Search Publications
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 Hipparcos has now been superseded by the results of the Gaia mission.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…
Faint objects in motion: the new frontier of high precision astrometry
Villaver, Eva; Alves, João; Chemin, Laurent +83 more
Sky survey telescopes and powerful targeted telescopes play complementary roles in astronomy. In order to investigate the nature and characteristics of the motions of very faint objects, a flexibly-pointed instrument capable of high astrometric accuracy is an ideal complement to current astrometric surveys and a unique tool for precision astrophys…
MeerCRAB: MeerLICHT classification of real and bogus transients using deep learning
Paterson, Kerry; Körding, Elmar; Woudt, Patrick +13 more
Astronomers require efficient automated detection and classification pipelines when conducting large-scale surveys of the (optical) sky for variable and transient sources. Such pipelines are fundamentally important, as they permit rapid follow-up and analysis of those detections most likely to be of scientific value. We therefore present a deep le…
Time domain astronomy with the THESEUS satellite
Mukai, K.; Campana, S.; Della Valle, M. +74 more
THESEUS is a medium size space mission of the European Space Agency, currently under evaluation for a possible launch in 2032. Its main objectives are to investigate the early Universe through the observation of gamma-ray bursts and to study the gravitational waves electromagnetic counterparts and neutrino events. On the other hand, its instrument…
The local dark sector
Rhodes, Jason; Bergé, Joel; Pernot-Borràs, Martin +18 more
We speculate on the development and availability of new innovative propulsion techniques in the 2040s, that will allow us to fly a spacecraft outside the Solar System (at 150 AU and more) in a reasonable amount of time, in order to directly probe our (gravitational) Solar System neighborhood and answer pressing questions regarding the dark sector …
Wide band, tunable gamma-ray lenses
Lund, Niels
A new concept for an astronomical telescope in the MeV energy band is presented. The concept builds on Bragg diffraction in crystals, which has been discussed in the past, but so far a design with good sensitivity over a wide energy range has seemed out of reach. In this paper we point out that if we find ways to adjust, in orbit, the individual t…
MVN experiment - All sky monitor for measuring cosmic X-ray background of the universe onboard the ISS
Lutovinov, A. A.; Molkov, S. V.; Pavlinsky, M. N. +6 more
The article describes the MVN experiment (MVN - Monitor Vsego Neba in Russian transliteration) - All Sky Monitor onboard the ISS, which will start in 2021. The main scientific task of the experiment is to measure the cosmic X-ray background in energy range of 6 - 70 keV with unprecedented high absolute and spectral accuracy (about 1%). To reach th…
Chronos - take the pulse of our galactic neighbourhood
Famaey, Benoit; Katz, David; Haywood, Misha +15 more
Understanding our Galaxy's structure, formation, and evolution will, over the next decades, continue to benefit from the wonderful large survey by Gaia, for astrometric, kinematic, and spectroscopic characterization, and by large spectroscopic surveys for chemical characterization. The weak link for full exploitation of these data is age character…