... There has been a heated public discussion in the past few years about whether our ninth planet is really deserving of the name. Since Pluto orbits a star, and is much less luminous, it certainly satisfies the definition we have above. The problem is actually not with Pluto, but with a very large number of other bodies in our Solar System which also satisfy this definition, but which are not called planets. Perhaps the most notable of these is Ceres, the largest asteroid. ... Planet . ...

SAI 175 anniversary . ... Moscow University . Search for in SAI Moscow University Search for in Russian astronomical resources . ... SAI Astronomical Databases . ... Browse SAI Software archive(ftp.sai.msu.su) . ASTRONET.RU - Russian Astronomical Network (available in translit also) . ... SAI Supernovae Research Group . ... Department of the Galaxy and Variable Stars (in Russian) . Sternberg Astronomical Institute Seminars . ... All-Russian Astronomical Olympiad (in Russian) . ...

... Abstract Determine the set of osculating conic orbital elements that corresponds to the state (position, velocity) of a body at some epoch. ... In general, the elements found by this routine can have two kinds of problems: - The elements are not accurate but still represent the input state accurately. ... One recommended "sanity check" on the outputs is to supply them to the CSPICE routine conics_c and compare the resulting state vector with the one supplied to this routine. ...

Michele Bannister . PhD research . ... Other research . ... My thesis research aimed to help build on our understanding of the earliest history of our Solar System. How did the planets form? ... In the last fifteen years, our story of how our Solar System came to be in its present state has altered dramatically - and this is largely due to knowing more about some of the smallest worlds in our planetary system. ... Mining for new dwarf planets . ... 2013 Michele Bannister . ... PHD | ...

... The study of extra solar planets will be one of the most important areas of research in astronomy in this century. ... The first planets outside the solar system were found in 1992 around the millisecond pulsar PSR B1257+12 by Alex Wolszczan at the Arecibo Observatory . ... Three space missions based on this principle (MOST, COROT and Kepler ) have already been launched or approved, and have the last one at least has the potential to find Earth-sized planets. ... SIM ( NASA ) is one of such missions...

... This recently reintroduced area of research at the Observatory continues a tradition established at the Observatory by E.J. Opik , focusing on problems involving the origin and evolution of comets , their dynamical transfer from the Oort cloud and other reservoirs into short-period orbits , the interrelationship between comets and asteroids (particularly objects in Earth-crossing ... The first concerns the origin and evolution of the Oort cloud in the Galaxy. ...

MARS-96 . ... Scientific goals . ... At the end of the 1980's, the successful broad scientific exploration program of Venus was fulfilled, the successful mission to Halley Comet was completed and the mission to Phobos, having limited success, was also realized, At this time, Mars was chosen as the main object for future planetary exploration within the Russian Space Program. ... Earlier missions to Mars showed that this planet in its earlier history was much more similar to the Earth than that is now. ...

Comets necessarily obey the same physical laws as every other object. ... If one considers only two bodies -- either the Sun and a planet, or the Sun and a comet -- the smaller body appears to follow an elliptical path or orbit about the Sun, which is at one focus of the ellipse. ... Another quantity that is conserved is called angular momentum. ... Comets simply are bodies which in general have more angular momentum per unit mass than do planets and therefore move in more elongated orbits. ...

... With enough velocity, a spacecraft can break loose from the Earth's gravity and enter an orbit around the Sun, like that of a planet. If it then orbits the Sun with the same period as the Earth--one year--it may keep a fixed position relative to Earth. ... If the distance is just right--about 4 times the distance to the Moon or 1/100 the distance to the Sun--the spacecraft, too, will need just one year to go around the Sun, and will keep its position between the Sun and the Earth. ...

... The one year crew. (image credit: NASA/Bill Stafford) . The тАЬOne Year CrewтАЭ has specific objectives to their mission all in a bid to find out if the human body and mind is capable of long missions to an asteroid, back to the Moon or even to Mars in the future. ... On-board the Russian space station Mir four cosmonauts clocked up more than a year in space in the 1980s and 1990s.€а (1942-) has the record for the longest single space flight of 437 days or 14 months in space in 1995. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... The Magazine . ... Star Atlas . ... An artificial comet holds secrets to Earths life . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... The planet has extreme temperature swings and perhaps active lava flows. ... A digital supplement to Astronomy magazine. ... Join TravelQuest International with Astronomy and Discover magazines on one of three great tour options surrounding this celestial spectacle . ... Astronomy Magazine . ...

... comet nucleus. ... Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), Near Earth Objects (NEOs), cometary families , terrestrial type planets, collidings, transition of a comet nucleus , initial heliocentric parabolic orbit, heliocentric elliptical trajectory, a pairwise three dimensional two-body problem, the Sun - comet nucleus , terrestrial planet - comet nucleus , orbital parameters of a nucleus , sphere of influence of a ...

... Epimetheus and Janus, two small moons of Saturn, actually switch positions as they orbit their home planet. The orbital radii of the moons are strangely separated by less than the radii of the moons themselves: about 50 kilometers. ... Last month, a Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station. ... This October, Mars has become a bright, yellowish star in planet Earth's sky as it approaches oppositon, the period when Mars and Earth pass close as they orbit the Sun. ...

... More on 51 Peg: . The discovery of a Jupiter--mass planet in orbit around the solar--type star 51Peg has been reported by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz (Geneva Observatory) on October 6th at the 9th Cambridge workshop on "cool stars, stellar systems, and the sun" held at Florence (Italy). ... Recall that the measurements of radial velocity only yield v sin i which in turn gives us M sin i. For most values of i, sin i will be greater than 0.5 and this gives a mass estimate of 0.5 Jupiter masses. ...

... The HST uses an onboard model of its orbit to perform in real-time various control functions relating to spacecraft operations and observation support. ... New coefficients for the ephemeris are updated every other day, and are archived as FITS keywords for each HST observation data set. Using these coefficients,an observer can perform a variety of calibration and characterization calculations relating to the orbital position and velocity of the telescope. ...

Chair of solid state physics . ... position in MIPT: . Professor, Head of the Solid State Physics Chair . position in ISSP: . ... scientific degree: . Dr. S. e-mail: . kveder@issp.ac.ru . ... Professor, Deputy Head of the Solid State Physics Chair . ... zverev@issp.ac.ru . ... Secretary of the Solid State Physics Chair . ... povarova@issp.ac.ru . ... dev@issp.ac.ru . ... kulakovs@issp.ac.ru . ... maksimov@issp.ac.ru . ... Professor, Dean of the General and Applied Physics Department . ...

... S.P. KOROLEV ROCKET AND SPACE CORPORATION ENERGIA . ... OAO RSC "Energia" . ... Company's History . ... History . Brief History of Rocket and Space Technology . ... Flights Chronology . ... Project History . ISS Russian Segment . ... Installation of the ground receiving station on the premises of M.V. Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, the Russian Academy of Sciences, software upgrading to receive the information signal from board the ISS RS. ... 2015 JSC "S.P. Korolev RSC "Energia" . ...

Ground Support of RadioAstron . Control and Tracking Stations . RadioAstron satellite control (command transmission, telemetry, orbit measurements) will be conducted from Evpatoria and Bear Lake control stations. ... Coarse orbit measurements will be carried out from control stations. Each measurement takes ten minutes. ... Orbit measurements at tracking stations give only radial component of spacecraft velocity but the measurements are going continuously during observing sessions. ...

... ESO, the European Southern Observatory . ... Member States . ... United Kingdom . Travel and Contacts . Travel to ESO Headquarters . ... ESO Acronyms . ... Survey Telescopes . ... VLT Unit Telescopes Names . ... ESO 3.6-metre telescope . ... MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope . ... TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope . ... The Comet€аMcNaught€а2007 . ... Wide-field image around the Minor Planet (4015) / Comet WilsonтАУHarrington. ... Comet Wilson-Harrington , Minor Planet (4015) . ...