| Autor: |
Kevin France, Brian Fleming, Arika Egan, Jean-Michel Desert, Luca Fossati, Tommi T. Koskinen, Nicholas Nell, Pascal Petit, Aline A. Vidotto, Matthew Beasley, Nicholas DeCicco, Aickara Gopinathan Sreejith, Ambily Suresh, Jared Baumert, P. Wilson Cauley, Carolina Villarreal D’Angelo, Keri Hoadley, Robert Kane, Richard Kohnert, Julian Lambert, Stefan Ulrich |
| Jazyk: |
angličtina |
| Rok vydání: |
2023 |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
The Astronomical Journal, Vol 165, Iss 2, p 63 (2023) |
| Druh dokumentu: |
article |
| ISSN: |
1538-3881 |
| DOI: |
10.3847/1538-3881/aca8a2 |
| Popis: |
Atmospheric escape is a fundamental process that affects the structure, composition, and evolution of many planets. The signatures of escape are detectable on close-in, gaseous exoplanets orbiting bright stars, owing to the high levels of extreme-ultraviolet irradiation from their parent stars. The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a CubeSat mission designed to take advantage of the near-ultraviolet stellar brightness distribution to conduct a survey of the extended atmospheres of nearby close-in planets. The CUTE payload is a magnifying near-ultraviolet (2479–3306 Å) spectrograph fed by a rectangular Cassegrain telescope (206 mm × 84 mm); the spectrogram is recorded on a back-illuminated, UV-enhanced CCD. The science payload is integrated into a 6U Blue Canyon Technology XB1 bus. CUTE was launched into a polar, low-Earth orbit on 2021 September 27 and has been conducting this transit spectroscopy survey following an on-orbit commissioning period. This paper presents the mission motivation, development path, and demonstrates the potential for small satellites to conduct this type of science by presenting initial on-orbit science observations. The primary science mission is being conducted in 2022–2023, with a publicly available data archive coming online in 2023. |
| Databáze: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
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