• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.119-120
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• 2015

We report results of the measurement of the trigonometric parallax of an $H_2O$ maser source in IRAS 22555+6213 with the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA). The annual parallax was determined to be $0.278{\pm}0.019$ mas, corresponding to a distance of $3.66^{+0.30}_{-0.26}kpc$. Our results confirm that IRAS 22555+6213 is located in the Perseus arm. We computed the peculiar motion of IRAS 22555+6213 to be ($U_{src}$, $V_{src}$, $W_{src}$) = ($0{\pm}1$, $-32{\pm}1$, $9{\pm}1$) $km\;s^{-1}$, where $U_{src}$, $V_{src}$, and $W_{src}$ are directed toward the Galactic center, in the direction of Galactic rotation and toward the Galactic north pole, respectively. IRAS 22555+6213, NGC7538 and Cepheus A lie along the same line of sight, and are within $2^{\circ}$ on the sky. Their parallax distances, with which we derived their absolute position in the Milky Way, show that IRAS 22555+6213 and NGC7538 are associated with the Perseus arm, while Cepheus A is located in the Local arm. We compared the kinematic distances of IRAS 22555+6213 derived with flat and non-flat rotation curve with its parallax distance and found the kinematic distance derived from the non-flat rotation assumption ($-32km\;s^{-1}$ lag) to be consistent with the parallax distance.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2019

"Hon-Chon-Jeon-Do" is a woodcut star map with the size of $79.4cm{\times}127.5cm$, and was widely disseminated as it was made into a set with Kim, Jung Ho's "Yeoji-Jeon-Do". This study confirmed that Yixiang kaocheng xubian ("의상고성속편") star catalogue was used as a source to produce the star map, and the stereographic projection was applied with the projection center being the mid-point (Q) between the celestial and ecliptic north poles. The 'mid-circle' around the Q is arisen between the equator and the ecliptic, and on this circle, the hour angle and the ecliptic longitude of a star can be marked using the same scale. This means that the hour of the day and the season of the year can be read on the same dial of the mid-circle, and the application of this character in the practical use was the key point of the star map production. By observing either transits or positions of the 28 xiu (宿), it is easy to find the corresponding season and time by simply reading the dial on the mid-circle. This is just the function of a portable almanac and thus by disseminating it widely, the convenience of the people would have been promoted. For this reason, it can be stated that "Hon-Chon-Jeon-Do" was a practical astronomical tool which was produced by the western astronomical projection method and was used to find time and season. Choi, Han Ki and Kim, Jung Ho are strong candidates for the makers of this star map. The time of production is estimated to be 1848 ~ 1857, and "Hon-Chon-Jeon-Do" could be regarded as a good contributor to popularization of astronomy in the late Joseon Dynasty.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.305-311
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• 2016

The spatial size and variation of Arctic sea ice play an important role in Earth's climate system. These are affected by conditions in the polar atmosphere and Arctic sea temperatures. The Arctic sea ice concentration is calculated from brightness temperature data derived from the Defense Meteorological Satellite program (DMSP) F13 Special Sensor Microwave/Imagers (SSMI) and the DMSP F17 Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) sensors. Many previous studies point to significant reductions in sea ice and their causes. We investigated the variability of Arctic sea ice using the daily sea ice concentration data from passive microwave observations to identify the sea ice melting regions near the Arctic polar ice cap. We discovered the abnormal melting of the Arctic sea ice near the North Pole during the summer and the winter. This phenomenon is hard to explain only surface air temperature or solar heating as suggested by recent studies. We propose a hypothesis explaining this phenomenon. The heat from the deep sea in Arctic Ocean ridges and/or the hydrothermal vents might be contributing to the melting of Arctic sea ice. This hypothesis could be verified by the observation of warm water column structure below the melting or thinning arctic sea ice through the project such as Coriolis dataset for reanalysis (CORA).

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.102-111
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• 1995

A series of east/west and north/south station-keeping maneuvers were simulated for the KOREAST spacecraft which has to be maintained within $\pm$0.05 at the nominal longitude of $116^{\circ}$E. Weekly an biweekly based station-deeping maneuver plannings were used, and weekend maneuvers were avoided. All of the station-keeping maneuver plannings and executions were performed using KOREASTA Mission Analysis Software on VAX/VMS operating system. Fourteen weeks station-keeping maneuvers were performed and various station-keeping orbital parameters were obtained.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2017

In this study, the characteristics of a horizontal sundial from the Joseon Dynasty were investigated. Korea's Treasure No. 840 (T840) is a Western-style horizontal sundial where hour-lines and solar-term-lines are engraved. The inscription of this sundial indicates that the latitude (altitude of the north celestial pole) is $37^{\circ}$ 39', but the gnomon is lost. In the present study, the latitude of the sundial and the length of the gnomon were estimated based only on the hour-lines and solar-term-lines of the horizontal sundial. When statistically calculated from the convergent point obtained by extending the hour-lines, the latitude of this sundial was $37^{\circ}$ $15^{\prime}{\pm}26^{\prime}$, which showed a 24' difference from the record of the inscription. When it was also assumed that a convergent point is changeable, the estimation of the sundial's latitude was found to be sensitive to the variation of this point. This study found that T840 used a vertical gnomon, that is, perpendicular to the horizontal plane, rather than an inclined triangular gnomon, and a horn-shaped mark like a vertical gnomon is cut on its surface. The length of the gnomon engraved on the artifact was 43.1 mm, and in the present study was statistically calculated as $43.7{\pm}0.7mm$. In addition, the position of the gnomon according to the original inscription and our calculation showed an error of 0.3 mm.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.719-730
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• 2004

The International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) was established and its foundation were published by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society (EAAS), in order to spread astronomical knowledge, promote international cooperation in astronomical education area, and recognize the importance of astronomy in far-reaching field of science and human culture. In 1996, the first IAO was held at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of sciences (RAS) located in the north Caucasus of Russia. Since then, it has been held every year. Here, we will describe the present status of the International Astronomy Olympiad, its major results by year, related institutions, organizations, and the main regulations regarding its operation. In order to measure the levels of scientific knowledge and thinking abilities, we develop a rubric to analyze the characteristics of problems in the IAO with regards to cognitive aspects of scientific inquiry. These problems require high levels of content knowledge and scientific method knowledge. Also high order thinking abilities and high levels of convergent thinking skills, instead of divergent, are needed to solve these problems. Thus, the problems presented are set a high difficulty. Through this analysis, we can understand main purpose of the International Astronomy Olympiad and explore the future direction of the Korea Astronomy Olympiad.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.123-128
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• 2012

An overview of the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) deep multi-wavelength survey covering from X-ray to radio wavelengths is presented. The main science objective of this multi-wavelength project is to unveil the star-formation and AGN activities obscured by dust in the violent epoch of the Universe (z=0.5-2), when the star formation and black-hole evolution activities were much stronger than the present. The NEP deep survey with AKARI/IRC consists of two survey projects: shallow wide (8.2 sq. deg, NEP-Wide) and the deep one (0.6 sq. deg, NEP-Deep). The NEP-Deep provides us with a $15{\mu}m$ or $18{\mu}m$ selected sample of several thousands of galaxies, the largest sample ever made at these wavelengths. A continuous filter coverage at mid-IR wavelengths (7, 9, 11, 15, 18, and $24{\mu}m$) is unique and vital to diagnose the contribution from starbursts and AGNs in the galaxies at the violent epoch. The recent updates of the ancillary data are also provided: optical/near-IR magnitudes (Subaru, CFHT), X-ray (Chandra), FUV/NUV (GALEX), radio (WSRT, GMRT), optical spectra (Keck/DEIMOS etc.), Subaru/FMOS, Herschel/SPIRE, and JCMT/SCUBA-2.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2014

There has been a rapid increase of the concern on the space radiation effect on pilots, crew and passengers at the commercial aircraft altitude (~ 10 km) recently. It is because domestic airline companies, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines have just begun operating the polar routes over the North Pole since 2006 and 2009 respectively. CARI-6 and CARI-6M are commonly used space radiation estimation programs which are provided officially by the U.S. federal aviation administration (FAA). In this paper, the route doses and the annual radiation doses for Korean pilots and cabin crew were estimated by using CARI-6M based on 2012 flight records. Also the modeling concept was developed for our own space radiation estimation program which is composed of GEANT4 and NRLMSIS00 models. The GEANT4 model is used to trace the incident particle transports in the atmosphere and the NRLMSIS00 model is used to get the background atmospheric densities of various neutral atoms at the aircraft altitude. Also presented are the results of simple integration tests of those models and the plan to include the space weather variations through the solar proton event (SPE) prediction model such as UMASEP and the galactic cosmic ray (GCR) prediction model such as Badhwar-O'Neill 2010.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.327-336
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• 2020

This study presents signal availability of inter-operable global navigation satellite system (multi-GNSS) combined with future Korean Positioning System (KPS), specifically at geosynchronous orbit (GSO). The orbit of KPS, which is currently under conceptual feasibility study, is first introduced, and the grid points for evaluating space service volume (SSV) at GSO are generated. The signal observabilities are evaluated geometrically between those grid points and KPS/GNSS satellites. Then, analyzed are the visibility averaged over time/space and outage time to not access one or four signals. The reduction of maximum outage time induced by KPS are presented with different maximum off-boresight angles depending on L1/E1/B1 and L5/L3/E5a/B2 frequencies. Our numerical analysis shows that the SSV of multi-GNSS combined with KPS provides up to 7 additional signals and could provide continuous observation time (zero outage time) of more than four GNSS or KPS signals for 3.20-14.83% of SSV grid points at GSO. Especially at GSO above North/South America and Atlantic region, the introduction of KPS reduces the outage duration by up to 63 minutes with L1/E1/B1 frequency.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.43-54
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• 2010

This study was performed by the policy research project of Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, which title is "Developing safety standards and management of space radiation on the polar route". In this research, total six experiments were performed using Korean commercial flights (B747). Three of those are on the polar route and the other three are on the north pacific route. Space radiation exposure measured on the polar route is the average 84.7 uSv. The simulation result using CARI-6M program gives 84.9 uSv, which is very similar to measured value. For the departure flight using the north pacific route, the measured space radiation is the average 74.4 uSv. It seems that is not so different to use the polar route or not for the return flight because the higher latitude effect causing the increase of space radiation is compensated by the shortened flight time effect causing decreasing space radiation exposure.