Search Publications
MOA-bin-29b: A Microlensing Gas-giant Planet Orbiting a Low-mass Host Star
Soszyński, I.; Szymański, M. K.; Mróz, P. +34 more
We report the discovery of a gas-giant planet orbiting a low-mass host star in the microlensing event MOA-bin-29 that occurred in 2006. We find five degenerate solutions with the planet/host-star mass ratio of q ∼ 10-2. The Einstein radius crossing time of all models are relatively short (∼4-7 days), which indicates that the mass of hos…
Analysis of HST WFPC2 Observations of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 while in Outburst to Place Constraints on the Nucleus’ Rotation State
Schambeau, Charles A.; Fernández, Yanga R.; Samarasinha, Nalin H. +2 more
We present analysis of Hubble Space Telescope observations of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 (SW1) while in outburst to characterize the outburst coma and place constraints on the nucleus’ spin state. The observations consist of Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images from Cycle 5, GO-5829 acquired on UT 1996 March 11.3 and 12.1, whic…
A Pluto-Charon Sonata: Dynamical Limits on the Masses of the Small Satellites
Kenyon, Scott J.; Bromley, Benjamin C.
During 2005-2012, images from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) revealed four moons orbiting Pluto-Charon. Although their orbits and geometric shapes are well-known, the 2σ uncertainties in the masses of the two largest satellites—Nix and Hydra—are comparable to their HST masses. Remarkably, gravitational n-body computer calculations of the long-term s…
AXS: A Framework for Fast Astronomical Data Processing Based on Apache Spark
Bellm, Eric C.; Golkhou, V. Zach; Jurić, Mario +5 more
We introduce AXS (Astronomy eXtensions for Spark), a scalable open-source astronomical data analysis framework built on Apache Spark, a widely used industry-standard engine for big-data processing. Building on capabilities present in Spark, AXS aims to enable querying and analyzing almost arbitrarily large astronomical catalogs using familiar Pyth…
Super Metal-rich Stars in the LAMOST Survey: A Test on Radial Migration
Tian, H.; Zhao, G.; Chen, Y. Q. +5 more
Super metal-rich stars with [Fe/H] > 0.4 are selected from LAMOST DR6, and two groups, the blue and the red, are found in the T eff versus logg diagram with a temperature gap between them. In combination with Gaia DR2, stellar positions, velocities, and orbits are calculated, and spatial distributions, kinematical properties, and orb…
CALSPEC: Wide Field Camera 3 Infrared Grism Spectrophotometry
Bohlin, Ralph C.; Deustua, Susana E.
The collections of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) CALSPEC database are augmented by 19 infrared (IR) SEDs from Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) IR grism spectra. Together, the two IR grisms, G102 and G141, cover the 0.8-1.7 µm range with resolutions of R = 200 and 150, respectively. These new WFC3 SEDs ove…
The Trans-Neptunian Object (84922) 2003 VS2 through Stellar Occultations
Bérard, D.; Brosch, N.; Maury, A. +50 more
We present results from three world-wide campaigns that resulted in the detections of two single-chord and one multi-chord stellar occultations by the plutino object (84922) 2003 VS2. From the single-chord occultations in 2013 and 2014 we obtained accurate astrometric positions for the object, while from the multi-chord occultation on 2…
A Near-infrared View of Nearby Galaxies: The Case of NGC 6300
Díaz, R. J.; Agüero, M. P.; Gaspar, G. +3 more
We present a near-infrared study of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 6300, based on subarcsecond images and long slit spectroscopy obtained with Flamingos-2 at Gemini South. We have found that the peak of the nuclear continuum emission in the K s band and the surrounding nuclear disk are 25 pc off-center with respect to the center of symmetry…
KELT-23Ab: A Hot Jupiter Transiting a Near-solar Twin Close to the TESS and JWST Continuous Viewing Zones
Bieryla, Allyson; Latham, David W.; Quinn, Samuel N. +55 more
We announce the discovery of KELT-23Ab, a hot Jupiter transiting the relatively bright (V = 10.3) star BD+66 911 (TYC 4187-996-1), and characterize the system using follow-up photometry and spectroscopy. A global fit to the system yields host-star properties of {T}eff} =5900+/- 49 K, {M}* ={0.945}-0.054+0.060<…
Thermal Emission in the Southwest Clump of VY CMa
Humphreys, Roberta M.; Stone, Jordan; Ertel, Steve +6 more
We present high spatial resolution LBTI/NOMIC 9-12 µm images of VY CMa and its massive outflow feature, the Southwest (SW) Clump. Combined with high-resolution imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope (0.4-1 µm) and LBT/LMIRCam (1-5µm), we isolate the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the clump from the star itself. Using radi…