The Air Over There: Exploring Exoplanet Atmospheres

The atmospheric composition for a rocky exoplanet will depend strongly on the planet’s bulk composition and orbital position. Nontraditional gases may be present in the atmospheres of exceptionally hot planets. Atmospheres of more clement planets will depend on the abundance of volatiles acquired during planet formation and atmospheric removal processes, including escape, condensation, and reaction with the surface. To date, observations of exoplanet atmospheres have focused on giant planets, but future space-and ground-based observatories will revolutionize the precision and spectral resolution with which we can probe an exoplanet’s atmosphere. This article consolidates lessons learned from the study of giant planet atmospheres, and points to the observations and challenges on the horizon for terrestrial planets.

A new species of Dixonius (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Vientiane Capital, Laos

A new species of the gekkonid genus Dixonius is described from Huaysorn-Huaysua village, Nasaithong District, Vientiane Capital, Laos. The new species can be distinguished from all other species by a combination of the following characters: maximum SVL 47.1 mm; 19–21 longitudinal rows of dorsal tubercles at midbody; 23–26 longitudinal rows of ventrals across the abdomen; 7 or 8 supralabials, 6 in mid-orbital position; 5 or 6 infralabials; 5 or 6 precloacal pores in males, femoral pores lacking; precloacal and femoral pores absent in females; a canthal stripe running from rostrum through the eye and terminating at back of head; dorsum brown with irregular dark marks. In phylogenetic analyses, the species is recovered as the sister taxon to D. siamensis, which occurs in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Genetically, the two species are approximately 9.4% divergent from each other based on the complete mitochondrial ND2 gene with six partial or complete adjacent tRNAs. It is the 12th species known in the genus Dixonius and the second Dixonius species described from Laos.

SPATIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF TELECOMMUNICATION SATELLITES VISIBLE ABOVE THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

This paper deals with the general technical, spatial, and temporal characteristics of satellite telecommunications systems. Particular attention was paid to the peculiarities of the territory of the Republic of Serbia in terms of implementation and use of modern satellite telecommunication infrastructure. The overview shows how and on which way to use various satellite telecommunication systems to configure and exploit next-generation networks, especially modern communications such as 5G technology and IoT. Their work cannot be imagined without the high speeds and high frequencies that allow us to transmit a wealth of information - from short messages/news to HD video on a mobile phone. We need either a base station network or in the case of the high seas or areas where the base station system is difficult to imagine, we need satellite communication. The paper presents data that give a numerical and graphical overview of geostationary satellites visible from the territory of the city of Belgrade, depending on the orbital position and the associated angle of azimuth and elevation, which would also be valid for the leading territory of Serbia.

Observation of a 27 Days Periodicity in Melanoma Diagnosis

Streams from the dark universe may affect biologic processes on Earth including occurrence of cancer. Here, we have recovered complete daily melanoma incidence rates 1982–2014 in Australia. If there is no other external cause for melanoma, its seasonal rate should be steady with a broad maximum during local summertime due to increased solar UV exposure. The reported melanoma cases show instead: (A) a modulation repeating every [Formula: see text] weeks; (B) a time-dependence which relates also with Moon’s geocentric orbital position, while it does not fit concurrently measured solar activity; and (C) a modulation periodicity strikingly coinciding with the Moon’s sidereal periodicity of 27.3 days, which is fixed to remote stars and not to the Sun. These findings show that the associated cause must be of exo-solar origin, and not only due steady solar UV exposure. A possible interpretation of the finding is the underlying working hypothesis itself, namely the flux of slow speed streaming DM is temporally enhanced due to gravitational (self-)focusing by the solar system. Interestingly, the gravitational focusing effect by the Moon itself towards the Earth covers speeds up to [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]km/s, fitting within the widely assumed velocity distribution of DM constituents at [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]km/s. The derived observations for melanoma diagnosis are a novel model-independent finding with potential public health implications and possible relevance for other diseases. The results of this work also serve as accumulating and independent signatures strengthening previous physics claims being at work at the Sun and Earth’s upper atmosphere, inspiring a novel cross-disciplinary approach for the dark matter (DM) paradigm. In future, the 27.3 days periodicity does not necessarily require long-term physical and medical measurements to search for a direct cause-effect relationship. Potential candidates from the dark sector are the highly ionizing anti-quark nuggets, magnetic monopoles, but also particles like dark photons; other as yet unpredicted DM constituents with sufficient impact on the highly sensitive living matter could be at work.

On the Jupiter's influence on the measurement of the gravitational constant

This article analyzes in detail the influence of Jupiter on the measurement of the gravitational constant. Including a specific estimate of the change in the gravitational constant caused by the change of the earth's orbital position every half month. The influence of Jupiter's perihelion and aphelion on the gravitational constant is also estimated. On this basis, this article analyzes the data with specific time records such as BIPM-01, BIPM-14, JILA-10, UCI-14, HUST-09. The analysis results show that after considering the influence of Jupiter, the experimental results have been significantly improved.

A new species of Dixonius (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the karst forest of Khammouane Province, central Laos

A new species of Dixonius is described on the basis of three specimens from the karst forests around Thakhek town, Khammouane Province, Laos. The new species from Laos can be distinguished from other species of Dixonius based on molecular and morphological divergences. It is characterized by a maximum SVL of 55.4 mm; 20–23 longitudinal rows of dorsal tubercles at mid-body; 23–24 longitudinal rows of ventrals across the abdomen; 8–10 supralabials, 7 or 8 in mid-orbital position; 7 or 8 infralabials; 8 precloacal pores in male; the male without femoral pores; precloacal and femoral pores absent in females; uniformly pebble brown dorsum. In phylogenetic analyses, the new species is shown to be the sister taxon to two undescribed taxa from Thailand but differs by at least 8.6% in genetic pairwise distance from the latter based on the complete sequences of the mitochondrial ND2 gene with partial or complete sequences of six adjacent tRNAs. This is the ninth known species of Dixonius, and the second recorded species from Laos.

Managing Carbon Emissions to Avoid the Next Ice Age

<p>There is considerable uncertainty about how the rapid, recent rise in greenhouse gas concentrations driven by anthropogenic emissions will interact with on-going changes in orbital position to affect climate in the very long run – the next several thousand years. Here we study the evolution of climate over the next hundred thousand years using a statistical climate model estimated on the paleo record that represents physically consistent relations between orbital position and climate. This climate model is able to use orbital position alone to simulate the timing, magnitude, and saw-toothed pattern of ice volume, CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations, and other climate time series both in- and out-of-sample. The model is used to run experiments that simulate climate with- and without human intervention in the global carbon cycle. Without human intervention, the next glacial maximum is forecast to occur in about 20,000 years. This result is relatively unaffected by the current anthropogenic spike in CO<sub>2 </sub>concentrations. Conversely, the glacial maximum can be avoided - and the current climate maintained - by geo-engineering carbon concentrations to stabilize at around 325 ppm. The emissions needed to sustain these concentrations can be generated from known resources of fossil fuels. This suggests that CO<sub>2 </sub>is a cost effective control variable that - if managed carefully - can be used to sustain a hospitable climate in the short-run (by reducing emissions) and the long-run (by stabilizing concentrations).</p>

Performance Comparison of KOMPSAT-5 Precision Orbit Determination with GRACE

The Korean Multipurpose Satellite-5 (KOMPSAT-5) launched on 22 August 2013 was equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver for precision orbit determination (POD). Even though the GPS receiver of KOMPSAT-5 shares the same heritage as the BlackJack receiver onboard in Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, KOMPSAT-5 has a lower orbital position accuracy (~10 cm) compared with GRACE (~2 cm). The reduced dynamic and kinematic methods are applied for POD of KOMPSAT-5 and GRACE to investigate the GPS observation quality due to the satellite operation concept and hardware design. The results are analyzed in terms of the number of observations and their spatial distribution, GPS signal quality, and orbital position accuracies. The results show that the frequent attitude maneuvers of KOMPSAT-5 affect the quality of the GPS signals and solutions obtained from the kinematic method compared with that determined from the reduced-dynamic method. The onboard patch GPS antenna installed in KOMPSAT-5 and its geometrical position resulted in more erratic measurement residuals by 140% compared with the choke ring antenna of GRACE. The POD accuracy is dependent on the hardware design and regular attitude tilting for the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging even though the same GPS receiver performances.