SOHO Discovers Its 1,500th Comet Jul 2, 2008
10, 2006) Polish amateur comet hunter Arkadiusz Kubczak recently discovered his third comet in SOHO LASCO coronagraph images, but this one was special: the 1000th SOHO comet discovery in the Kreutz group of. (Jan. (Science Daily)
Northrop Grumman Awarded Five Study Contracts for Next Generation Astronomy Missions Apr 3, 2008
-- A mission called Actively-Corrected Coronagraphs for Exoplanet System Studies (ACCESS) to directly image giant planets around nearby stars using a medium-size coronagraph ... -- A mission called Dilute Aperture Visible Nulling Coronagraph Imager (DAVINCI) for exoplanet exploration using multiple telescopes and a specially designed visible nulling interferometer to detect Earth-like planets. (Primezone Releases)
Planet in Progress? Evidence Of A Huge Planet Forming In Star System Mar 27, 2008
Oppenheimer and his colleagues circumvented this glare by attaching a coronagraph to a unique U.S. Air Force telescope on Maui, Hawaii ... The Lyot Project coronagraph, built on a floating table in a clean-room optics lab at the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the Museum and named for the French astronomer who invented solar coronagraphy, blocks light from the center of the image of a nearby star to reveal faint objects around it ... Stellar coronagraphs have been routinely used for several... (Science Daily)
Photo suggests planet under construction Mar 27, 2008
Oppenheimer and his colleagues blocked out most of the stellar glare by attaching a coronagraph they had developed to a U.S. Air Force telescope on Maui, Hawaii. They also used polarization filters, which show light scattered off the disk. (USA Today -- Tech)
Circumstellar Dust Takes Flight In 'The Moth' Jan 18, 2008
Hines then teamed with Glenn Schneider of the University of Arizona to use Hubble's high-contrast imaging capability of the NICMOS coronagraph to image these disks and reveal where the dust detected by Spitzer resides. The NICMOS coronagraph blocked out the starlight so that astronomers could see details in the surrounding disk. (Science Daily)
SOHO's New Catch: Its First Officially Periodic Comet Oct 1, 2007
For the first time, SOHO s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) has found a rare type of comet called a periodic comet (which flies by the Sun at regular intervals). While many SOHO comets are believed to be periodic, this is the first one that has been conclusively proven and officially declared as such. (Science Daily)
SOHO Mission Discovers Rare Comet Sep 27, 2007
Hoenig's prediction proved to be extremely accurate -- the comet reappeared in SOHO's Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph camera right on schedule and has now been given the official designation of P/2007 R5 (SOHO). The credit for original discovery and recovery of the object goes to Terry Lovejoy (Australia, 1999), Kazimieras Cernis (Lithuania, 2003) and Bo Zhou (China, 2007). (PR Newswire)
Detecting Extra-solar Planets Now Easier With New ESO Imaging Spectrograph Jun 23, 2007
Observing the image of a faint object that lies close to a star is a demanding task as the object is generally hidden in the glare of the star. Characterising this object, by taking spectra, is an even harder challenge. (Science Daily)
Hidden Planet Pushes Star's Ring A Billion Miles Off-center Jun 15, 2007
Using a device called a coronagraph that blocks out a star's light so dimmer objects near it can be seen, the Hubble revealed that Fomalhaut was indeed off-center within its ring ... These telescopes will be equipped with sophisticated coronagraphs that can block out Formalhaut's light enough to let the planets themselves shine through. (Science Daily)
Needed: Radiation Storms Warning May 30, 2007
SOHO has an instrument that can see CMEs (the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph), and an instrument that detects their radiation (the Energetic and Relativistic Nucleon and Electron experiment). Wind has an instrument that can pick up a CME's radio signal (The Radio and Plasma Wave experiment). (SkyAndTelescope.com)
NASA plans trio of sun-watching missions May 10, 2007
But SOHO's Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment coronagraphs, which routinely called coronal mass ejections, can't be matched by either STEREO or SDO. These major storms sometimes slam into Earth, threatening satellites, communications and even terrestrial power grids ... One set of instruments aboard SOHO monitors solar activity in the disk itself, and once the charged ejections reach the outer atmosphere LASCO's coronagraphs take over, tracking the event in interplanetary space... (MSNBC -- Technology)
Get Your 3D Glasses to View Our Sun in 3D! Apr 25, 2007
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is an ejection of material from the solar corona, usually observed with a white-light coronagraph. The ejected material is a plasma consisting primarily of electrons and protons (in addition to small quantities of heavier elements such as helium, oxygen, and iron), plus the entrained coronal magnetic field. (Playfuls.com)
NASA: Telescope Could Detect Earth Twin Apr 13, 2007
have shown that a fairly simple coronagraph -- an instrument used to mask a star's glare -- paired with an adjustable mirror, could enable a space telescope to image a distant planet 10 billion times fainter than its central star. A paper detailing the research by JPL scientists John Trauger and Wesley Traub appears in the April 12 issue of the journal Nature. (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Future Space Telescopes Could Detect Earth Twin Apr 13, 2007
have shown that a fairly simple coronagraph - an instrument used to "mask" a star's glare - paired with an adjustable mirror, could enable a space telescope to image a distant planet 10 billion times fainter than its central star ... "Mathematically, and sort of magically, this coronagraph blocks both the central star and its rings," said Wesley Traub of JPL, co-author of the new paper and Terrestrial Planet Finder project scientist. (Science Daily)
It's not easy getting extra-solar planets to smile for our cameras Feb 5, 2007
The other option was a device called a coronagraph, which uses just one telescope, with an object placed in the center of its view to block out the light from a star's corona. Princeton's David Spergel had calculated a complicated shape for this blocker that would obviate the flaring of light from a star that coronagraphs typically cause in images, flaring that would wreck viewing the dim light from orbiting planets ... Rather than flying an expensive and technically challenging coronagraph, he... (USA Today -- Tech)
NASA Says Hubble Telescope's Newest Cameras Fail (Update2) Jan 31, 2007
The cameras include the wide-field channel, which produced the Ultra Deep Field, and the coronagraph, which studied the environment around young stars and planets. They failed just a month shy of their estimated five-year lifespan. (Bloomberg)
> read more Nov 3, 2006
Bo Zhou, a 30-year-old factory worker from Xingping City in Shaanxi province in northwestern China, detected the tiny, diffuse, and very faint object in images taken with the spacecraft's coronagraph, which he downloaded into his computer. The new interloper turned out to be a member of the Kreutz family of "sungrazing" comets, which usually get vaporized during their close encounters with the Sun. (SkyAndTelescope.com)
Looking foroceans on faraway planets Jul 6, 2006
One way to tackle this problem is to place a shield, known to Sun-watchers as a coronagraph, inside the telescope ... However, because of light's tendency to spread out, it bleeds around the circular edge of a conventional coronagraph and swamps any light coming from a planet. (MSNBC -- Technology)
'Star shade' that casts light on space Jul 6, 2006
An external star shade of this sort would be simpler and cheaper than the alternative fitting an orbiting telescope with a coronagraph, which does the same thing as the star shade, but inside the telescope. An even more advanced version of the project the New Worlds Imager would involve a ring of telescopes placed on the Moon, beneath a fleet of orbiting star shades. (Times Online)
Searching for another Earth Jun 3, 2006
"It's totally hopeless to even think about it," said Wesley A. Traub, a project scientist with NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph Mission, or TPF-C.. Not surprisingly, Traub believes the agency's two planned spacecraft, TPF-C and companion TPF-I (for Interferometer) have the best chance to tease the dim reflected light of habitable planets from the blaze of their parent stars. (Sun-Sentinel.com)
SOHO Spacecraft Will Lead A Fleet Of Solar Observatories Jun 1, 2006
Also, SOHO s coronagraph will remain unique. The instrument is capable of blotting out the glare from the Sun so that the tenuous outer atmosphere of the Sun is visible for study. (Science Daily)
NJIT and JPL physicists detail Earthshine's role in planet hunting and climate variables May 20, 2006
Joining Goode's panel are NJIT Research Professor Pilar Montanes-Rodriguez, PhD, and Wesley A. Traub, PhD, chief scientist for NASA's Navigator Program to search for extrasolar planets, and project scientist for NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph Mission. Traub works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by the California Institute of Technology. (EurekAlert! -- Business News)
Star shade will let alien planets shine Mar 9, 2006
The standard solution, adopted for the TPF, is to fit a telescope with a coronagraph, which can block the light of an individual star while exposing the sky immediately around it. The limitation of this approach is that imperfections within the telescope inevitably scatter some of the star's light back into the field of view. (EurekAlert!)
Astronomer announces shortlist of stellar candidates for habitable worlds Feb 19, 2006
The first, a visible-light coronagraph, had been scheduled for launch around 2016, but the project has been deferred indefinitely, according to NASA's 2007 budget plan. A precursor planet-finder, called SIM PlanetQuest, has been delayed until at least 2015. (EurekAlert!)
Planet-hunting missions face delays Feb 8, 2006
NASANASA artwork shows concepts for the Terrestrial Planet Finder, including a visible-light coronagraph that would havesought planets around distant stars, at left; and a formation-flying infrared interferometer for studying extrasolar planets in depth, at right. . (MSNBC -- Technology)
NASA Focuses on Developing New Moon Craft Feb 7, 2006
This undated artist concept provided by NASA shows the spacecraft's of Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, comprised of two complementary observatories: a visible-light coronagraph, left, and a formation-flying infrared interferometer. NASA has delayed this mission and that of the SIM PlanetQuest mission as the space agency focuses on developing a new space shuttle to return to the moon in the next decade. (ABC News - Technology)
