From the last few decades, the space science community has shown considerable interest in missions which take place in the vicinity of the Lagrangian points in the restricted three-body problem (RTBP) of the Sun-Earth and the Earth-Moon systems [1]. Designing trajectories for these missions is a challenging task due to inadequacy of the conic approximations. The RTBP deals the situation where o...

Oxygenic photosynthesis is the principal producer of both oxygen and organic matter on earth. The primary step in this process--the conversion of sunlight into chemical energy--is driven by four multi-subunit membrane protein complexes named photosystem I, photosystem II, cytochrome b(6)f complex and F-ATPase. Photosystem I generates the most negative redox potential in nature and thus largely ...

Observational surveys for extrasolar planets probe the diverse outcomes of planet formation and evolution. These surveys measure the frequency of planets with different masses, sizes, orbital characteristics, and host star properties. Small planets between the sizes of Earth and Neptune substantially outnumber Jupiter-sized planets. The survey measurements support the core accretion model, in w...

[1] We present a focused parameter study of solar wind–magnetosphere interaction for the young Sun and Earth, ∼3.5 Gyr ago, that relies on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations for both the solar wind and the magnetosphere. By simulating the quiescent young Sun and its wind we are able to propagate the MHD simulations up to Earth’s magnetosphere and obtain a physically realistic solar forcing o...

The L1 and L2 libration points have been proposed as gateways granting inexpensive access to interplanetary space. The lunar libration points, in conjunction with the collinear libration points in the Sun-Earth system, may also become primary hubs for future human activities in the Earth’s neighborhood. The associated manifold tubes have been introduced by a number of researchers as the basis f...

The most widely known solar theory from antiquity is that of Hipparchus. All ancient sources are agreed that Hipparchus’ model was a simple eccentric or an equivalent epicycle. The eccentric version of the model is shown in Figure 1. The Earth E is displaced a distance e from the center Z of the deferent. The purpose of the displacement is to allow the Sun at S to appear to move alternately slo...

It is known that near-Earth objects (NEOs) during their orbital evolution may often undergo close approaches to the Sun. Indeed it is estimated that up to ∼70% of them end their orbital evolution colliding with the Sun. Starting from the present orbital properties, it is possible to compute the most likely past evolution for every NEO, and to trace its distance from the Sun. We find that a larg...

Solar neutrino oscillations with wavelengths comparable to the Earth-Sun distance provide a viable explanations of the long-standing solar neutrino deecit. They imply a time-dependent modulation of the solar neutrino ux due to the eccentricity of the Earth orbit. Motivated by this testable prediction, we propose a Fourier analysis of the signal observable in real-time, solar neutrino experiment...

[1] Results from the first Sun-to-Earth coupled numerical model developed at the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling are presented. The model simulates physical processes occurring in space spanning from the corona of the Sun to the Earth’s ionosphere, and it represents the first step toward creating a physics-based numerical tool for predicting space weather conditions in the near-Ear...