Triton, Pluto, Centaurs, and Trans-Neptunian Bodies

The diverse populations of icy bodies of the outer Solar System (OSS) give critical information on the composition and structure of the solar nebula and the early phases of planet formation. The two principal repositories of icy bodies are the Kuiper belt or disk, and the Oort Cloud, both of which are the source regions of the comets. Nearly 1000 individual Kuiper belt objects have been discovered; their dynamical distribution is a clue to the early outward migration and gravitational scattering power of Neptune. Pluto is perhaps the largest Kuiper belt object. Pluto is distinguished by its large satellite, a variable atmosphere, and a surface composed of several ices and probable organic solid materials that give it color. Triton is probably a former member of the Kuiper belt population, suggested by its retrograde orbit as a satellite of Neptune. Like Pluto, Triton has a variable atmosphere, compositionally diverse icy surface, and an organic atmospheric haze. Centaur objects appear to come from the Kuiper belt and occupy temporary orbits in the planetary zone; the compositional similarity of one well studied Centaur (5145 Pholus) to comets is notable. New discoveries continue apace, as observational surveys reveal new objects and refined observing techniques yield more physical information about specific bodies.     

Large light X-ray optics: basic ideas and concepts

One of the main guidelines for future X-ray astronomy projects like, e.g., XEUS (ESA) and Generation-X (NASA) is to utilize grazing-incidence focusing optics with extremely large telescopes (several tens of m² at 1 keV), with a dramatic increase in collecting area of about two order of magnitude compared to the current X-ray telescopes. In order to avoid the problem of the source's confusion limit at low fluxes, the angular resolution required for these optics should be superb (a few arcsec at most). The enormous mirror dimensions together with the high imaging performances give rise to a number of manufacturing problems. It is basically impossible to realize so large mirrors from closed Wolter I shells which benefit from high mechanical stiffness. Instead the mirrors need to be formed as rectangular segments and a series of them will be assembled in a petal. Taking into account the realistic load capabilities of space launchers, to be able to put in orbit so large mirror modules the mass/geometric-area ratio of the optics should be very small. Finally, with a so large optics mass it would be very difficult to provide the electric power for an optics thermal active control, able to maintain the mirrors at the usual temperature of 20 °C. Therefore, very likely, the optics will instead operate in extreme thermal conditions, with the mirror temperature oscillating between −30 and −40 °C, that tends to exclude the epoxy replication approach (the mismatch between the CTE of the substrate and that of the resin would cause prohibitively large deformations of the mirror surface profiles). From these considerations light weight materials with high thermal–mechanical properties such as glass or ceramics become attractive to realize the mirrors of future Xray telescopes. In this paper, we will discuss a segments manufacturing method based on Borofloat^TM glass. A series of finite element analysis concerning different aspects of the production, testing and integration of the optics are also presented as well.     

Failure of EB-PVD Thermal Barrier Coatings Subjected to Thermo-Mechanical Loading

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) were developed to protect metallic blades and vanes working in turbo-engines. The two-layered structure TBCs, consisting of NiCoCrAlY bond coat and yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ), were deposited on a cylinder of superalloy substrate by the electron beam-physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD). The failure mechanism of the TBCs was investigated with a thermo-mechanical fatigue testing system under the service condition similar to that for turbine blades. Non-destructive evaluation of the coated specimens was conducted through the impedance spectroscopy. It is found that the crack initiation mainly takes place on the top coat at the edge of the heated zones.     

基于厚壁工件X射线实时成像的焊缝缺陷自动检测

基于X射线成像的焊缝缺陷自动检测技术对提高工业射线检测的自动化水平具有重要意义。焊缝缺陷在线连续检测的实时性要求较高,随着工件厚度的增加,其焊缝X射线实时图像的信噪比变得很低,使得已有的处理算法难以满足实时性以及有效处理缺陷误检与漏检之间的矛盾。针对这些问题,在分析了传统方法在厚壁工件X射线图像焊缝缺陷自动检测中存在的问题基础上,对传统方法进行了改进,提出了双阈值背景消除法和平行焊接方向波形分析法,然后利用所提出算法之间的冗余性和互补性,融合多种分割结果以解决缺陷误检与漏检之间的矛盾。试验结果表明,所提出的缺陷自动检测方法能够在满足实时性要求的同时,实现缺陷检出,有效避免误检。     

Fluid instabilities around accreting X-ray sources

Some aspects of fluid instabilities occurring in the magnetospheres of accreting neutron stars are discussed. It is pointed out that (i) in the absence of strong differential rotation, the accreting plasma should be drawn out into spiralling, sheet-like structures, resulting in efficient mixing between the two media; (ii) the Rayleigh-Taylor instability also acts to limit the X-ray luminosity in super-critical sources; and (iii) magnetic shear has a strong stabilizing influence on Kelvin-Helmholtz modes, and its presence may allow substantial amounts of material to be supported around the magnetosphere.     

Characterization of lunar soils through spectral features extraction in the NIR

Recently launched hyper-spectral instrumentation with ever-increasing data return capabilities deliver the remote-sensing data to characterize planetary soils with increased precision, thus generating the need to classify the returned data in an efficient way for further specialized analysis and detection of features of interest. This paper investigates how lunar near-infrared spectra generated by the SIR-2 on Chandrayaan-1 can be classified into distinctive groups of similar spectra with automated feature extraction algorithms. As common spectral parameters for the SIR-2 spectra, two absorption features near 1300 nm and 2000 and their characteristics provide 10 variables which are used in two different unsupervised clustering methods, the mean-shift clustering algorithm and the recently developed graph cut-based clustering algorithm by Müller et al. (2012). The spectra used in this paper were taken on the lunar near side centering around the Imbrium region of the Moon. More than 100,000 spectra were analyzed.     

Zn-5Al-xMn(x=0，0.1，0.2，0.3)合金的铸态组织与耐蚀性能

采用SEM、EDS、电化学测试等方法研究了热浸镀用Zn-5Al-xMn(x=0,0.1,0.2,0.3)合金的铸态组织与耐蚀性能。结果表明:在Zn-5Al合金中加入少量的Mn显著抑制了粗大初生β-Zn相的生成,当Mn含量为0.2%时,初生β-Zn相最少,共晶组织占比最高。试验合金的自腐蚀电位随着Mn含量的提高而增大,自腐蚀电流密度先减小后增大。Zn-5Al-0.2Mn合金自腐蚀电流最小为1.403μA/cm~2,其高频阻抗和低频扩散阻抗均最大。Zn-5Al合金中初生β-Zn相优先腐蚀,Zn-5Al-0.2Mn合金因初生β-Zn相较少,发生均匀性腐蚀,其腐蚀产物在Zn-5Al-xMn合金中最致密。     

Supersoft X-ray sources

More than 100 supersoft X-ray sources (SSS) are reported in 20 external galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) and our Galaxy. The effective temperatures of the brighter SSS are 20–100 eV. SSS with luminosities below ≈3 × 10³⁸ erg s⁻¹ are consistent with accreting white dwarfs (WDs) with steady nuclear burning or post-novae. Optical identifications exist for SSS in our Galaxy and the MCs (including orbital period determinations) and for SSS in M31 (with novae and symbiotic stars, SySs). High resolution X-ray spectra of the brightest SSS in our Galaxy and the MCs reveal the existence of spectral features due to high gravity WDs. Timing studies in X-rays (combined with the optical) of the stable nuclear burning phase in steady nuclear burning sources and in post-novae allow to constrain the mass accretion rate onto and the mass of the nuclear burning WD. The nature of a few SSS with luminosities 10³⁹ erg s⁻¹ remains unclear.