Peripheral Structures of Planetary Systems

We analyze the conditions for the formation and time evolution of peripheral comet structures of solar-type planetary systems. In the Solar system, these include the Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud, the comet spear, and the Galactic comet ring that marks the Galactic orbit of the Sun. We consider the role of the viscosity of a protoplanetary gas–dust disk, major planets, field stars, globular clusters, giant molecular clouds, and the Galactic gravitational field in the formation of these peripheral structures marked by comets and asteroids. We give a list of the closest past and future passages of neighboring stars through the solar Oort cloud that perturb the motion of its comets and, thus, contribute to the enhancement of its cometary activity, on the one hand, and to the replenishment of the solar comet spear with new members, on the other hand.     

Photometric study of the major satellites of Uranus

In this paper, we analyze the results of ground-based and space-born photometric observations of the major satellites of Uranus—Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. All sets of photometric observations of the satellites available in the literature were examined for uniformity and systematic differences and summarized to a unified set by wavelength ranging from 0.25 to 2.4 μm. This set covers the interval of phase angles from 0.034° to 35°. The compound phase curves of brightness of the satellites in the spectral bands at 0.25, 0.41, 0.48, 0.56, 0.75, 0.91, 1.4, and 1.8 μm, which include a pronounced opposition surge and linear part, were constructed. For each satellite, the geometric albedo was found in different spectral bands taking into account the brightness opposition effect, and its spectral dependence was studied. It has been shown that the reflectance of the satellites linearly depends on the wavelength at different phase angles, but has different spectral gradients. The parameters of the phase functions of brightness, including the amplitude and the angular width of the brightness opposition surge, the phase coefficient, and the phase angle at which the nonlinear increase in brightness starts, were determined and their dependences on wavelength and geometric albedo were analyzed. Our investigations show that, in their optical properties, the satellites Miranda and Ariel, Titania and Oberon, and Umbriel present three types of surfaces. The observed parameters of the brightness opposition effect for the Uranian satellites, some ice satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, and the E-and S-type asteroids are analyzed and compared within the framework of the coherent backscattering and mutual shadowing mechanisms.     

天文地球动力学中的相对论效应

天文地球动力学利用空间与地面观测手段 ,监测和研究地球整体与各圈层的物质运动以及它们间的相互作用 ,这都离不开广义相对论涉及的时间与空间。随着空间对地观测精度的提高 ,为了充分利用高精度观测提供的信息 ,在天文地球动力学的研究中必须考虑相对论效应。所涉及的相对论效应包括 :( 1 )相对论参考系的建立 ,( 2 )在恰当的参考系中对观测者和被观测对象的相对论运动方程 (平动和自转 )的描述 ,( 3 )观测者和被观测对象间的电磁信号传播 ,( 4 )依赖于坐标选择的结果与具有物理意义的可观测量间的转换 ,( 5)某些基本概念与定义在广义相对论框架下的重新确认。本文对天文地球动力学中的这些相对论效应作了简要的评述。     

球状星团的天体测量(英)

球状星团是银河系中最年老的天体之一，是储存着银河系早期演化珍贵信息的“化石”．球状星团的天体测量，主要包括球状星因天区内恒星相对自行的测定，并由这些相对自行数据采用适当方法定出星团的绝对自行，或者直接测定绝对自行．利用这些自行数据，或者进一步与测光和视向速度数据结合，可以开展与球状星团的距离、运动、动力学状况、质量、年龄、演化等等以及银河系的结构和演化等有关的一系列重要的研究．在本文中对本世纪70年代中期以来在球状星团相对自行测定和成员概率估计、内部运动检测、绝对自行测定和空间运动研究这三方面取得的成果和进展以及存在的问题作了评述．     

Study of the nearest open clusters and the associated moving clusters by numerical simulations

In our previous papers, we showed that at the final phases of the dynamical evolution of an open cluster, an extended population of stars elongated along its Galactic orbit, the stellar tail of the cluster, is formed. The tail stars that escaped from the cluster at different times move in a common orbit with low relative velocities. Experiencing a weak interaction with Galactic field stars, these objects, the relics of open clusters, can exist for a fairly long time. In this paper, we investigate the structures of such stellar tails in the nearest open clusters: Hyades, Pleiades, Praesepe, Alpha Persei, Coma, IC 2391, and IC 2602. To this end, we performed several numerical simulations of the dynamical evolution of these clusters in the tidal field of the Galaxy. Our computations of the dynamical evolution were based on known cluster age estimates and real Galactic orbits. The initial conditions were chosen in such a way that the parameters of the simulated clusters corresponded to their observed parameters. As a result, we obtained models of the stellar tails for the nearest open clusters and estimated such parameters of the tails as their sizes, densities, locations relative to the solar neighborhood, and others.     

Catalogue of Shakhbazian compact groups of galaxies. X

The tenth part of the catalogue of Shakhbazian groups contains the positions and references of all the galaxies of the following 35 groups (north of δ > +2°30'): Shkh 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 354, 355, 356, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377. For the estimation of the coordinates the Digitized Sky Survey was used.     

Interstellar heliospheric probe/heliospheric boundary explorer mission—a mission to the outermost boundaries of the solar system

The Sun, driving a supersonic solar wind, cuts out of the local interstellar medium a giant plasma bubble, the heliosphere. ESA, jointly with NASA, has had an important role in the development of our current understanding of the Suns immediate neighborhood. Ulysses is the only spacecraft exploring the third, out-of-ecliptic dimension, while SOHO has allowed us to better understand the influence of the Sun and to image the glow of interstellar matter in the heliosphere. Voyager 1 has recently encountered the innermost boundary of this plasma bubble, the termination shock, and is returning exciting yet puzzling data of this remote region. The next logical step is to leave the heliosphere and to thereby map out in unprecedented detail the structure of the outer heliosphere and its boundaries, the termination shock, the heliosheath, the heliopause, and, after leaving the heliosphere, to discover the true nature of the hydrogen wall, the bow shock, and the local interstellar medium beyond. This will greatly advance our understanding of the heliosphere that is the best-known example for astrospheres as found around other stars. Thus, IHP/HEX will allow us to discover, explore, and understand fundamental astrophysical processes in the largest accessible plasma laboratory, the heliosphere.     

The Interstellar Heliopause Probe: Heliospheric Boundary Explorer Mission to the Interstellar Medium

The Sun, driving a supersonic solar wind, cuts out of the local interstellar medium a giant plasma bubble, the heliosphere. ESA, jointly with NASA, has had an important role in the development of our current understanding of the Suns’ immediate neighborhood. Ulysses is the only spacecraft exploring the third, out-of-ecliptic dimension, while SOHO has allowed us to better understand the influence of the Sun and to image the glow of interstellar matter in the heliosphere. Voyager 1 has recently encountered the innermost boundary of this plasma bubble, the termination shock, and is returning exciting yet puzzling data of this remote region. The next logical step is to leave the heliosphere and to thereby map out in unprecedented detail the structure of the outer heliosphere and its boundaries, the termination shock, the heliosheath, the heliopause, and, after leaving the heliosphere, to discover the true nature of the hydrogen wall, the bow shock, and the local interstellar medium beyond. This will greatly advance our understanding of the heliosphere that is the best-known example for astrospheres as found around other stars. Thus, IHP/HEX will allow us to discover, explore, and understand fundamental astrophysical processes in the largest accessible plasma laboratory, the heliosphere.     

Natural MHD oscillations of a neutron star

Natural, low-frequency, hydromagnetic oscillations of an isolated, nonrotating neutron star, which are localized in the peripheral crust, the structure of which is determined by the electron-nuclear plasma (the Ae phase), are studied. The plasma medium of the outer crust is treated as a homogeneous, infinitely conducting, incompressible continuum, the motions of which are determined by the equations of magnetohydrodynamics. In the approximation of a constant magnetic field inside the crust (the magnetic field outside the star is assumed to have a dipole structure), the spectrum of normal poloidal and toroidal hydromagnetic oscillations, due to presumed residual fluctuations of flow and their associated fluctuations in magnetic field strength, is calculated. Numerical estimates given for the periods of MHD oscillations fall in the range of periods of radio pulsar emission, indicating a close connection between the residual hydromagnetic oscillations and the electromagnetic activity of neutron stars. Translated from Astrofizika, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 77–86, January–March, 1997.     

About the first integrals of the generalized problem of translatory-rotary motion of rigid bodies

The existence of ten first integrals for the classical problem of the motion of a system of material points, mutually attracting according to Newtonian law, is well known.The existence of the analogous ten first integrals for the more complicated problem of the motion of a system of absolutely rigid bodies, whose elementary particles mutually attract according to the Newtonian law, was established by the author (Duboshin, 1958, 1963, 1968).In his later papers (Duboshin, 1969, 1970), the problem of the motion of a system of material points, attracting each other according to a more general law, was considered and, in particular, it was shown under what conditions the ten first integrals, analogous to the classical integrals, may exist for this problem.In the present paper, the generalized problem of translatory-rotatory motion of rigid bodies, whose elementary particles acting upon each other according to arbitrary laws of forces along the straight line joining them, is discussed.The author has shown that the first integrals for this general problem, analogous to the integrals of the problem of the translatory-rotatory motion of rigid bodies, whose elementary particles acting according to the Newtonian law, exist under certain well known conditions.That is, it has been established that if the third axiom of dynamics (action = reaction) is satisfied, then the integrals of the motion of centre of inertia and the integrals of the moment of momentum exist for this generalized problem.If the third axiom is not satisfied, then the above mentioned integrals do not exist.The third axiom is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the existence of the tenth integral-the energy integral. The tenth integral always exists if the elementary particles of the bodies acting with a force, depend only on the mutual distances between them. In this case the force function exists for the problem and the energy integral can be expressed in a well known form.The tenth integral may exist for some more general case, without expressing the principle of conservation of energy, but permitting calculation of the kinetic energy, if the configuration of a system is given.The problem, in which the elementary particles acting according to the generalized Veber's law (Tisserand, 1896) has been cited as an example of this more general case.     

Testing the blast wave model with Swift GRBs

The complex structure of the light curves of Swift Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) has made the identification of breaks, and the interpretation of the blast wave caused by the burst, more difficult than in the pre- Swift era. We aim to identify breaks, which are possibly hidden, and to constrain the blast wave parameters; electron energy distribution, p , density profile of the circumburst medium, k , and the continued energy injection index, q . We do so by comparing the observed multiwavelength light curves and X-ray spectra of our sample to the predictions of the blast wave model. We can successfully interpret all of the bursts in our sample of 10, except two, within this framework and we can estimate, with confidence, the electron energy distribution index for 6 of the sample. Furthermore, we identify jet breaks in a number of the bursts. A statistical analysis of the distribution of p reveals that, even in the most conservative case of least scatter, the values are not consistent with a single, universal value. The values of k suggest that the circumburst density profiles are not drawn from only one of the constant density or wind-like media populations.     

On the orbital isochronism

Formulas for the time of orbital flight in terms of the kinematic parameters are developed, and a kinematic theorem of orbital isochronism is introduced. Through this new theorem, the connection between the celebrated Lambart's theorem and the rather obscure theorem of Hamilton's hodographic isochronism is demonstrated, and the significance and implications of the latter are explored. In the light of Hamilton's hodographic representation, the characteristic features of an isochronal and isoenergetic family of Keplerian trajectories are observed, and a simple geometric method for the construction of such a family is proposed. Finally, Hamilton's time integral is briefly treated, resulting in another set of useful formulas for the time of flight.Presented at the 8th Annual Seminar on Current Problems in Celestial Mechanics, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, January 1970. This work was done partly at the NASA-ERC, Cambridge, Mass., and partly at the Department of Mathematics, MIT under the Senior Research Associateship, NAS-NRC.     

Composition of Coronal Streamers from the SOHO Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer

The Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer on the SOHO satellite covers the 940–1350 Å range as well as the 470–630 Å range in second order. It has detected coronal emission lines of H, N, O, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Fe, and Ni, particularly in coronal streamers. Resonance scattering of emission lines from the solar disk dominates the intensities of a few lines, but electron collisional excitation produces most of the lines observed. Resonance, intercombination and forbidden lines are seen, and their relative line intensities are diagnostics for the ionization state and elemental abundances of the coronal gas. The elemental composition of the solar corona and solar wind vary, with the abundance of each element related to the ionization potential of its neutral atom (First Ionization Potential–FIP). It is often difficult to obtain absolute abundances, rather than abundances relative to O or Si. In this paper, we study the ionization state of the gas in two coronal streamers, and we determine the absolute abundances of oxygen and other elements in the streamers. The ionization state is close to that of a log T = 6.2 plasma. The abundances vary among, and even within, streamers. The helium abundance is lower than photospheric, and the FIP effect is present. In the core of a quiescent equatorial streamer, oxygen and other high-FIP elements are depleted by an order of magnitude compared with photospheric abundances, while they are depleted by only a factor of 3 along the edges of the streamer. The abundances along the edges of the streamer (‘legs’) resemble elemental abundances measured in the slow solar wind, supporting the identification of streamers as the source of that wind component.     

Reflectance model for densely packed media: Estimates of the surface properties of the high-albedo satellites of Saturn

Interpretation of photometric and polarimetric observations of atmosphereless celestial bodies faces the problems connected with both the insufficient accuracy and level of details in groundbased observations and the current state of the theory of the multiple scattering of light. In application to sparse media, where the electromagnetic waves, propagating between the scatterers, can be considered as spherical (the socalled far-field approximation), this theory is rather well developed for both the diffuse and coherent components of the scattered radiation. In this paper, we show that this theory can be also successfully applied to the measurements of polarization of light scattered by densely packed, though nonabsorbing or weakly absorbing, media. For this purpose, we calculated the models for a semi-infinite layer of the medium composed of randomly oriented clusters of spherical particles and compared them with the data of laboratory and astronomical measurements. The potential of the present approach is illustrated by an example of the interpretation of the polarization measurements of the ice satellites of Saturn—Rhea and Enceladus—which allowed some properties of the surface of these celestial bodies to be estimated. In particular, the ratio of the surface area that makes no contribution to the negative polarization of light reflected at small phase angles to the area producing the negative polarization branch was found. Under the assumption of the same albedo of these areas, this ratio turned out to be 3.31–3.66 and 1.7–3.8 for Rhea and Enceladus, respectively. For Enceladus, it is difficult to obtain a sufficiently narrow range of the estimated parameters, since the number of measurement points in the phase dependence of polarization of this satellite is small. For the surface of Rhea, the estimated packing density of particles, participating in the opposition effects, is approximately 15%, while their smallest size is of the order of the wavelength of visible light.     

Photographic observations of comet Hale–Bopp at the Zvenigorod Observatory

We describe the archive of scans of the astronomical plates obtained in the observations of comet Hale–Bopp. The observations were carried out from August 17, 1996, to April 29, 1997, at the Zeiss-400/2000 astrograph of the Zvenigorod Observatory of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INASAN). The archive contains the images that can be used in astrometric, photometric, and astrophysical studies. In some of the plates, the size of the comet reaches 6.3° (23 cm). In many scans, the details of the cometary tail, including individual jets, vortexes, etc., are clearly distinguishable. The archive of the images is available free.     

Mobile element analysis by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) of impactite matrix samples from the Yaxcopoil‐1 drill core in the Chicxulub impact structure

Abstract— The concentrations of the fluid mobile trace elements lithium, beryllium, boron, and barium were measured in samples of the altered matrix of several impactite breccias of the Yaxcopoil‐1 drill core using secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) to determine the extent of transport due to aqueous or hydrothermal processes. Three of the elements, Li, Be, and B, have higher concentrations in the upper suevite impact breccias than in the lower impact melt deposits by factors of 3.5, 2.2, and 1.5, respectively. Lithium and B are the most enriched elements up section, and appear to have had the greatest mobility. The similar fractionation of Li and B is consistent with fluid transport and alteration under low‐temperature conditions of less than 150 °C based on published experimental studies. In contrast to Li, Be, and B, the concentration of Ba in the altered matrix materials decreases upward in the section, and the concentration of Ba in the matrix is an order of magnitude less than the bulk concentrations, likely due to the presence of barite. The origin of the elemental variations with depth may be related to different protolith compositions in the upper versus the lower impactite units. A different protolith in the altered matrix is suggested by the Mg‐rich composition of the lower units versus the Al‐rich composition of the upper units, which largely correlates with the mobile element variations. The possibility that vertical transport of mobile elements is due to a postimpact hydrothermal system is supported by published data showing that the sediments immediately overlying the impactites are enriched in mobile elements derived from a hydrothermal system. However, the mobile elements in the sediments do not have to originate from the underlying impactites. In conclusion, our data suggests that the impactites at this location did not experience extensive high‐temperature hydrothermal processing, and that only limited transport of some elements, including Li, Be, and B, occurred.     

A study of the icy tails of the distant comets

The properties of the icy-grain model, formulated recently for the nearly straight, structureless tails of a number of comets with large perihelion distances, are studied. The approach used is based on the comparison of the orientation and general profile of the tails with a set of synchrones, i.e., theoretical trajectories of particles emitted from the cometary nucleus at particular times. A number of features observed in the distant comets, such as a sharply bounded envelope around the nuclear condensation, jet activity in the coma, a slight curvature of the tail, and the absence of its appreciable broadening with increasing distance from the nucleus, are also explained by the icy-grain model. The model is further confronted with the tail-orientation, spectroscopic, and spectrophotometric data available on comets with perihelia beyond 2.2 AU. It is established that the transition region between 2 and 3 AU, where water snow starts evaporating rapidly, has a profound effect on the dynamics of the icy tails. It is suggested that the icy (or solid-hydrate) grains, constituting the tails of the distant comets, may be carriers of fine meteoric-dust particles, of microns and submicron sizes, which are set free once the grains start disintegrating by evaporation.     

从KARST到FAST---中国天眼的概念起源与决策过程

在大科学时代,大科学工程的建设日益复杂,设计者需综合考虑设备性能、技术储备、经费、风险、环境等因素才能进行合理决策.在国内外天文学发展的背景中,梳理了500 m口径球面射电望远镜(Five-hundredmeter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope, FAST)概念形成的过程以及FAST团队在其中所做的决策,包括大望远镜中国方案的设想、先导单元的提出、主动反射面技术的采用等,并对决策过程进行了分析探讨. FAST诞生于我国与国际天文学发展的互动与融合进程,实现了从跟进到占据先机的转变,可为在相关基础薄弱的领域建设大科学工程提供参考.     

Chemical Evolution of the System of Galactic Planetary Nebulae

The problem of the chemical evolution of the system of Galactic planetary nebulae, starting with the early stage of development of the Galaxy, is investigated. The radial and vertical gradients of C, N, O, Ne, Ar, Cl, and S abundances are determined for different ages of the precursor stars of the nebulae. A statistically significant age dependence of the gradients is derived.