Astronomical instrumentation articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Real-time lab analysis is key to support clinical research during space missions. Here, the authors show scant test samples can be measured in microgravity using a miniature cytometery-based analyzer, the rHEALTH ONE with specific spaceflight modifications.

    • Daniel J. Rea
    • , Rachael S. Miller
    •  & Eugene Y. Chan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Astrocombs serve as precision calibrators for astrophysical spectrographs by providing a regular sequence of optical lines on a multi-GHz grid. Here, the authors report the first broadband astrocomb in the UV to blue-green spectral region, where stellar absorption lines are most abundant.

    • Yuk Shan Cheng
    • , Kamalesh Dadi
    •  & Derryck T. Reid

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The exploration of our solar system is being radically changed since the beginning of operations of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in mid 2022. JWST’s extraordinary sensitivity and instrumentation allow for sensitive searches for the building blocks of life and to test for habitability, also enabling new discoveries on small bodies to giant planets across our solar system and beyond.

    • G. L. Villanueva
    •  & S. N. Milam

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission intentionally impacted the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, and this kinetic impact changed Dimorphos’ orbit around its binary companion Didymos. This first planetary defense test explored technological readiness for this method of asteroid deflection.

    • Andrew S. Rivkin
    •  & Andrew F. Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adaptive optics wavefront sensors need to be in a pupil plane and are insensitive to certain wavefront-error modes. The authors present a wavefront sensor based on a photonic lantern fibre-mode-converter and deep learning, which can be placed at the same focal plane accessing nondegenerate wavefront information and reconstructing the wavefront.

    • Barnaby R. M. Norris
    • , Jin Wei
    •  & Sergio G. Leon-Saval

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is significant interest in providing real-world applications for metamaterials. Here, the authors design an Advanced Short Backfire Antenna, augmented with anisotropic metamaterial surfaces to achieve high aperture efficiency across two frequency bands, making the antenna ideal for spaceborne applications.

    • J. Daniel Binion
    • , Erik Lier
    •  & Douglas H. Werner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Alumina is thought to be the main condensate to form in the gas outflow from oxygen-rich evolved stars. Here, the authors perform a condensation experiment with alumina in a low-gravity environment, and find spectroscopic evidence for a sharp feature at a wavelength of 13.55 μm.

    • Shinnosuke Ishizuka
    • , Yuki Kimura
    •  & Yuko Inatomi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has been recording a flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos since 2013. Here, the authors investigate the possibility of increasing its sensitivity by implementing wavelength shifting optics within IceCube’s drill holes.

    • Imre Bartos
    • , Zsuzsa Marka
    •  & Szabolcs Marka

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