Search Publications
Comparison of the Asteroseismic Mass Scale of Red Clump Giants with Photometric Mass Estimates
Pinsonneault, Marc H.; Terndrup, Donald M.; Chung, Chul +1 more
Asteroseismology can provide joint constraints on masses and radii of individual stars. While this approach has been extensively tested for red giant branch (RGB) stars, it has been more difficult to test for helium core-burning red clump (RC) giants because of the lack of fundamental calibrators. To provide independent mass estimates, we utilize …
SOFIA/FORCAST Observations of the Sgr A-H H II Regions: Using Dust Emission to Elucidate the Heating Sources
Morris, M. R.; Mills, E. A. C.; Lau, R. M. +2 more
The Sgr A-H H II regions are a collection of sources that may represent one of the most recent sites of star formation in the Galactic center (GC). Examining these H II regions provides important information on the prevalence and distribution of massive stars in the region and may provide clues on the origin of other massive field stars throughout…
MUSE-AO view of the starburst-AGN connection: NGC 7130
Knapen, J. H.; Comerón, S.; Seidel, M. K.
We present the discovery of a small kinematically decoupled core of 0.″2 (60 pc) in radius as well as an outflow jet in the archetypical AGN-starburst "composite" galaxy NGC 7130 from integral field data obtained with the adaptive optics-assisted MUSE-NFM instrument on the VLT. Correcting the already good natural seeing at the time of our science …
Discovery of recombining plasma inside the extended gamma-ray supernova remnant HB9
Fukui, Y.; Sano, H.; Sezer, A. +2 more
We present the results from the Suzaku X-ray Imaging Spectrometer observation of the mixed-morphology supernova remnant (SNR) HB9 (G160.9+2.6). We discovered recombining plasma (RP) in the western Suzaku observation region and the spectra here are well described by a model having collisional ionization equilibrium (CIE) and RP components. On the o…
Modeling the Spatial Distribution and Origin of CO Gas in Debris Disks
Gorti, Uma; Carpenter, John M.; Hales, A. S. +2 more
The detection of gas in debris disks raises the question of whether this gas is a remnant from the primordial protoplanetary phase, or released by the collision of secondary bodies. In this paper we analyze ALMA observations at 1″-1.″5 resolution of three debris disks where the 12CO(2-1) rotational line was detected: HD 131835, HD 13881…
The color and binarity of (486958) 2014 MU69 and other long-range New Horizons Kuiper Belt targets
Stern, S. A.; Kavelaars, J. J.; Weaver, H. A. +9 more
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) measured the colors of eight Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) that will be observed by the New Horizons spacecraft including its 2019 close fly-by target the Cold Classical KBO (486958) 2014 MU69. We find that the photometric colors of all eight objects are red, typical of the Cold Classical dynamical populati…
Heavy negative ion growth in Titan's polar winter
Coates, A. J.; Jones, G. H.; Wellbrock, A. +4 more
A significant but unexpected result of the Cassini mission was the discovery of heavy organic negative ions in Titan's ionosphere at altitudes between about 950 and 1400 km by the CAPS Electron Spectrometer (ELS). The heaviest ions were observed during the T16 fly-by with masses over 13 000 u/q. This is significantly higher than the maximum masses…
Gemini Imaging of the Host Galaxies of Changing-look Quasars
Anderson, Scott F.; Eracleous, Michael; Haggard, Daryl +4 more
Changing-look (CL) quasars are a newly discovered class of luminous active galactic nuclei that undergo rapid (≲10 yr) transitions between Type 1 and Type 1.9/2, with an associated change in their continuum emission. We characterize the host galaxies of four faded CL quasars using broadband optical imaging. We use gri images obtained with the Gemi…
Solar wind charge exchange in cometary atmospheres. I. Charge-changing and ionization cross sections for He and H particles in H2O
Alho, Markku; Simon Wedlund, Cyril; Nilsson, Hans +7 more
Context. Solar wind charge-changing reactions are of paramount importance to the physico-chemistry of the atmosphere of a comet, mass-loading the solar wind through an effective conversion of fast light solar wind ions into slow heavy cometary ions.
Aims: To understand these processes and place them in the context of a solar wind plasma inter…
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…