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| Open AccessContinuous ultraviolet to blue-green astrocomb
Astrocombs serve as precision calibrators for astrophysical spectrographs by providing a regular sequence of optical lines on a multi-GHz grid. Here, the authors report the first broadband astrocomb in the UV to blue-green spectral region, where stellar absorption lines are most abundant.
- Yuk Shan Cheng
- , Kamalesh Dadi
- & Derryck T. Reid
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Comment
| Open AccessA new era in solar system astronomy with JWST
The exploration of our solar system is being radically changed since the beginning of operations of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in mid 2022. JWST’s extraordinary sensitivity and instrumentation allow for sensitive searches for the building blocks of life and to test for habitability, also enabling new discoveries on small bodies to giant planets across our solar system and beyond.
- G. L. Villanueva
- & S. N. Milam
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Comment
| Open AccessImpact observations of asteroid Dimorphos via Light Italian CubeSat for imaging of asteroids (LICIACube)
On September 26th 2022, LICIACube monitored Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission impact on asteroid Dimorphos, which is the smaller component of a binary asteroid system. These close observations revealed the impact ejecta features of the first planetary defence test with a kinetic impactor.
- Elisabetta Dotto
- & Angelo Zinzi
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Comment
| Open AccessPlanetary defense with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and prospects
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission intentionally impacted the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, and this kinetic impact changed Dimorphos’ orbit around its binary companion Didymos. This first planetary defense test explored technological readiness for this method of asteroid deflection.
- Andrew S. Rivkin
- & Andrew F. Cheng
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Article
| Open AccessScalable photonic-based nulling interferometry with the dispersed multi-baseline GLINT instrument
Nulling interferometry is a technique combining lights from different telescopes or apertures to observe weak sources nearby bright ones. The authors report the first nulling interferometer implemented in a photonic chip doing spectrally dispersed nulling on several baselines, simultaneously.
- Marc-Antoine Martinod
- , Barnaby Norris
- & Sergio Leon-Saval
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Article
| Open AccessAn all-photonic focal-plane wavefront sensor
Adaptive optics wavefront sensors need to be in a pupil plane and are insensitive to certain wavefront-error modes. The authors present a wavefront sensor based on a photonic lantern fibre-mode-converter and deep learning, which can be placed at the same focal plane accessing nondegenerate wavefront information and reconstructing the wavefront.
- Barnaby R. M. Norris
- , Jin Wei
- & Sergio G. Leon-Saval
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Article
| Open AccessDesign and flight results of the VHF/UHF communication system of Longjiang lunar microsatellites
Satellites with amateur radio communication capabilities have not been operated in lunar orbit before. Here, the authors present the design and performance of a VHF/UHF software-defined radio developed for and tested on lunar microsatellites.
- Mingchuan Wei
- , Chaoran Hu
- & Feng Wang
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Article
| Open AccessA metamaterial-enabled design enhancing decades-old short backfire antenna technology for space applications
There is significant interest in providing real-world applications for metamaterials. Here, the authors design an Advanced Short Backfire Antenna, augmented with anisotropic metamaterial surfaces to achieve high aperture efficiency across two frequency bands, making the antenna ideal for spaceborne applications.
- J. Daniel Binion
- , Erik Lier
- & Douglas H. Werner
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Article
| Open AccessSounding-rocket microgravity experiments on alumina dust
Alumina is thought to be the main condensate to form in the gas outflow from oxygen-rich evolved stars. Here, the authors perform a condensation experiment with alumina in a low-gravity environment, and find spectroscopic evidence for a sharp feature at a wavelength of 13.55 μm.
- Shinnosuke Ishizuka
- , Yuki Kimura
- & Yuko Inatomi
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Correspondence
| Open AccessReply to “On the origin of molecular oxygen in cometary comae”
- Y. Yao
- & K. P. Giapis
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Article
| Open AccessInfused ice can multiply IceCube’s sensitivity
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has been recording a flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos since 2013. Here, the authors investigate the possibility of increasing its sensitivity by implementing wavelength shifting optics within IceCube’s drill holes.
- Imre Bartos
- , Zsuzsa Marka
- & Szabolcs Marka