The Astronomical Journal
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The Astronomical Journal is an open access journal publishing original astronomical research, with an emphasis on significant scientific results derived from observations. Publications in AJ include descriptions of data capture, surveys, analysis techniques, astronomical interpretation, instrumentation, and software and computing.
The Astronomical Journal
1d ago
We verify candidate hypervelocity red clump stars located in the Galactic bulge that were selected based on the VVV and the Gaia DR2 data by Luna et al. To do so, we analyze data from the OGLE-IV survey: difference images and astrometric time series. We have data for 30 stars out of 34 hypervelocity candidates. We confirmed the high proper motion of only one of these stars and find out that it is a nearby one, hence, not a hypervelocity star. To sum up, we do not confirm the candidate stars as hypervelocity ones. Hence, we disprove the production rate of hypervelocity red clump stars by the ce ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
Previous attempts have been made to characterize the atmospheres of directly imaged planets at low resolution (R ∼ 10–100 s), but the presence of clouds has often led to degeneracies in the retrieved atmospheric abundances with cloud opacity and temperature structure that bias retrieved compositions. In this study, we perform retrievals on the ultrayoung (≲5 Myr) directly imaged planet ROXs 42B b with both a downsampled low-resolution JHK-band spectrum from Gemini/NIFS and Keck/OSIRIS, and a high-resolution K-band spectrum from pre-upgrade Keck/NIRSPAO. Using the atmospheric retrieval framewor ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
We present two transit observations of the ∼870 K, 1.7 R⊕ super-Earth TOI-836b with JWST NIRSpec/G395H, resulting in a 2.8–5.2 μm transmission spectrum. Using two different reduction pipelines, we obtain a median transit depth precision of 34 ppm for Visit 1 and 36 ppm for Visit 2, leading to a combined precision of 25 ppm in spectroscopic channels 30 pixels wide (∼0.02 μm). We find that the transmission spectrum from both visits is well fit by a zero-sloped line, by fitting zero-sloped and sloped lines as well as step functions to our data. Combining both visits, we are able to rule out atmos ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
We study the physical properties and 3D distribution of molecular clouds (MCs) toward the Cygnus region using the MWISP CO survey and Gaia DR3 data. Based on Gaussian decomposition and clustering for 13CO lines, over 70% of the fluxes are recovered. With the identification result of 13CO structures, two models are designed to measure the distances of the molecular gas in velocity crowding regions. The distances of more than 200 large 13CO structures are obtained toward the 150 deg2 region. Additionally, tens of the identified MC structures coincide well with masers and/or intense mid-IR emissi ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
[Ne ii] 12.81 μm emission is a well-used tracer of protoplanetary disk winds due to its blueshifted line profile. Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI)-Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MRS) recently observed T Cha, detecting this line along with lines of [Ne iii], [Ar ii], and [Ar iii], with the [Ne ii] and [Ne iii] lines found to be extended while the [Ar ii] was not. In this complementary work, we use these lines to address long-debated questions about protoplanetary disk winds regarding their mass-loss rate, the origin of their ionization, and the role of magnetically driven winds as opposed to pho ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
Large terrestrial bodies in our solar system like the Earth, Mars, Mercury, and the Moon exhibit geologically complex surfaces with compositional heterogeneity. From past studies using large telescopes and spacecraft, it was shown that asteroids with diameters larger than 100 km also show surface heterogeneity at hemispheric scales, while on smaller objects, such features remain to be detected. Here, we investigate candidates for surface heterogeneity in a sample of 130 main-belt asteroids using multiepoch spectroscopic data from the MIT–Hawaii Near-Earth Object Spectroscopic Survey, which has ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
In recent years, there has been a gradual increase in the performance of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) cameras. These cameras have gained popularity as a viable alternative to charge-coupled device cameras in a wide range of applications. One particular application is the CMOS camera installed in small space telescopes. However, the limited power and spatial resources available on satellites present challenges in maintaining ideal observation conditions, including temperature and radiation environment. Consequently, images captured by CMOS cameras are susceptible to issues suc ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
Photoevaporative mass-loss rates are expected to be highest when planets are young and the host star is more active, but to date there have been relatively few measurements of mass-loss rates for young gas giant exoplanets. In this study we measure the present-day atmospheric mass-loss rate of TOI-1268b, a young (110–380 Myr) and low density (0.71 g cm−3) hot Saturn located near the upper edge of the Neptune desert. We use Palomar/WIRC to search for excess absorption in the 1083 nm helium triplet during two transits of TOI-1268b. We find that it has a larger transit depth ( excess) in the heli ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
V583 Lyr is an extremely low-mass-ratio Algol-type binary with an orbital period of 11.2580 days. We determined an effective temperature of Teff1 = 9000 ± 350 K from newly observed spectra, which might be an underestimate due to binary mass transfer. The binary mass ratio q = 0.1 ± 0.004 and the orbital inclination i = 85.°5 are determined based on the assumption that the secondary fills its Roche lobe and rotates synchronously. The radial velocity curve is obtained from time series spectra, allowing for improved estimation of stellar masses and radii: M1 = 3.56 ± 0.5 M⊙, R1 = 2.4 ± 0.2 R⊙; an ..read more
The Astronomical Journal
2d ago
In this study, we investigate interstellar absorption lines along the line of sight toward the galactic low-mass X-ray binary Cygnus X-2. We combine absorption line data obtained from high-resolution X-ray spectra collected with the Chandra and XMM-Newton satellites, along with far-UV absorption lines observed by the Hubble Space Telescope’s (HST) Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) instrument. Our primary objective is to understand the abundance and depletion of oxygen, iron, sulfur, and carbon. To achieve this, we have developed an analysis pipeline that simultaneously fits both the UV and X-r ..read more