Ariel will mark the dawn of a new era as the first large-scale survey characterising exoplanetary atmospheres with science objectives to address fundamental questions about planetary composition, evolution and formation. In this study, we explore the detectability of atmospheres vaporised from magma oceans on dry, rocky Super-Earths orbiting very close to their host stars. The detection of such atmospheres

The data throughput of massive spectroscopic surveys in the course of each observation is directly coordinated with the number of optical fibers which reach their target. In this paper, we evaluate the safety and the performance of the astrobots coordination in SDSS-V by conducting various experimental and simulated tests. We illustrate that our strategy provides a complete coordination condition which

Is there life beyond Earth? An ideal research program would first ascertain how life on Earth began and then use this as a blueprint for its existence elsewhere. But the origin of life on Earth is still not understood, what then could be the way forward? Upcoming observations of terrestrial exoplanets provide a unique opportunity for answering this fundamental question through the study of other planetary

Chandrayaan-2, the second Indian mission to the Moon, carries a spectrometer called the Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) to perform soft X-ray spectral measurements of the Sun while a companion payload, CLASS, measures the fluorescence emission from the Moon. Together these two payloads will provide quantitative estimates of elemental abundances on the lunar surface. The XSM with its high time cadence and

An experimental setup consisting of 12 layers of glass Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) of size 2 m × 2 m has been built at IICHEP-Madurai (9∘56\(^{\prime }\)14.5\(^{\prime \prime }\) N 78∘0\(^{\prime }\)47.9\(^{\prime \prime }\) E) to study the long term performance and stability of RPCs produced on a large scale in Indian industry. This setup has been collecting data triggered by the passage of charged

In this paper we consider the use of wide field of view radar sensors such as the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a low frequency radio telescope designed for astrophysics and cosmology, for rapid response observations of the debris clouds produced by collisions between objects in Earth orbit. With an increasing density of objects in Low Earth Orbit, including legacy assets used by the astronomy community

The tunable gamma-ray lens has turned out to be a promising alternative to the classical fixed-energy Laue-lenses discussed in the past. We describe here our development work on a miniature pedestal with one-axis tilt adjustment. We also outline our design for an optical system, capable of monitoring the alignment of the many crystals needed. An added benefit of the tunable crystal pedestal is that

The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) was selected on October 19, 2012, as the first small mission (S-mission) in the ESA Science Programme and successfully launched on December 18, 2019, as a secondary passenger on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Kourou, French Guiana. CHEOPS is a partnership between ESA and Switzerland with important contributions by ten additional ESA Member States. CHEOPS

A new concept for an astronomical telescope in the MeV energy band is presented. The concept builds on Bragg diffraction in crystals, which has been discussed in the past, but so far a design with good sensitivity over a wide energy range has seemed out of reach. In this paper we point out that if we find ways to adjust, in orbit, the individual tilt of all the crystals in the lens this would allow

The new generation radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) currently under construction, will use aperture array, technology for the low frequency regime. For SKA2, the second phase scheduled after the realization of SKA1, aperture array technology is proposed up to 1.4 GHz. The antenna element count, as well as the signal processing cost, of such a system will be high. In this paper

Spectroscopy in the visible and near-infrared has been the main tool for characterising the surface properties of asteroids for decades. For a given target, the two wavelength regimes are usually acquired by different telescopes/instruments, separated by years. They are seldom obtained simultaneously. However, it is not straightforward to combine datasets from different sources because of the spectral

Molecular contamination on optical surfaces is a serious issue for space payloads. For ultraviolet (UV) payloads, molecular contamination results in loss of throughput. Whereas, for visible (VIS) payloads loss of throughput due to molecular contamination is not very critical. However, UV photopolymerization of molecular contamination can create serious problems to VIS payloads with stringent scatter

ArielRad, the Ariel radiometric model, is a simulator developed to address the challenges in optimising the space mission science payload and to demonstrate its compliance with the performance requirements. Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, has been selected by ESA as the M4 mission in the Cosmic Vision programme and, during its 4 years primary operation, will provide

We present the first fully automated pipeline for making images from the interferometric data obtained from the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) called CAsa Pipeline-cum-Toolkit for Upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope data REduction - CAPTURE. It is a python program that uses tasks from the NRAO Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) to perform the steps of flagging of bad

The concept design for a laboratory based telescope emulator for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is described here. The Giant Magellan Telescope has a primary mirror comprised of 7 segments, and a secondary mirror with matching segmentation. The phasing of the GMT is a complex problem; a phasing testbed, Pocket-GMT, has been designed by a group within the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The space ultraviolet (UV) is a critical astronomical observing window, where a multitude of atomic, ionic, and molecular signatures provide crucial insight into planetary, interstellar, stellar, intergalactic, and extragalactic objects. The next generation of large space telescopes require highly sensitive, moderate-to-high resolution UV spectrograph. However, sensitive observations in the UV are

Simulations of frames from existing and upcoming high-resolution spectrographs, targeted for high accuracy radial velocity measurements, are computationally demanding (both in time and space). We present in this paper an innovative approach based on both parallelization and distribution of the workload. By using NVIDIA CUDA custom-made kernels and state-of-the-art cloud-computing architectures in a

Low energy ground-based cosmic ray air shower experiments generally have energy threshold in the range of a few tens to a few hundreds of TeV. The shower observables are measured indirectly with an array of detectors. The atmospheric absorption of low energy secondaries limits their detection frequencies at the Earth’s surface. However, due to selection effects, a tiny fraction of low energy showers

We described the design and operation principles of a new tunable-filter photometer developed for the 1-m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the 2.5-m telescope of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute of the Moscow State University. The instrument is mounted on the scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer operating in the tunable-filter mode in the

In this paper we report the observations of HD189733b, Kepler-41b, Kepler-42b, GJ 436b, WASP-77ab, HAT-P-32b and EPIC 211818569 as measured at the Osservatorio Polifunzionale del Chianti, a new astro-nomical site in Italy. Commissioning observing runs have been done in order to test capabilities, systematics and limits of the system and to improve its accuracy. For this purpose, a software algorithm

The Baryon acoustic oscillations from Integrated Neutral Gas Observations (BINGO) telescope is a 40-m class radio telescope under construction that has been designed to measure the large-angular-scale intensity of Hi emission at 980–1260 MHz and hence to constrain dark energy parameters. A large focal plane array comprising of 1.7-metre diameter, 4.3-metre length corrugated feed horns is required in

We assess broadband color filters for the two fast cameras on the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) space mission with respect to exoplanetary atmospheric characterization. We focus on Ultra Hot Jupiters and Hot Jupiters placed 25pc and 100pc away from the Earth and warm Super-Earths placed 10pc and 25pc away. Our analysis takes as input literature values for the difference in transit

Dust in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) is intimately linked to the life cycle of stars. Despite being of such fundamental importance to galaxy evolution, the dynamic behaviour and composition of the ISM are not yet fully understood. Observations of reddened Milky Way OB stars have revealed a strong UV extinction feature around 2175 Å and a precipitous extinction rise to the far UV along the lines of

Telescopes are one of the common types of satellite payloads. They are used both for Earth and astronomical observations. By using space telescopes it is possible to eliminate the negative effect of the atmosphere on image quality. Additionally, observations in some spectral ranges can be performed only from space due to absorption of certain wavelengths in the atmosphere. One such range is UV below

The use of aspheric mirrors is a common practice to design astronomical telescopes with a few optical elements. In the most preferred optical design Ritchey Chretien (RC), both primary and secondary mirrors are hyperboloid. Nowadays large telescopes are being built using small mirror segments, however, making aspheric off-axis mirror segments is still a challenge. We have conducted a study in which

Ultra-long Gamma-Ray Bursts (ulGRBs) are Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) with an unusually long emission in X and gamma rays, reaching durations of thousands of seconds. They could form a specific class of high-energy transient events, whose origin is still under discussion. The current sample of known ulGRBs consists of a few tens of events which have been detected so far by the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT)

Prompted by some inconsistencies in the photometry of the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey, we conduct a revision of the standard calibration procedure of VISTA data in the J, H, and KS passbands. Two independent sources of bias in the photometric zero-points are identified: First, high sky backgrounds severely affect the H-band measurements, but this can mostly be minimized by strict

Measuring the stellar rotation of one of the components in eclipsing binaries (EBs) or planetary systems is a challenge task. The difficulty is mainly due to the complexity of analyzing, in the same light curve, the signal from the stellar rotation mixed with the transit signal of a stellar or substellar companion, like a brown dwarf or planet. There are many methods to correct the long-term trend

Global warming imposes us to reflect on the way we carry research, embarking on the obligation to minimize the environmental impact of our research programs, with the reduction of our travel footprint being one of the easiest actions to implement, thanks to the advance of digital technology. The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU), the cryogenic spectrometer of the Athena space X-ray observatory of the

This paper describes the innovative optical design of the Metis coronagraph for the Solar Orbiter ESA-NASA mission. Metis is a multi-wavelength, externally occulted telescope for the imaging of the solar corona in both the visible and ultraviolet wavelength ranges. Metis adopts a novel occultation scheme for the solar disk, that we named “inverse external occulter”, for reducing the extremely high

The detection of mJy/sub-mJy point sources is a significant challenge for single-dish radio telescopes. Detection or upper limits on the faint afterglow from GRBs or other sources at cosmological distances are important means of constraining the source modeling. Using the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT), we compare the sensitivity and robustness of three methods applied to the detection of faint radio

The proposed 50 kton INO-ICAL experiment is an upcoming underground high energy physics experiment planned to be commissioned at Bodi hills near Theni, India *, ** to study various properties of neutrino oscillations using atmospheric neutrinos produced by extensive air shower phenomenon. The resistive plate chamber has been chosen as the active detector element for the proposed INO-ICAL. An experimental

Instrumental data are affected by systematic effects that dominate the errors and can be relevant when searching for small signals. This is the case of the K2 mission, a follow up of the Kepler mission, that, after a failure on two reaction wheels, has lost its stability properties rising strongly the systematics in the light curves and reducing its photometric precision. In this work, we have developed

Astronomical X-ray observatories with grazing incidence optics face the problem of pseudo-focusing of low energy protons from the mirrors towards the focal plane. Those protons constitute a variable, unpredictable component of the non X-ray background that strongly affects astronomical observations and a correct estimation of their flux at the focal plane is then essential. For this reason, we investigate

The high density extensive air shower array along with large area (560 m2) muon telescope of GRAPES-3 at Ooty is used to make precise measurements of cosmic ray properties by using the secondaries produced through cascades in the Earth’s atmosphere. The observed particle density at detector level is affected by atmospheric effects primarily due to variations in the pressure and temperature. Here, an

A simple algorithm for calculating three-mirror telescopes with all conic surfaces free of spherical aberration, coma, astigmatism, and field curvature is proposed. The algorithm is based on the theory of aberrations of the third order. The initial parameters are the effective focal length, mirror diameters, and system length. The result is a design with a flat field of view with a diameter of more

The HARPS/HARPS-N Data Reduction Software (DRS) relies on the cross-correlation between the observed spectra and a suitable stellar mask to compute a cross-correlation function (CCF) to be used both for the radial velocity (RV) computation and as an indicator of stellar lines asymmetry, induced for example by the stellar activity. Unfortunately the M2 mask currently used by the HARPS/HARPS-N DRS for

We use radio millisecond pulsars (MSPs) to determine the position of the Parkes telescope to explore the feasibility of pulsar navigation for terrestrial application, as well to investigate the relations between pulsar observations and the positional errors for potential X-ray pulsar navigation (XNAV). Different from the analytical algorithm (Han et al. Astrophys. Space Sci. 364, 3, 2018) which derives

The first phase of the Semnan University Radio Array has started its operation. As the first radio experiment in the Middle East which aims to investigate the radio signal properties of cosmic rays, SURA presently consists of 5 radio stations including 4 log periodic and one Inverted-V dipole antennas. In its current format, the experiment acts as a self-trigger radio array. SURA operates in the relatively

A sounding rocket utilizing Gaseous Electron Multiplier detectors experienced a strong source of unexpected signal during flight which prevented the acquisition of usable science data. We find that the flight data is well-matched with a simple fluorescence model corresponding to K- and L-emission lines of the materials present inside the payload. Illuminating the payload with a laboratory electron

The Polarized Instrument for Long-wavelength Observation of the Tenuous interstellar medium (PILOT) is a balloon-borne experiment that aims to measure the polarized emission of thermal dust at a wavelength of 240 µm (1.2 THz). A first PILOT flight of the experiment took place from Timmins, Ontario, Canada, in September 2015 and a second flight took place from Alice Springs, Australia in April 2017

In this paper is described the approach used to develop the software system of the AGILE γ-ray Observatory, from the definition phase to construction, verification and calibration activities of the satellite, until operations for scientific observations. Flexible software architectures, effective software management workflow, new algorithms (from payload simulators to reconstruction algorithms, from

In this paper, we discuss an artificial intelligence based approach to constrain the redshift of blazars using combined γ–ray observations from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and ground based atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (ACTs) in GeV and sub TeV energy regimes respectively. The spectral measurements in GeV and TeV energy bands show a redshift dependent spectral break in the γ–ray spectra

We have performed tests of the SRG project’s ART-XC telescope’s flight spare units of the mirror system (MS) and the URD focal plane X-ray detector. During the tests, the MS was illuminated by a quasi-parallel X-ray beam from a microfocus tube. By changing the angle between the MS optical axis and the incoming beam we obtained data on vignetting of the effective area of the MS–URD pair at the energies

EUSO-Balloon is the first balloon pathfinder of the JEM-EUSO (Joint Experiment Missions - Extreme Universe Space Observatory) framework. It is an ultraviolet (UV) telescope designed to test the key technologies and methods necessary for the indirect detection of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) by observing from above the fluorescence emission produced by Extensive Air Showers (EAS) in the 290-430

The Space Variable Object Monitor (SVOM) is a forthcoming Chinese - French astrophysics space mission dedicated to the study of Gamma-ray bursts and high-energy transients. ECLAIRs, a wide-field hard X-ray coded mask imager, is the leading instrument for the transient detection and their first localisation. The sensitivity of such instruments is usually limited by the background, either of instrumental

One limitation in characterizing exoplanet candidates is the availability of infrared, high-resolution spectrographs. An important factor in the scarcity of high precision IR spectrographs is the high cost of these instruments. We present a new optical design, which leads to a cost-effective solution. Our instrument is a high-resolution (R = 60,000) infrared spectrograph with a R6 Echelle grating and

To achieve the low noise and wide bandwidth required for millimeter wavelength astronomy applications, superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer based receiver systems have typically been used. This paper investigates the performance of high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) based low noise amplifiers (LNAs) as an alternative approach for systems operating in the 125 — 211 GHz frequency

Rapido is a robotic telescope designed to be duplicated in order to build a network that answers specific requirements of fast transients. The challenge of Rapido is to be a low cost, very fast pointing telescope, with high reliability and a little maintenance cost. Mechanics is based on a coil winding winch. Optics and electronics are commercials. Mount of Rapido is home made and is described in details

The GRAPES-3 muon telescope located in Ooty, India records 4 × 109 muons daily. These muons are produced by interaction of primary cosmic rays (PCRs) in the atmosphere. The high statistics of muons enables GRAPES-3 to make precise measurement of various sun-induced phenomenon including coronal mass ejections (CME), Forbush decreases, geomagnetic storms (GMS) and atmosphere acceleration during the overhead

The Gamma-Ray Integrated Detectors (GRID) is a space mission concept dedicated to monitoring the transient gamma-ray sky in the energy range from 10 keV to 2 MeV using scintillation detectors onboard CubeSats in low Earth orbits. The primary targets of GRID are the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the local universe. The scientific goal of GRID is, in synergy with ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors

High-energy astrophysics polarimetry may significantly benefit from e-ASTROGAM and from AMEGO mission proposals, since to date limited polarimetric measurements were performed in this domain, exclusively under 1 MeV. The polarimetric potential of both missions was analyzed in the Compton regime by Monte Carlo mass model simulations with MEGAlib toolkit. The performance of e-ASTROGAM was analyzed by

Ample evidence exists regarding supernovae being a major contributor to interstellar dust. In this work, the deepest far-infrared observations of the Crab Nebula are used to revisit the estimation of the dust mass present in this supernova remnant. Images in filters between 70 and 500 μ m taken by the PACS and SPIRE instruments on-board of the Herschel Space Observatory are used. With a novel and automated

To assure high pointing precision of the Tianma radio telescope (TMRT), new models based on a inclinometer measurement system are added to the classical pointing model. This involves four main tasks. Firstly, the inclinometer measurement system is set up and its precision is evaluated. Secondly, a feedback control strategy for pointing error for the turbulences of uneven azimuth track and thermal deformations

In the era of multi-messenger astronomy the exploration of the early emission from transients is key for understanding the encoded physics. At the same time, current generation networks of fully-robotic telescopes provide new opportunities in terms of fast followup and sky coverage. This work describes our pipeline designed for robotic optical followup of gamma-ray bursts with the Las Cumbrés Observatory

We propose an alternative method to generate an artificial reference source for a Ground Layer Adaptive Optics system airborne on a Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Turbulence profiles from the Ground Layer at the National Astronomical Observatory in San Pedro Martir were analyzed to establish the requirements in luminosity, altitude, and flight stability of an artificial source. We found the source

Over the past year, the discovery of the first electromagnetic counterparts to sources of gravitational waves and high-energy neutrinos has brought us to the new era of ”multi-messenger” astrophysics (MMA). These new events provide deep insights into astrophysics, meanwhile, lead to the development of astronomical data fusion techniques. Each messenger carries information from different observation

We use existing light weight balloon facility of Indian Centre for Space Physics to detect the X-ray radiation from Crab pulsar with a phoswich detector. We present the design considerations and characterization of the detector used for this purpose. We model the background radiation in the detector environment at various altitudes and use this in spectral analysis. The background radiation level and

The choice of multiplier and accumulation unit determines the performance of digital signal processors, particularly in Big-Data correlators employed in radio interferometers. This work is targeted towards reducing the multiplier-size and delay in order to achieve low-power and compact-area for interferometer correlators such as in SKA and VLBI. For this purpose different fast and hardware efficient

The Mauritius Deuterium Telescope (MDT) is an upcoming low-frequency array being built in Mauritius to observe the Deuterium hyperfine line at 327.4 MHz. This project is an opportunity to develop new techniques in radio astronomy considering the advent of the Square Kilometre Array in a few years time. The design of the MDT array targets a low-cost hybrid system consisting of Software Defined Radios