Search Publications
A journey of exploration to the polar regions of a star: probing the solar poles and the heliosphere from high helio-latitude
Schmutz, W.; Fineschi, Silvano; Romoli, Marco +29 more
A mission to view the solar poles from high helio-latitudes (above 60°) will build on the experience of Solar Orbiter as well as a long heritage of successful solar missions and instrumentation (e.g. SOHO Domingo et al. (Solar Phys. 162(1-2), 1-37 1995), STEREO Howard et al. (Space Sci. Rev. 136(1-4), 67-115 2008), Hinode Kosugi et al. (Solar Phys…
Cometary plasma science
Gunell, H.; Glassmeier, K. -H.; Andre, N. +27 more
Comets hold the key to the understanding of our Solar System, its formation and its evolution, and to the fundamental plasma processes at work both in it and beyond it. A comet nucleus emits gas as it is heated by the sunlight. The gas forms the coma, where it is ionised, becomes a plasma, and eventually interacts with the solar wind. Besides thes…
On the synergy between Ariel and ground-based high-resolution spectroscopy
Sozzetti, Alessandro; Bonomo, Aldo S.; Guilluy, Gloria +2 more
Since the first discovery of an extra-solar planet around a main-sequence star, in 1995, the number of detected exoplanets has increased enormously. Over the past two decades, observational instruments (both onboard and on ground-based facilities) have revealed an astonishing diversity in planetary physical features (i. e. mass and radius), and or…
Orbit determination methods for interplanetary missions: development and use of the Orbit14 software
Schettino, Giulia; Serra, Daniele; Tommei, Giacomo +1 more
In the last years, a new generation of interplanetary space missions have been designed for the exploration of the solar system. At the same time, radio-science instrumentation has reached an unprecedented level of accuracy, leading to a significant improvement of our knowledge of celestial bodies. Along with this hardware upgrade, software produc…
Mars and the ESA Science Programme - the case for Mars polar science
Becerra, P.; Thomas, Nicolas; Smith, I. B.
Current plans within the European Space Agency (ESA) for the future investigation of Mars (after the ExoMars programme) are centred around participation in the Mars Sample Return (MSR) programme led by NASA. This programme is housed within the Human and Robotic Exploration (HRE) Directorate of ESA. This White Paper, in response to the Voyage 2050 …
ICARUS: in-situ studies of the solar corona beyond Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter
Krucker, Säm; Sorriso-Valvo, Luca; Bruno, Roberto +51 more
The primary scientific goal of ICARUS (Investigation of Coronal AcceleRation and heating of solar wind Up to the Sun), a mother-daughter satellite mission, proposed in response to the ESA "Voyage 2050" Call, will be to determine how the magnetic field and plasma dynamics in the outer solar atmosphere give rise to the corona, the solar wind, and th…
Ancillary science with ARIEL: feasibility and scientific potential of young stellar object observations
Morales, J. C.; Ábrahám, P.; Kóspál, Á. +7 more
To investigate the feasibility of ancillary target observations with ESA's ARIEL mission, we compiled a list of potentially interesting young stars: FUors, systems harbouring extreme debris discs and a larger sample of young stellar objects showing strong near/mid-infrared excess. These objects can be observed as additional targets in the waiting …
The CHEOPS mission
Guterman, P.; Alonso, R.; Deleuil, M. +107 more
The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) was selected on October 19, 2012, as the first small mission (S-mission) in the ESA Science Programme and successfully launched on December 18, 2019, as a secondary passenger on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. CHEOPS is a partnership between ESA and Switzerland with important contri…
Exploring the foundations of the physical universe with space tests of the equivalence principle
Métris, Gilles; Rodrigues, Manuel; Loriani, Sina +34 more
We present the scientific motivation for future space tests of the equivalence principle, and in particular the universality of free fall, at the 10− 17 level or better. Two possible mission scenarios, one based on quantum technologies, the other on electrostatic accelerometers, that could reach that goal are briefly discussed. This pub…
All-sky visible and near infrared space astrometry
Tanga, Paolo; Ting, Yuan-Sen; Zwitter, Tomaž +27 more
The era of all-sky space astrometry began with the Hipparcos mission in 1989 and provided the first very accurate catalogue of apparent magnitudes, positions, parallaxes and proper motions of 120 000 bright stars at the milliarcsec (or milliarcsec per year) accuracy level. Hipparcos has now been superseded by the results of the Gaia mission. The s…