Published in Science
In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew through the Pluto system at high speed, humanity's first close look at this enigmatic system on the outskirts of our solar system. In a series of papers, the New Horizons team present their analysis of the encounter data downloaded so far: Moore et al. present the complex surface features and geology o...
Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Results of the time variability monitoring of the two classical T Tauri stars, RU Lup and IM Lup, are presented. Three photometric data sets were utilized:(1) simultaneous (same field) MOST satellite observations over four weeks in each of the years 2012 and 2013,(2) multicolour observations at the South African Astronomical Observatory in April– M...
Published in Icarus
Orbital elements are presented for 70 of the 95 meteor showers considered “established” by the International Astronomical Union. From 2010 October 21 until 2013 March 31, the low-light-video based Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance project (CAMS) measured a total of 110,367 meteoroid trajectories and pre-atmospheric orbits from mostly− 2 to+ 4 ...
Published in The Astrophysical Journal
Determining which small exoplanets have stony-iron compositions is necessary for quantifying the occurrence of such planets and for understanding the physics of planet formation. Kepler-10 hosts the stony-iron world Kepler-10b, and also contains what has been reported to be the largest solid silicate-ice planet, Kepler-10c. Using 220 radial velocit...
Published in Icarus
Leading up to the 2015 IAU General Assembly, the International Astronomical Union s Working List of Meteor Showers included 486 unconfirmed showers, showers that are not certain to exist. If confirmed, each shower would provide a record of past comet or asteroid activity. Now, we report that 41 of these are detected in the Cameras for Allsky Meteor...
Published in Icarus
The Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) video-based meteoroid orbit survey adds 60 newly identified showers to the IAU Working List of Meteor Showers (numbers 427, 445–446, 506–507, and part of 643–750). 28 of these are also detected in the independent SonotaCo survey. In total, 230 meteor showers and shower components are identified in C...
Published in Icarus
Ammonium-bearing minerals have been suggested to be present on Mars, Ceres, and various asteroids and comets. We undertook a systematic study of the spectral reflectance properties of ammonium-bearing minerals and compounds that have possible planetary relevance (ie, ammonium carbonates, chlorides, nitrates, oxalates, phosphates, silicates, and sul...
Published in Icarus
We estimate an average dune migration of 0.8 m and a minimum ripple migration of 1.1 m in a time span of 3.7 Earth-years. These dunes and ripples are mainly shaped by prevailing winds coming from the north, however we also report the presence of secondary winds which elongate the barchans horns. Such a complex wind scenario is likely caused by the...
Published in arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.03204
We present a new automated method to identify instrumental features masquerading as small, long period planets in thecandidate catalog. These systematics, mistakenly identified as planet transits, can have a strong impact on occurrence rate calculations because they cluster in a region of parameter space where Kepler s sensitivity to planets is poo...
