• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.224-235
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• 2022

This study aimed to confirm the status of media reports on space hazards using topic modeling analysis of media articles that are related to space hazards for the past 12 years. Therefore, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis was performed by collecting over 1200 space hazards articles between 2010 and 2021 on solar storm, artificial space objects, and natural space objects from BIGKins news platform. The articles related to solar storm focused on three topics: the effect of solar explosion on satellites; effect of solar explosion on radio communication in Korea, centered on the Korean Space Weather Center; and relationship between aircrew and space radiation. The articles related to artificial space objects focused on three topics: the threat of space garbage to satellite and space stations and the transition of useful objects into space junk; the relationship between space garbage and humanity as shown in movies; and the effort of developed countries for tracking, monitoring, and disposing of space garbage. The articles related to natural space objects focused on two topics: International Space Agency's tracking and monitoring of near-Earth asteroids and the countermeasures of collisions, and the evolution and extinction of dinosaurs and mammals, with a focus on the collisions of asteroids or comets. Therefore, this study confirmed that domestic media play a role in conveying dangers of space hazards and arousing the attention of public using a total of eight themes in various fields such as society and culture, and derived education method and policy on space hazards.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.119-134
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• 2021

The data set collected during the night of the discovery of a minor body constitutes a too-short arc (TSA), resulting in failure of the differential correction procedure. This makes it necessary to recover the object during subsequent nights to gather more observations that will allow a preliminary orbit to be calculated. In this work, we present a recovery technique based on sampling the admissible region (AdRe) by the constrained Delaunay triangulation. We construct the AdRe in its topocentric and geocentric variants, using logarithmic and exponential metrics, for the following near-Earth-asteroids: (3122) Florence, (3200) Phaethon, 2003 GW, (1864) Daedalus, 2003 BH84 and 1977 QQ5; and the main-belt asteroids: (1738) Oosterhoff, (4690) Strasbourg, (555) Norma, 2006 SO375, 2003 GE55 and (32811) Apisaon. Using our sampling technique, we established the ephemeris region for these objects, using intervals of observation from 25 minutes up to 2 hours, with propagation times from 1 up to 47 days. All these objects were recoverable in a field of vision of 95' × 72', except for (3122) Florence and (3200) Phaethon, since they were observed during their closest approach to the Earth. In the case of 2006 SO375, we performed an additional test with only two observations separated by 2 minutes, achieving a recovery of up to 28 days after its discovery, which demonstrates the potential of our technique.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.25-36
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• 2023

Since interstellar objects like 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov originate from exoplanetary systems, even if we do not visit the exoplanetary systems, flyby, rendezvous, and sample return missions of interstellar objects can provide clues to solve the mysteries of cosmic life phenomena such as the origin of exoplanetary systems, galactic evolution, biosignatures (or even technosignatures), and panspermia. In this paper, we review space missions for interstellar object exploration in the stage of mission design or concept study such as Project Lyra, Bridge, Comet Interceptors, and Lightcraft^TM. We also review space missions, OSIRIS-REx and NEA Scout, designed for Near Earth Asteroids(NEA) explorations, to investigate the current state of basic technologies that can be extended to explore interstellar objects in a velocity of ~ 6AU/year. One of the technologies that needs to be developed for interstellar object exploration is a spacecraft propulsion method such as solar sail, which can catch up with the fast speed of interstellar objects. If this kind of propulsion becomes practical for space explorations, interstellar object explorations will mark a new era and serve as a driving force to provide evidences of cosmic life.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.62.2-62.2
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• 2013

It is considered that comets near the ecliptic plane have been injected into inner solar system from Kuiper-belt. Some of them are still active while others are dormant with no detectable tails and comae. These dormant comets have eccentric and/or inclined orbits, which are parameterized by Tisserand parameter TJ<3. In addition, dormant comets can be differentiated from asteroids based on the albedo, because they have low albedo (the geometrical albedos pv<0.1). The conditions of TJ<3 and pv<0.1 have been used as a criteria to discriminate dormant comets from asteroids. However, we must be more careful because there are 'contaminations' from the outer region, i.e. Jovian Trojans (5.05

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.385-392
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• 2005

We developed an algorithm to efficiently detect streaks in survey images and made a performance test with YSTAR-NEOPAT images obtained by the 0.5m telescope stationed in South Africa. Fast moving objects whose apparent speeds exceed 10 arcsec/min are the main target of our algorithm; these include artificial satellites, space debris, and very fast Near-Earth Objects. Our algorithm, based on the outline shape of elongated sources employs a step of image subtraction in order to reduce the confusion caused by dense distribution of faint stars. It takes less than a second to find and characterize streaks present in normal astronomical images of 2K format. Comparison with visual inspection proves the efficiency and completeness of our automated detection algorithm. When applied to about 7,000 time-series images from YSTAR telescope, nearly 700 incidents of streaks are detected. Fast moving objects are identified by the presence of matching streaks in adjoining frames. Nearly all of confirmed fast moving objects turn out to be artificial satellites or space debris. Majority of streaks are however meteors and cosmic ray hits, whose identity is often difficult to classify.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.96.1-96.1
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• 2014

The rotation of asteroids can help reveal not only the fundamental characteristics of asteroids but also the origin and evolution of our Solar System. From the photometric observations for NEA 162173 (1999 JU3) and Maria family asteroids using 0.5 m- to 2 m- class telescopes at 10 observatories in the northern hemisphere, I obtained a total of 260 lightcurves for 97 asteroids and derived synodic rotational periods for 51 objects, including newly obtained periods of 34 asteroids. For the sake of efficiency, I developed an observation scheduler, SMART (Scheduler for Measuring Asteroid RoTation) and a photometric analysis software subsystem, ASAP (Asteroid Spin Analysis Package). Based on the lightcurve analysis of NEA 162173 (1999 JU3) and Maria family asteroids, 1) I present the rotational and observational characteristics of 1999 JU3 and provided the Hayabusa-2 Science team with the information on pole orientations, 2) I investigated correlations among rotational periods, amplitudes of lightcurves, and sizes, and conclude that the rotational properties of old-type family asteroids have been changed considerably by the YORP effect. 3) Finally, I found the Yarkovsky footprints on the Maria asteroid family and estimated that approximately 37 to 75 Maria family asteroids larger than 1 km have entered the near-Earth space every 100 Myr. This study should reveal the collisional history and transport route of the members from the resonance region to the near Earth space, for the first time.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.7-15
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• 2008

We carried out a set of simulations to reproduce the performance of wide-field NEO surveys based on the revised population model of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) constructed by Morbidelli (2006). This is the first time where the new model is carefully compared with discovery statistics, and with the exception of population model, the simulation is identical to the procedure described in Moon et al. (2008). Our simulations show rather large discrepancy between the number of NEO discoveries made by the actual and the simulated surveys. First of all, unlike Bottke et al. (2002)'s, Morbidelli (2006)'s population model overestimates the number of NEOs. However, the latter reproduces orbit distributions of the actual population better. Our analysis suggests that both models significantly underestimate Amors, while overestimating the number of Apollos. Our simulation result implies that substantial modifications of both models are needed for more accurate reproduction of survey observations. We also identify Hungaria region (HU) to be one of the most convincing candidates that supply a large fraction of asteroids to the inner Solar System.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.75.2-75.2
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• 2015

Extremely Red Objects (EROs) are characterized by their red optical-infrared colors (e.g., R-Ks > 5.0), which would be caused by either dusty star formation or old stellar population at moderate to high redshifts. We combine deep optical (Subaru R) and near-infrared (CFHT Ks) observations obtained as part of the Subaru $GTO2deg^2$ survey to select EROs over this field and to explore their properties. We present number densities of EROs as a function of magnitudes. We are planning to quantify the environments for EROs and to see if EROs reside in overdense regions.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.87.1-87.1
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• 2010

Main-belt comets (hereafter MBCs) are one of the hottest topics in the solar system astronomy. They are objects orbiting in the main asteroid belt which show cometary activity. Unlike most comets, which spend most of their orbit beyond 5AU from the Sun, MBCs follow near-circular orbits within the asteroid belt that are indistinguishable from the orbits of major population of the asteroids. P/2010 A2, the fifth MBC, was discovered by on January 6, 2010 by Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research. It passed its perihelion at 2.01AU on December 3, 2009, about a month before it was discovered. With an aphelion of only 2.6 AU, P/2010 A2 spends all of its time inside of the frostline ~2.7 AU. We made observations of P/2010 A2 with Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory 2-m telescope only a week after the discovery. From the observed images, we found that the dust cloud was composed of large particles (>1mm) impulsively ejected between March and June, 2009. No coma was detected by our observations, suggesting that this object was no longer active. Consequently, we conjecture that these dust particles could be released by the impact collision among asteroids.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.101.2-101.2
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• 2012

An asteroid family is a population of asteroids in the proper orbital element space (a, e, i), considered to have been produced by a disruption of a large parent body presumably through a catastrophic collision. Asteroid families offer unique opportunities to reconstruct and characterize the break-up history of airless bodies in the main-belt. The Maria family is a typical old population (~3${\pm}$1 Gyr) of asteroids that have undergone significant collisional and dynamical evolution in the history of the inner Solar System; it is also believed to be one of the candidate source regions for giant S-type near-earth asteroids (NEAs). However, to date, physical characteristics of this family members such as rotational periods have been known only for 61 of the larger asteroids among 3,230 objects, which accounts for less than 2 percent of the family. In this presentation, we provide some preliminary results of our recent study: out of more than dozen of the family members, lightcurves for eight objects have been obtained for the first time. We plan to increase the number of target objects, and investigate evidences for the Yarkovsky/YORP effect on Maria family based on our observations.