Any plans or studies for an "Occultation sensor"? |
Any plans or studies for an "Occultation sensor"? |
Apr 30 2010, 03:45 PM
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#1
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 1 Joined: 29-March 10 Member No.: 5286 |
A while back, Hubble detected the smallest Kuiper Belt Object (so far) by detecting the diffraction effects of it occulting a reference star.
Are there any plans or studies for a telescope designed to detect objects using this occultation sensor technique? It could be used to detect dark objects in the outer solar system and beyond. Thanks! |
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Apr 30 2010, 04:51 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1887 Joined: 20-November 04 From: Iowa Member No.: 110 |
The Taiwan American Occultation Survey ( TAOS ) was designed to do this using ground based telescopes. So far (3.5 years) they haven't detected any.
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Apr 30 2010, 07:08 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1417 Joined: 26-July 08 Member No.: 4270 |
There's a couple missions in progress, Kepler and CoRoT. While they're aimed more at exoplanet science and asteroseismology, the detection method is the same.
HST's detection of the KBO you speak of was a pure stroke of luck. It is not expected to be a fairly common occurrence. -------------------- -- Hungry4info (Sirius_Alpha)
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