On the connection between cosmological parameters and peculiar motion in a G2 massless scalar field spacetime

The geodesic motion of a massive test particle in a [Formula: see text] massless scalar field universe is investigated. The time evolution of the peculiar velocity is connected to the values of the cosmological parameters, and it is quantified how the spacetime shearing effects affect the deviations from the asymptotic value of comoving matter flow at late epochs. On the other hand, it is shown that the energy scale of the cosmic fluid does not affect the evolution of the peculiar velocity. The existence of a turning point in the motion of the astronomical object is identified. The potential astrophysical relevance of this study in the modeling of cosmic filaments and Large Quasar Groups is briefly discussed.

Detailed Calibration of the Off-Axis Optical Characteristics for the X-Ray Telescope onboard Hinode

<p>The X-Ray Telescope (XRT) onboard the Hinode satellite has a specially designed Wolter type grazing-incidence (GI) optics with a paraboloid-hyperboloid mirror assembly to measure the solar coronal plasma of temperatures up to 10 MK with a resolution of about one arc sec. One of the main purposes of this scientific mission is to investigate the detailed mechanism of energy transfer processes from the photosphere to the upper coronal region leading to its heating and the solar wind acceleration. An astronomical telescope is in general designed such that the best-focused image of an object is achieved at or very close to the optical axis, and inevitably the optical performance deteriorates away from the on-axis position. The Sun is, however, a large astronomical object and thus targets near the limb of full-disk images are placed at the outskirt of the field of view. The design of a solar telescope should thus consider the uniformity of imaging quality over a wide FOV, and it is particularly so for X-ray telescopes whose targets can be in the corona high above the limb.</p><p> </p><p>We will explain in this presentation the importance of detailed calibration of the off-axis optical characteristics for Hinode/XRT. It have been revealed that the scattered light caused by the GI mirror surface has a power-law distribution and shows an energy dependence. We will also introduce the basic scheme of how the level of scattering wing is determined and connected to the core from the analysis of highly saturated in-flight data. Vignetting is another important optical characteristics for describing the telescope's performance, which reflects the ability to collect incoming light at different locations and photon energies. We have evaluated the vignetting effect in Hinode/XRT by analyzing the ground experimental data and found that the degree of vignetting varies linearly from the optical center and its pattern shows an energy dependence. Many interesting results on the calibration of Hinode/XRT optical characteristics will be introduced and discussed thoroughly. </p>

Determining the true mass of radial-velocity exoplanets with Gaia

Mass is one of the most important parameters for determining the true nature of an astronomical object. Yet, many published exoplanets lack a measurement of their true mass, in particular those detected as a result of radial-velocity (RV) variations of their host star. For those examples, only the minimum mass, or m sin i, is known, owing to the insensitivity of RVs to the inclination of the detected orbit compared to the plane of the sky. The mass that is given in databases is generally that of an assumed edge-on system (~90°), but many other inclinations are possible, even extreme values closer to 0° (face-on). In such a case, the mass of the published object could be strongly underestimated by up to two orders of magnitude. In the present study, we use GASTON, a recently developed tool taking advantage of the voluminous Gaia astrometric database to constrain the inclination and true mass of several hundreds of published exoplanet candidates. We find nine exoplanet candidates in the stellar or brown dwarf (BD) domain, among which six were never characterized. We show that 30 Ari B b, HD 141937 b, HD 148427 b, HD 6718 b, HIP 65891 b, and HD 16760 b have masses larger than 13.5 MJ at 3σ. We also confirm the planetary nature of 27 exoplanets, including HD 10180 c, d and g. Studying the orbital periods, eccentricities, and host-star metallicities in the BD domain, we found distributions with respect to true masses consistent with other publications. The distribution of orbital periods shows of a void of BD detections below ~100 d, while eccentricity and metallicity distributions agree with a transition between BDs similar to planets and BDs similar to stars in the range 40–50 MJ.

Τα ανατρεπτικά κείμενα και η πληροφορία κατηγοριοποίησης ως παράγοντες προώθησης της εννοιολογικής αλλαγής

We present the results of two empirical studies which investigated the effect of the type of information included in refutational texts in 3rd grade students’ comprehension of the spherical shape of the earth. In the first study we compared three kinds of refutational texts: the first refuted only the belief that the earth is flat, the second refuted in addition the belief in up/down gravity, and the third refuted all of the above and in addition the belief that the earth is a physical and not an astronomical object. In Experiment 2, four texts were used to compare text type (refutation vs. non-refutation) and information type (categorical vs. non-categorical information). The results from the two experiments confirmed our hypothesis that refutational texts that include categorical information are the most effective in improving students’ understanding of scientific information about the earth.

Determining the mass of RV exoplanet candidates using Gaia

<p>Mass is one of the most important parameters for determining the true nature of an astronomical object. Yet, many published exoplanets in on-line database, such as exoplanet.eu or the NASA exoplanet archive, still lacks a measurement of their true mass, in particular those detected thanks to radial velocity (RV) variations of their host star. For those, only the minimum mass, or m sin(i), is known, owing to the insensitivity of RVs to the inclination of the detected orbit compared to the plane-of-the-sky. The mass that is given in database is generally that of an assumed edge-on system (90 degrees), but many other inclinations are likely, even extreme values closer to 0 degree (face-on configuration). In such case, the mass of the published object could be strongly underestimated, even by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude. We used a recently developed tool, called GASTON (Kiefer et al. 2019b & 2019c), to take advantage of the voluminous Gaia astrometric database, in order to constrain the inclination and true mass of several hundreds of published exoplanet candidates (Kiefer et al. 2020, submitted). In this presentation, we will present the method and report on several exoplanet candidates reclassified in the stellar domain, among which unknown brown/M-dwarf. We also confirm the planetary nature of a few tens of candidates.</p>

Observe the Sky and draw your emotions

<p>"Observe the Sky and draw your emotions" is an art competition for students organized in Italy by the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF). Students of primary and secondary schools are invited to participate submitting their original drawings, paintings or 3Dmodels inspired by an astronomical object, by space exploration or just by observing the sky.</p> <p>The competition was started in 2007 by the Catania Astrophysical Observatory and in the following years it grew in participation, going from local to a national level. In 2020 it was transformed in a digital initiative, thanks to the collaboration of the Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory of Naples and of EduINAF, INAF's new Online Magazine dedicated to Public Engagment. For the first time, the competition was organized and hosted by an online portal and opened for participants across the all country, reaching over 330 drawings, paintings and 3D models submitted.</p> <p>In this video presentation we will highlight the 12 winners of the last edition and a selection of the most beautiful and original entries of the 2020 and previous editions, showing how the sky can inspire the youngest and give birth to a form of artistic expression.</p>

Using machine learning for transient classification in searches for gravitational-wave counterparts

ABSTRACT The large sky localization regions offered by the gravitational-wave interferometers require efficient follow-up of the many counterpart candidates identified by the wide field-of-view telescopes. Given the restricted telescope time, the creation of prioritized lists of the many identified candidates becomes mandatory. Towards this end, we use astrorapid, a multiband photometric light-curve classifier, to differentiate between kilonovae, supernovae, and other possible transients. We demonstrate our method on the photometric observations of real events. In addition, the classification performance is tested on simulated light curves, both ideally and realistically sampled. We show that after only a few days of observations of an astronomical object, it is possible to rule out candidates as supernovae and other known transients.

SnowPac: a multiscale cubic B-spline wavelet compressor for astronomical images

ABSTRACT As more advanced and complex survey telescopes are developed, the size and scale of data being captured grows at increasing rates. Across various domains, data compression through wavelets has enabled the reduction of data size and increase in computation efficiency. In this paper, we provide qualitative and quantitative tests of a new wavelet-based image compression method compared against the current standard for astronomical images. The analysis is improved by making use of state-of-the-art object detection systems to accurately measure the impact of the compression. We find that a combination of lossy wavelet-based methods, efficient quantization, and lossless dictionary compressors can preserve up to 98 per cent of astronomical objects at a 10:1 compression ratio. This significant reduction in file size also preserves astronomical object properties better than existing methods. These methods help further reduce future workloads for image-heavy processing pipelines.