Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
May 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...21011703u&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, #117.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.242
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Precision astrometry at the microarcsecond accuracy provides critical data for a wide range of problems in astrophysics -- from detection and mass determination of Earth-like extrasolar planets, to testing models of stellar structure, to the dynamics and evolutionary history of our Milky Way Galaxy and the Local Group, including the role of dark matter.
NASA's SIM PlanetQuest is a versatile instrument for 'precision astrophysics'. Not only can SIM reach faint targets, but it can be flexibly scheduled to optimize the observations for maximum science return. About half of the observing time will be made available through a competed General Observer program, which will cover any topic for which microarcsecond astrometry is key.
SIM will have a differential accuracy of 1 μas in a single measurement. So in the search for extrasolar planets, SIM could detect an Earth orbiting in the 'habitable zone' around every one of the nearest 64 Sun-like stars, as well as surveying the architectures of 2000 systems for those that resemble our solar System.
With a global astrometric accuracy of 4 μas, SIM can measure accurate distances and luminosities of many types of stars, and through binary orbits, measure dynamical stellar masses to 1 %, which is currently very hard -- especially for exotic systems such as neutron stars and black holes. By determining the proper motions of stellar populations in the Galaxy, SIM will probe the Galactic mass distribution, and through studies of tidal tails, the formation and evolution of the halo. SIM will use astrometry to probe the structure and dynamics of the variable nuclei of active galaxies.
SIM completed its technology development program in 2005, and is being developed for flight in the next decade. This work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.
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