small robotic telescopes to simultaneously scan the same patch of sky.

Meanwhile, astronomers had another chance of observing a stellar occultation by Pluto today, with telescopes at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

That is likely a reference to companies like Spire Global, which has launched a series of CubeSats to collect weather data by GPS radio occultation.

A double object with a smaller moon could explain why MU69 sometimes shifts its position from where scientists expect it to be during occultations, said New Horizons team member Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo..

A preview of 2014 MU69 revealed by HST and a ground - based stellar occultation.

From NASA: «Image is an artist's conception of the Pluto occultation seen close - up, not a photo.»

The two moons are shown to be strongly elongated, and composed of two lobes, as suggested by the recently observed occultation data by the moon Romulus.

Electron densities measured by radio - occultations (Pätzold et al. 2007) allow one to derive the overall structure of the ionosphere.

A map of the path of the occultation on January 6, 2013.

The first, shows the difference between the actual length of day and 86,400 SI seconds (24 hours) over the past two and a half thousand years estimated from records of various astronomical events (eclipses, planetary transits, occultations etc).

The Kepler occultation detection provides significant leverage, but conclusions regarding temperature structure are preliminary, given our ignorance of opacity sources at optical wavelengths in hot Jupiter atmospheres.

The observations taken during the occultation also gave more accurate details of the dwarf planet's size, showing it to be an oblate spheroid measuring 1,430 km by 1,500 km, making it about two - thirds the size of Pluto.

«The symmetry and structure of the occultation light curve is suggestive of an atmosphere with structure, in comparison to the absence of an atmosphere surrounding Pluto,» Delaney noted.

The Minor Planet section of the BAA handbook has been expanded to include data on; brighter asteroids, astrometry, occultations, photometry and NEO close approaches.

«The occultation light curve shows a structured decline in intensity rather than a precipitous decline indicative of an atmosphere surrounding Pluto,» said Paul Delaney, a senior lecturer of physics and astronomy at York University in Toronto.

Among the witnesses was Alexander (Sandy) MacDonald of Spire Global, one of the companies that plans to provide the type of data NOAA will use for the pilot project (GPS - Radio Occultation data).

The presence of an atmosphere dims a star's light more gradually, as can be seen in this image of Pluto with an occultation illustrated for context.

However, for a short time at the start and end of the occultation, Pluto's atmosphere was backlit by the star, and the starlight dimmed more gradually.

With the preparation of accurate predictions successful observation of asteroid occultations has now been recorded in the UK.

In a stellar occultation, a body such as a planet passes in front of a relatively bright star, and measuring the gradual dimming of starlight during such an event, scientists can amass a wide array of information about a planet, including its size, whether it has rings or if an atmosphere is present.

When astronomers graph the light data, a careful look at the gradual dimming of starlight shown in the occultation light curve reveals a «slight bend,» or «kink.»