2,104 research outputs found
Skylab 3 and 4 science demonstrations: Preliminary report
Twelve science demonstrations were accomplished on the Skylab 3 and 4 missions. These were defined in response to crew requests for time-gap fillers and were designed to be accomplished using onboard equipment. The following 12 are described and the preliminary results are given: liquid floating zone; diffusion in liquids; ice melting; immiscible liquids; liquid films; gyroscope; Rochelle salt growth; deposition of silver crystals; fluid mechanics series; neutron environment; orbital mechanics; and charged particle mobility
Commerce Laboratory: Mission analysis payload integration study
A mission model which will accommodate commercial users and provide a basic data base for further mission planning is reported. The data bases to be developed are: (1) user requirements; (2) apparatus capabilities and availabilities; and (3) carrier capabilities. These data bases are synthesized in a trades and analysis phase along with the STS flight apparatus, and optimum missions will be identified. The completed work is reported. The user requirements data base was expanded to identify within the six scientific disciplines the areas of investigation, investigation categories and status, potential commercial application, interested parties, process, and experiment requirements. The scope of the apparatus data base was expanded to indicate apparatus status as to whether it is ground or flight equipment and, within both categories, whether the apparatus is: (1) existing, (2) under development, (3) planned, or (4) needed. Applications for the apparatus are listed. The methodology is revised in the areas of trades and analysis and mission planning. The carrier capabilities data base was updated and completed
A microscopic study of solid/liquid phase change in several members of the paraffin family
Microscopic study of solid/liquid phase change in several members of paraffin famil
Pegasus thermal design
Electronic and micrometeoroid detector panels for Pegasus thermal desig
Consequences of a Distant Massive Planet on the Large Semi-major Axis Trans-Neptunian Objects
We explore the distant giant planet hypothesis by integrating the large
semi-major axis, large pericenter Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) in the
presence of the giant planets and an external perturber whose orbit is
consistent with the proposed distant, eccentric, and inclined giant planet, so
called planet 9. We find that TNOs with semi-major axes greater than 250 au
experience some longitude of perihelion shepherding, but that a generic outcome
of such evolutions is that the TNOs evolve to larger pericenter orbits, and
commonly get raised to retrograde inclinations. This pericenter and inclination
evolution requires a massive disk of TNOs (tens of M_\Earth) in order to
explain the detection of the known sample today. Some of the highly inclined
orbits produced by the examined perturbers will be inside of the orbital
parameter space probed by prior surveys, implying a missing signature of the
9th planet scenario. The distant giant planet scenarios explored in this work
do not reproduce the observed signal of simultaneous clustering in argument of
pericenter, longitude of the ascending node, and longitude of perihelion in the
region of the known TNOs
Ensemble prediction for nowcasting with a convection-permitting model - II: forecast error statistics
A 24-member ensemble of 1-h high-resolution forecasts over the Southern United Kingdom is used to study short-range forecast error statistics. The initial conditions are found from perturbations from an ensemble transform Kalman filter. Forecasts from this system are assumed to lie within the bounds of forecast error of an operational forecast system. Although noisy, this system is capable of producing physically reasonable statistics which are analysed and compared to statistics implied from a variational assimilation system. The variances for temperature errors for instance show structures that reflect convective activity. Some variables, notably potential temperature and specific humidity perturbations, have autocorrelation functions that deviate from 3-D isotropy at the convective-scale (horizontal scales less than 10 km). Other variables, notably the velocity potential for horizontal divergence perturbations, maintain 3-D isotropy at all scales. Geostrophic and hydrostatic balances are studied by examining correlations between terms in the divergence and vertical momentum equations respectively. Both balances are found to decay as the horizontal scale decreases. It is estimated that geostrophic balance becomes less important at scales smaller than 75 km, and hydrostatic balance becomes less important at scales smaller than 35 km, although more work is required to validate these findings. The implications of these results for high-resolution data assimilation are discussed
Spectroscopy and thermal modelling of the first interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua
During the formation and evolution of the Solar System, significant numbers of cometary and asteroidal bodies were ejected into interstellar space. It is reasonable to expect that the same happened for planetary systems other than our own. Detection of such interstellar objects would allow us to probe the planetesimal formation processes around other stars, possibly together with the effects of long-term exposure to the interstellar medium. 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua is the first known interstellar object, discovered by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in October 2017. The discovery epoch photometry implies a highly elongated body with radii of ~ 200 × 20 m when a comet-like geometric albedo of 0.04 is assumed. The observable interstellar object population is expected to be dominated by comet-like bodies in agreement with our spectra, yet the reported inactivity of 'Oumuamua implies a lack of surface ice. Here, we report spectroscopic characterization of ‘Oumuamua, finding it to be variable with time but similar to organically rich surfaces found in the outer Solar System. We show that this is consistent with predictions of an insulating mantle produced by long-term cosmic ray exposure. An internal icy composition cannot therefore be ruled out by the lack of activity, even though ‘Oumuamua passed within 0.25 au of the Sun
TRIPPy: Trailed Image Photometry in Python
Photometry of moving sources typically suffers from reduced signal-to-noise
(SNR) or flux measurements biased to incorrect low values through the use of
circular apertures. To address this issue we present the software package,
TRIPPy: TRailed Image Photometry in Python. TRIPPy introduces the pill
aperture, which is the natural extension of the circular aperture appropriate
for linearly trailed sources. The pill shape is a rectangle with two
semicircular end-caps, and is described by three parameters, the trail length
and angle, and the radius. The TRIPPy software package also includes a new
technique to generate accurate model point-spread functions (PSF) and trailed
point-spread functions (TSF) from stationary background sources in sidereally
tracked images. The TSF is merely the convolution of the model PSF, which
consists of a moffat profile, and super sampled lookup table. From the TSF,
accurate pill aperture corrections can be estimated as a function of pill
radius with a accuracy of 10 millimags for highly trailed sources. Analogous to
the use of small circular apertures and associated aperture corrections, small
radius pill apertures can be used to preserve signal-to-noise of low flux
sources, with appropriate aperture correction applied to provide an accurate,
unbiased flux measurement at all SNR.Comment: 8 Figures, 11 Pages, Accepted to the Astronomical Journa
OSSOS: XXVII. Population Estimates for Theoretically Stable Centaurs Between Uranus and Neptune
We calculate the upper bounds of the population of theoretically stable
Centaur orbits between Uranus and Neptune. These small bodies are on
low-eccentricity, low-inclination orbits in two specific bands of semi-major
axis, centred at 24.6 au and 25.6 au. They exhibit unusually long
Gyr-stable lifetimes in previously published numerical integrations, orders of
magnitude longer than that of a typical Centaur. Despite the increased breadth
and depth of recent solar system surveys, no such objects have been found.
Using the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) survey simulator to
calculate the detection efficiency for these objects in an ensemble of fully
characterised surveys, we determine that a population of 72 stable Centaurs
with absolute magnitude ( confidence upper limit) could
remain undetected. The upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will be
able to detect this entire intrinsic population due to its complete coverage of
the ecliptic plane. If detected, these objects will be interesting
dynamically-accessible mission targets -- especially as comparison of the
stable Centaur orbital phase space to the outcomes of several modern planetary
migration simulations suggests that these objects could be close to primordial
in nature.Comment: Accepted to PSJ. 8 pages, 3 figures. Comments welcom
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