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SMART-1 mission to the Moon: Status, first results and goals
Schmidt, W.; Grande, M.; Keller, H. U. +19 more
We present the first results from SMART-1's science and technology payload. SMART-1 is Europe's first lunar mission and will provide some significant advances to many issues currently active in lunar science, such as our understanding of lunar origin and evolution. The mission also contributes a step in developing an international program of lunar…
HD3651B: the first directly imaged brown dwarf companion of an exoplanet host star
Mazeh, T.; Neuhäuser, R.; Mugrauer, M. +1 more
In the course of our ongoing multiplicity study of exoplanet host stars we detected a faint companion located at ~43arcsec (480au physical projected separation) north-west of its primary - the exoplanet host star HD3651 at 11pc. The companion, HD3651B, clearly shares the proper motion of the exoplanet host star in our four images, obtained with th…
Outflows from Massive Young Stellar Objects as Seen with the Infrared Array Camera
Smith, Howard A.; Marengo, M.; Hora, J. L. +1 more
The bipolar outflow from the massive star-forming cluster in DR 21 is one of the most powerful known, and in IRAC images the outflow stands out by virtue of its brightness at 4.5 µm (band 2). Indeed, IRAC images of many Galactic and extragalactic star formation regions feature prominent band 2 morphologies. We have analyzed archival ISO SWS …
Structure and dynamics of a new class of thin current sheets
Sitnov, M. I.; Runov, A.; Swisdak, M. +1 more
New results on a steady state Vlasov theory of current sheets, which generalizes the Harris (1962) model by assuming anisotropic and nongyrotropic plasmas and using the invariant of particle motion in regions of strong gradients, are presented with the aim to explain multiprobe observations of thin current sheets in the geomagnetotail and laborato…
Properties of Flares-Generated Seismic Waves on the Sun
Kosovichev, A. G.
The helioseismic waves excited by solar flares ("sunquakes") are observed as circular, expanding waves on the Sun's surface. The first sunquake was observed for a flare on July 9, 1996, by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) space mission. This paper presents results of new observations and a detailed qualitative analysis of the basic pr…
An Overdensity of Galaxies near the Most Distant Radio-loud Quasar
Ford, H. C.; Demarco, R.; Infante, L. +41 more
A 5 arcmin2 region around the luminous radio-loud quasar SDSS J0836+0054 (z=5.8) hosts a wealth of associated galaxies, characterized by very red (1.3<i775-z850<2.0) color. The surface density of these z~5.8 candidates is approximately 6 times higher than the number expected from deep ACS fields. This is one …
Magnetic Causes of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections: Dominance of the Free Magnetic Energy over the Magnetic Twist Alone
Falconer, D. A.; Moore, R. L.; Gary, G. A.
We examine the magnetic causes of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) by examining, along with the correlations of active-region magnetic measures with each other, the correlations of these measures with active-region CME productivity observed in time windows of a few days, either centered on or extending forward from the day of the magnetic measurement…
The Second Ring-Moon System of Uranus: Discovery and Dynamics
Showalter, Mark R.; Lissauer, Jack J.
Deep exposures of Uranus taken with the Hubble Space Telescope reveal two small moons and two faint rings. All of them orbit outside of Uranus's previously known (main) ring system but are interior to the large, classical moons. The outer new moon, U XXVI Mab, orbits at roughly twice the radius of the main rings and shares its orbit with a dust ri…
Ion composition and pressure changes in storm time and nonstorm substorms in the vicinity of the near-Earth neutral line
Lundin, R.; Dandouras, I.; Lucek, E. +9 more
Using CLUSTER/CODIF data from close to ∼19 Re in the magnetotail, we have performed a superposed epoch analysis of storm time and nonstorm substorms to determine how the ion composition changes during a substorm. We find that the median O+ density and pressure in the plasma sheet are a factor of 5 higher during storm times than during n…
A Galactic Origin for the Local Ionized X-Ray Absorbers
Canizares, Claude R.; Wolfire, Mark; Fang, Taotao +1 more
Recent Chandra and XMM-Newton observations of distant quasars have shown strong local (z~0) X-ray absorption lines from highly ionized gas, primarily He-like oxygen. The nature of these X-ray absorbers, i.e., whether they are part of the hot gas associated with the Milky Way or part of the intragroup medium in the Local Group, remains a puzzle due…