您选择的条件: Shoucun Hu
  • Peculiar orbital characteristics of Earth quasi-satellite 469219 Kamo`oalewa: implications for the Yarkovsky detection and orbital uncertainty propagation

    分类: 地球科学 >> 空间物理学 分类: 其他 提交时间: 2024-06-08

    摘要: 469219 Kamo`oalewa is selected as one of the primary targets of Tianwen-2 mission, which is currently believed to be the most stable quasi-satellite of Earth. Here we derive a weak detection of the Yarkovsky effect for Kamo`oalewa, giving $A_2 = -1.075 pm0.447 times 10^{-13} rm{au/d}^2$, with the available ground-based optical observations from Minor Planet Center and a relatively conservative weighting scheme. Due to the quasi-satellite resonance with Earth, we show that the detection of Yarkovsky effect by orbital fitting with astrometric observations becomes difficult as its orbital drift shows a slow oscillatory growth resulting from the Yarkovsky effect. In addition, we extensively explore the characteristics of orbital uncertainty propagation and find that the positional uncertainty mainly arises from the geocentric radial direction in 2010-2020, and then concentrates in the heliocentric transverse direction in 2020-2030. Furthermore, the heliocentric transverse uncertainty is clearly monthly dependent, which can arrive at a minimum around January and a maximum around July as the orbit moves towards the leading and trailing edges, respectively, in 2025-2027. Finally, we investigate a long-term uncertainty propagation in the quasi-satellite regime, implying that the quasi-satellite resonance with Earth may play a crucial role in constraining the increase of uncertainty over time. Such interesting feature further implies that the orbital precision of Kamo`oalewa is relatively stable at its quasi-satellite phase, which may also be true for other quasi-satellites of Earth.

  • PyMsOfa: A Python Package for the Standards of Fundamental Astronomy (SOFA) Service

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2024-06-08

    摘要: The Standards of Fundamental Astronomy (SOFA) is a service provided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that offers algorithms and software for astronomical calculations, which was released in two versions by FORTRAN 77 and ANSI C, respectively. In this work, we implement the python package PyMsOfa for SOFA service by three ways: (1) a python wrapper package based on a foreign function library for Python (ctypes), (2) a python wrapper package with the foreign function interface for Python calling C code (cffi), and (3) a python package directly written in pure python codes from SOFA subroutines. The package PyMsOfa has fully implemented 247 functions of the original SOFA routines. In addition, PyMsOfa is also extensively examined, which is exactly consistent with those test examples given by the original SOFA. This python package can be suitable to not only the astrometric detection of habitable planets of the Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES) mission (Ji et al. 2022), but also for the frontiers themes of black holes and dark matter related to astrometric calculations and other fields. The source codes are available via https://github.com/CHES2023/PyMsOfa.

  • Mid-IR Observations of IRAS, AKARI, WISE/NEOWISE and Subaru for Large Icy Asteroid (704) Interamnia: a New Perspective of Regolith Properties and Water Ice Fraction

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: (704) Interamnia is one of the largest asteroids that locates in the outer main-belt region, which may contain a large amount of water ice underneath its surface. We observe this asteroid using 8.2 m Subaru telescope at mid-infrared wavebands, and utilize thermophysical model for realistic surface layers (RSTPM) to analyze mid-infrared data from Subaru along with those of IRAS, AKARI and WISE/NEOWISE. We optimize the method to convert the WISE magnitude to thermal infrared flux with temperature dependent color corrections, which can provide significant references for main-belt asteroids at a large heliocentric distance with low surface temperature. We derive best-fitting thermal parameters of Interamnia - a mean regolith grain size of $190_{-180}^{+460}~\rm \mu m$, with a roughness of $0.30_{-0.17}^{+0.35}$ and RMS slope of $27_{-9}^{+13}$ degrees, thereby producing thermal inertia ranging from 9 to $92~\rm Jm^{-2}s^{-1/2}K^{-1}$ due to seasonal temperature variation. The geometric albedo and effective diameter are evaluated to be $0.0472_{-0.0031}^{+0.0033}$ and $339_{-11}^{+12}~\rm km$, respectively, being indicative of a bulk density of $1.86\pm0.63~\rm g/cm^3$. The low thermal inertia is consistent with typical B/C-type asteroids with $D\geq100$ km. The tiny regolith grain size suggests the presence of a fine regolith on the surface of Interamnia. Moreover, the seasonal and diurnal temperature distribution indicates that thermal features between southern and northern hemisphere appear to be very different. Finally, we present an estimation of volume fraction of water ice of $9\%\sim66\%$ from the published grain density and porosity of carbonaceous chondrites.

  • Mid-IR Observations of IRAS, AKARI, WISE/NEOWISE and Subaru for Large Icy Asteroid (704) Interamnia: a New Perspective of Regolith Properties and Water Ice Fraction

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: (704) Interamnia is one of the largest asteroids that locates in the outer main-belt region, which may contain a large amount of water ice underneath its surface. We observe this asteroid using 8.2 m Subaru telescope at mid-infrared wavebands, and utilize thermophysical model for realistic surface layers (RSTPM) to analyze mid-infrared data from Subaru along with those of IRAS, AKARI and WISE/NEOWISE. We optimize the method to convert the WISE magnitude to thermal infrared flux with temperature dependent color corrections, which can provide significant references for main-belt asteroids at a large heliocentric distance with low surface temperature. We derive best-fitting thermal parameters of Interamnia - a mean regolith grain size of $190_{-180}^{+460}~\rm \mu m$, with a roughness of $0.30_{-0.17}^{+0.35}$ and RMS slope of $27_{-9}^{+13}$ degrees, thereby producing thermal inertia ranging from 9 to $92~\rm Jm^{-2}s^{-1/2}K^{-1}$ due to seasonal temperature variation. The geometric albedo and effective diameter are evaluated to be $0.0472_{-0.0031}^{+0.0033}$ and $339_{-11}^{+12}~\rm km$, respectively, being indicative of a bulk density of $1.86\pm0.63~\rm g/cm^3$. The low thermal inertia is consistent with typical B/C-type asteroids with $D\geq100$ km. The tiny regolith grain size suggests the presence of a fine regolith on the surface of Interamnia. Moreover, the seasonal and diurnal temperature distribution indicates that thermal features between southern and northern hemisphere appear to be very different. Finally, we present an estimation of volume fraction of water ice of $9\%\sim66\%$ from the published grain density and porosity of carbonaceous chondrites.

  • Orbital effects on time delay interferometry for TianQin

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The proposed space-borne laser interferometric gravitational wave (GW) observatory TianQin adopts a geocentric orbit for its nearly equilateral triangular constellation formed by three identical drag-free satellites. The geocentric distance of each satellite is $\approx 1.0 \times 10^{5} ~\mathrm{km}$, which makes the armlengths of the interferometer be $\approx 1.73 \times 10^{5} ~\mathrm{km}$. It is aimed to detect the GWs in $0.1 ~\mathrm{mHz}-1 ~\mathrm{Hz}$. For space-borne detectors, the armlengths are unequal and change continuously which results in that the laser frequency noise is nearly $7-8$ orders of magnitude higher than the secondary noises (such as acceleration noise, optical path noise, etc.). The time delay interferometry (TDI) that synthesizes virtual interferometers from time-delayed one-way frequency measurements has been proposed to suppress the laser frequency noise to the level that is comparable or below the secondary noises. In this work, we evaluate the performance of various data combinations for both first- and second-generation TDI based on the five-year numerically optimized orbits of the TianQin's satellites which exhibit the actual rotating and flexing of the constellation. We find that the time differences of symmetric interference paths of the data combinations are $\sim 10^{-8}$ s for the first-generation TDI and $\sim 10^{-12}$ s for the second-generation TDI, respectively. While the second-generation TDI is guaranteed to be valid for TianQin, the first-generation TDI is possible to be competent for GW signal detection with improved stabilization of the laser frequency noise in the concerned GW frequencies.