Measurements of Faraday Rotation Through the Solar Corona During the 2009 Solar Minimum with the MESSENGER Spacecraft     

Elizabeth A. Jensen  Mario M. Bisi  Andrew R. Breen  Carl Heiles  Toney Minter  Faith Vilas 《Solar physics》2013,285(1-2):83-95

Measurements of Faraday rotation through the solar corona were collected using the radio beacon aboard the MESSENGER spacecraft during the longest solar minimum in a century. As MESSENGER entered superior conjunction, the plane of polarization of its radio signal was observed to rotate as it traversed the circularly birefringent plasma of the Sun’s atmosphere. On time scales of less than three hours, these uncalibrated plane of polarization observations of Faraday rotation can be used to investigate the dynamic processes in the solar plasma, such as magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Here we describe the MESSENGER Faraday rotation experiment, the data processing conducted to obtain the plane of polarization, and the estimation of error.  相似文献   

The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph: on-orbit instrument performance     

S. Osterman  J. Green  C. Froning  S. B��land  E. Burgh  K. France  S. Penton  T. Delker  D. Ebbets  D. Sahnow  J. Bacinski  R. Kimble  J. Andrews  E. Wilkinson  J. McPhate  O. Siegmund  T. Ake  A. Aloisi  C. Biagetti  R. Diaz  W. Dixon  S. Friedman  P. Ghavamian  P. Goudfrooij  G. Hartig  C. Keyes  D. Lennon  D. Massa  S. Niemi  C. Oliveira  R. Osten  C. Proffitt  T. Smith  D. Soderblom 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2011,335(1):257-265

The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) was installed in the Hubble Space Telescope in May, 2009 as part of Servicing Mission 4 to provide high sensitivity, medium and low resolution spectroscopy at far- and near-ultraviolet wavelengths (FUV, NUV). COS is the most sensitive FUV/NUV spectrograph flown to date, spanning the wavelength range from 900 Å to 3200 Å with peak effective area approaching 3000 cm². This paper describes instrument design, the results of the Servicing Mission Orbital Verification (SMOV), and the ongoing performance monitoring program.  相似文献   

Measurement requirements for a Near-Earth Asteroid impact mitigation demonstration mission   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Stephen D. Wolters  Andrew J. Ball  Nigel Wells  Christopher Saunders  Neil McBride 《Planetary and Space Science》2011,59(13):1506-1515

A concept for an Impact Mitigation Preparation Mission, called Don Quijote, is to send two spacecrafts to a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA): an Orbiter and an Impactor. The Impactor collides with the asteroid while the Orbiter measures the resulting change in the asteroid's orbit, by means of a Radio Science Experiment (RSE) carried out before and after the impact. Three parallel Phase A studies on Don Quijote were carried out for the European Space Agency: the research presented here reflects the outcomes of the study by QinetiQ. We discuss the mission objectives with regard to the prioritisation of payload instruments, with emphasis on the interpretation of the impact. The Radio Science Experiment is described and it is examined how solar radiation pressure may increase the uncertainty in measuring the orbit of the target asteroid. It is determined that to measure the change in orbit accurately a thermal IR spectrometer is mandatory, to measure the Yarkovsky effect. The advantages of having a laser altimeter are discussed. The advantages of a dedicated wide-angle impact camera are discussed and the field-of-view is initially sized through a simple model of the impact.  相似文献   

Ensemble properties of comets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey     

Michael Solontoi  Željko Ivezić  Mario Jurić  Andrew C. Becker  Lynne Jones  Andrew A. West  Steve Kent  Robert H. Lupton  Mark Claire  Gillian R. Knapp  Tom Quinn  James E. Gunn  Donald P. Schneider 《Icarus》2012,218(1):571-584

We present the ensemble properties of 31 comets (27 resolved and 4 unresolved) observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This sample of comets represents about 1 comet per 10 million SDSS photometric objects. Five-band (u, g, r, i, z) photometry is used to determine the comets’ colors, sizes, surface brightness profiles, and rates of dust production in terms of the Afρ formalism. We find that the cumulative luminosity function for the Jupiter Family Comets in our sample is well fit by a power law of the form N(<H) ∝ 10^{(0.49±0.05)H} for H < 18, with evidence of a much shallower fit N(<H) ∝ 10^{(0.19±0.03)H} for the faint (14.5 < H < 18) comets. The resolved comets show an extremely narrow distribution of colors (0.57 ± 0.05 in g ? r for example), which are statistically indistinguishable from that of the Jupiter Trojans. Further, there is no evidence of correlation between color and physical, dynamical, or observational parameters for the observed comets.  相似文献   

Galacticus: A semi-analytic model of galaxy formation     

Andrew J. Benson 《New Astronomy》2012,17(2):175-197

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Advected fields in maps: II. Dynamo action in the stretch–fold–shear map     

Andrew D. Gilbert 《地球物理与天体物理流体动力学》2013,107(3):241-269

The growth of magnetic field is considered in the stretch–fold–shear map in the limit of weak diffusion. Numerical results are given for insulating, perfectly conducting and periodic boundary conditions. The resulting eigenvalue branches and magnetic fields are related to eigenvalue branches for perfect dynamo action, obtained for zero diffusion using a complex variable formulation.

The effect of diffusion on these perfect dynamo modes depends on their structure, growth rate and the diffusive boundary conditions employed. In some cases, the effect of diffusion is a small perturbation, giving a correction going to zero in the limit of weak diffusion, with a scaling exponent given analytically. In other cases weak diffusion can entirely destroy a perfect dynamo branch. Diffusive boundary layers can also generate entirely new branches.

These different cases are elucidated, and within the framework of the asymptotic approximations used (which do not constitute a rigorous proof), it is seen that for all three boundary conditions employed, the stretch–fold–shear map is a fast dynamo.  相似文献   

Magnetic Helicity in fast dynamos     

Andrew Gilbert 《地球物理与天体物理流体动力学》2013,107(2):135-151

The behaviour of magnetic helicity in kinematic dynamos at large magnetic Reynolds number is considered. Hughes, et al . [ Phys. Lett. A 223 , 167-172 (1996)] observe that the relative helicity tends to zero in the limit of large magnetic Reynolds number. This paper gives upper bounds on the helicity, by relating the helicity spectrum to the energy spectrum. These bounds are confirmed by numerical simulation and the distribution of helicity over scales is considered. Although it is found that the total helicity becomes small in the limit of high conductivity, there can remain significant, but cancelling, helicity at large and small scales of the field. This is illustrated by considering the evolution of helicity in the stretch-twist-fold dynamo picture.  相似文献   

The second generation of post-socialist change: Gorky Park and public space in Moscow     

Alexander Kalyukin  Andrew Byerley 《Urban geography》2013,34(5):674-695

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CHEMICAL WEATHERING PROCESSES ON THE VANTAGE PEAK NUNATAK,JUNEAU ICEFIELD,SOUTHERN ALASKA     

John C. Dixon  Colin E. Thorn  Robert G. Darmody 《自然地理学》2013,34(2):111-131

On the Vantage Peak nunatak in the Juneau Icefield of southeastern Alaska, grus and soils display evidence of extensive chemical alteration in a self-evidently periglacial environment. Accompanying the alteration of bedrock to grus and soil is a decrease in grain size. Grus is dominated by very coarse sand while the soils are predominantly fine sand. Grain-size reduction is attributed primarily to mineral grain dissolution. Total chemical analyses show that alkali earths (calcium and magnesium) and alkalis (sodium and potassium) are lost as weathering progresses, while silicon and iron increase relative to resistant elements. Secondary clay minerals present in the grus and soils appear to have been derived from clay-size primary minerals. Vermiculite is the principal secondary clay mineral and appears to have formed by the alteration of biotite. Scanning electron microscopy shows that quartz and feldspars are primarily weathered by dissolution with no evidence of feldspar transformation to secondary clays. Superimposed on these weathering transformations is evidence of eolian processes. Chemical weathering processes, notably dissolution and clay mineral transformation, do occur in the periglacial environment of the Vantage Peak nunatak and are clearly an important component of the periglacial geomorphic process suite.  相似文献   

Comparison of dew point temperature estimation methods in Southwestern Georgia     

Marcus D. Williams  Scott L. Goodrick  Andrew Grundstein  Marshall Shepherd 《自然地理学》2013,34(4):255-267

Recent upward trends in acres irrigated have been linked to increasing near-surface moisture. Unfortunately, stations with dew point data for monitoring near-surface moisture are sparse. Thus, models that estimate dew points from more readily observed data sources are useful. Daily average dew temperatures were estimated and evaluated at 14 stations in Southwest Georgia using linear regression models and artificial neural networks (ANN). Estimation methods were drawn from simple and readily available meteorological observations, therefore only temperature and precipitation were considered as input variables. In total, three linear regression models and 27 ANN were analyzed. The two methods were evaluated using root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and other model evaluation techniques to assess the skill of the estimation methods. Both methods produced adequate estimates of daily averaged dew point temperatures, with the ANN displaying the best overall skill. The optimal performance of both models was during the warm season. Both methods had higher error associated with colder dew points, potentially due to the lack of observed values at those ranges. On average, the ANN reduced RMSE by 6.86% and MAE by 8.30% when compared to the best performing linear regression model.  相似文献