46,063 research outputs found
Engineering knowledge requirements for sand and dust on Mars
The successful landing of human beings on Mars and the establishment of a permanent outpost there will require an understanding of the Martian environment by the engineers. A key feature of the Martian environment is the nearly ubiquitous presence of sand and dust. The process which the engineering community will undertake to determine the sensitivities of their designs to the current level of knowledge about Mars sand and dust is emphasized. The interaction of the engineering community with the space exploration initiative (SEI) mission planners and management is described
Multiple Environmental Externalities and Manure Management Policy
Livestock waste pollutes multiple environmental media along multiple dimensions. This study explores the economic and environmental implications of single-medium and coordinated multi-media policies for reducing manure-related externalities, with particular attention paid to tradeoffs that occur when policies designed to correct an externality in one medium ignore externalities in other media.Environmental Economics and Policy,
Optical Modulation in the X-Ray Binary 4U 1543-624 Revisited
The X-ray binary 4U 1543624 has been provisionally identified as an
ultracompact system with an orbital period of 18~min. We have carried
out time-resolved optical imaging of the binary to verify the ultra-short
orbital period. Using 140\,min of high-cadence -band photometry we recover
the previously-seen sinusoidal modulation and determine a period
\,min. In addition, we also see a 7.0\,mag\,min linear decay, likely related to variations in the
source's accretion activity. Assuming that the sinusoidal modulation arises
from X-ray heating of the inner face of the companion star, we estimate a
distance of 6.0--6.7\,kpc and an inclination angle of
34--61 (90\% confidence) for the binary. Given the
stability of the modulation we can confirm that the modulation is orbital in
origin and 4U 1543624 is an ultracompact X-ray binary.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Publications of the
Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA
Long-Wavelength Excesses in Two Highly Obscured High-Mass X-Ray Binaries: IGR J16318–4848 and GX 301–2
We present evidence for excess long-wavelength emission from two high-mass X-ray binaries, IGR J16318-4848 and GX 301-2, that show enormous obscuration (N_H ≃ 10^(23)-10^(24) cm^(-2)) in their X-ray spectra. Using archival near- and mid-infrared data, we show that the spectral energy distributions of IGR J16318-4848 and GX 301-2 are substantially higher in the mid-infrared than their expected stellar emission. We successfully fit the excesses with ~1000 K blackbodies, which suggests that they are due to warm circumstellar dust that also gives rise to the X-ray absorption. However, we need further observations to constrain the detailed properties of the excesses. This discovery highlights the importance of mid-infrared observations for understanding highly obscured X-ray binaries
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