• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.39.4-40
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• 2017

According to the Korean government's Long-term Space Development Plan 2040, "Creative space science research" is included in a statement to investigate the origin and evolution of the universe by conducting a series of Korean space telescope missions: launch of space telescopes on a small satellite and an international collaboration explorer by 2020, a mid-size domestic space telescope by 2030, and a large size Korea leading international space telescope by 2040. We studied the feasibility of the future Korean Space Telescope (KST) for a mid-size domestic satellite platform. In order to pursue the uniqueness of the science program, we consider a wide range of observing wavelength (0.2um ~ 2.0um) with a spectral resolution of R~6 in the NUV and optical bands, and R~30 for NIR, utilizing an off-axis TMS(Three Mirror System) optics with a wide field of view ($2{\times}4$ degrees) which is optimized for ultra-low surface brightness sources. The main science goals of the mission include investigations of the galaxy formation, cosmic web, and the cosmic background radiation in the NUV-NIR regions. In this paper, we present the science cases and several technical challenges to be resolved along with the future milestones for the success of the KST mission.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.70.2-70.2
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• 2013

We present collections of optical photometry for a pre-main sequence star HBC 722. It showed large amplitude optical outburst (${\Delta}V=4.7$ mag) in 2010 and classified as a FU Orionis type object. We have been observing HBC 722 from 2011 April to 2013 May, using Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN) attached to the 2.1 m Otto Struve telescope at the McDonald Observatory. Time-series monitoring data (minute-scale interval) were obtained in SDSS r, i and z bands to see short-scale behaviors as well as trace the long-term brightness changes after the eruption in 2010. Interestingly, it started to brighten from 2011 early summer and became brighter than the first outburst peak in our 2013 May observation. We expect that the recovering phase would result from re-increase of disk accretion rate, might attribute to distinctive short-scale color features. In this presentation, we report long- and short-timescale optical behaviors of HBC 722 in the post-outburst phase.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.42.1-42.1
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• 2016

We examined thousands of light curves of stars brighter than 18.0 mag in I band and less than mean magnitude error of 0.1 mag in V band from the OGLE-III eclipsing binary catalogue, and found 90 new binary systems exhibiting apsidal motion. In this study, the samples of apsidal motion stars in the SMC were increased by 250 percent than previously known. In order to determine the period of the apsidal motion for the binaries, we analysed in detail both light curves and eclipse timings using the MACHO and OGLE photometric database obtained for about 20 yrs. For the eclipse timing diagrams of the systems, new times of minimum light were derived from the full light curve combined at intervals of one yr from the survey data. The binaries presented in this paper have apsidal motion periods in the range of 12-918 yrs. An additional short-term oscillation was detected in five systems (OGLE-SMC-ECL-1634, 1947, 3035, 4946, and 5382), which most likely arise from the existence of a third body orbiting each eclipsing binary. All of the selected systems can be used for the statistical study of the interior structure of the stars in the SMC through their apsidal motions due to the homogeneous data and consistent analysis methods.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.367-376
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• 2002

As of September 2002, there are more than 60 operational permanent Global Positioning System (GPS) stations in South Korea. Their data are being used for a variety of purposes: geodynamics, geodesy, real-time navigation, atmospheric science, and geography. Especially, many of the sites are reference stations for DGPS (Differential GPS). However, there has been no comprehensive and qualitative analysis published to evaluate the data quality. In this study, we present preliminary results of our assessment of the permanent GPS sites in South Korea. We have analyzed the multi-path characteristics of each station using a quality-checking software package called TEQC. Another multipath analysis tool based on post-fit phase residuals was used to check the repeating patterns and the amount of the multipath at each site. The long-term stability of each station was analyzed using the root-mean-square (RMS) error of the estimated site positions for one year, which enabled us to evaluate the mount stability. In addition, the number of cycle slips at each site was derived by TEQC. Based on these series of tests, we compared the stability and data quality of permanent GPS stations in South Korea.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.46.2-46.2
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• 2020

Dust ejection activities have been discovered from a few tens of asteroids since the first confirmation in 2006. Those objects are known as active asteroids. They provide good observational chances to study ongoing phenomena in the solar system such as sublimation of icy volatiles, mutual collisions among asteroids, rotational disintegrations, thermal fatigue, etc. Although dust ejection mechanisms of individual cases have been investigated through observations, the frequencies of the events and their connection to the overall evolutionary budget of the solar system have not yet been studied thoroughly, mainly because previous studies were based on serendipitous discoveries without any systematic surveys of these objects. In this work, we made wide-field monitoring observations of asteroids using Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) during the 2018/2019 winter season. Among 3,644 asteroids in the field-of-view, we detected nine candidates of brightness enhancements which we suspect as possible activities. It is still possible that some of those brightness increases have caused by long-term rotations. However, our observed frequency and brightness enhancements size-frequency distribution agrees with the expectations from impacts with decimeter sized objects, when the main belt objects size-frequency distribution observed down to decameter sized bodies are extrapolated to decimeter size.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.87-106
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• 2024

The objective of this research is to address the issue of frozen orbits in charged satellites by incorporating geopotential zonal harmonics up to J6 and the initial tesseral harmonics. The employed model starts from the first normalized Hamiltonian to calculate specific sets of long-term frozen orbits for charged satellites. To explore the frozen orbits acquired, a MATHEMATICA CODE is developed. The investigation encompasses extensive variations in orbit altitudes by employing the orbital inclination and argument of periapsis as freezing parameters. The determined ranges ensuring frozen orbits are derived from the generated figures. Three-dimensional presentations illustrating the freezing inclination in relation to eccentricity, argument of periapsis, and semi-major axis parameters are presented. Additional three-dimensional representations of the phase space for the eccentricity vector and its projection onto the nonsingular plane are examined. In all investigated scenarios, the impacts of electromagnetic (EM) field perturbations on the freezing parameters of a charged satellite are demonstrated.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.71-94
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• 1991

With the 14 m radio telescope at DRAO and the 4 m at Nagoya University, we have made detailed maps of $^{12}CO$ and $^{13}CO$ emissions from two Barnard objects B133 and B134 in the $J=1{\rightarrow}O$ rotational transition lines. Usual LTE analyses of the CO observations led us to determine the distribution of column densities over an entire area encompassing both globules. Total gas masses estimated from the column density map are $90\;M_{\odot}$ and $20\;M_{\odot}$ for B133 and B134, respectively. The radial velocity of B133 is red shifted with respect to B134 by $0.8\;km\;s^{-1}$, which is too lagre to bind the two clouds as a binary system. We have shown that the usual stability analysis based on the simplified version of virial theorem with the second time-derivative of the moment of inertia term $\ddot{I}$ being ignored could mislead us in determining whether a given cloud eventually collapses or not. The lull version of the scalar virial theorem with the $\ddot{I}$ term is shown to be useful in following up the time-dependent variations of the cloud size R and its streaming velocity $\dot{R}$ as functions of time. Results of our stability analysis suggest that B133 will eventually collapse in $(2{\sim}4){\times}10^6$ years.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2015

Forbush Decreases (FD) are transient, sudden reductions of cosmic ray (CR) intensity lasting a few days, to a week. Such events are observed globally using ground neutron monitors (NMs). Most studies of FD events indicate that an FD event is observed simultaneously at NM stations located all over the Earth. However, using statistical analysis, previous researchers verified that while FD events could occur simultaneously, in some cases, FD events could occur non-simultaneously. Previous studies confirmed the statistical reality of non-simultaneous FD events and the mechanism by which they occur, using data from high-latitude and middle-latitude NM stations. In this study, we used long-term data (1971-2006) from middle-latitude NM stations (Irkutsk, Climax, and Jungfraujoch) to enhance statistical reliability. According to the results from this analysis, the variation of cosmic ray intensity during the main phase, is larger (statistically significant) for simultaneous FD events, than for non-simultaneous ones. Moreover, the distribution of main-phase-onset time shows differences that are statistically significant. While the onset times for the simultaneous FDs are distributed evenly over 24-hour intervals (day and night), those of non-simultaneous FDs are mostly distributed over 12-hour intervals, in daytime. Thus, the existence of the two kinds of FD events, according to differences in their statistical properties, were verified based on data from middle-latitude NM stations.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2021

We carried out simultaneous monitoring observations of five maser lines, H₂O (22 GHz), SiO 𝝊 =1, 2, J =1-0 (43.1, 42.8 GHz), and SiO 𝝊 =1, J=2-1, J =3-2 (86.2, 129.3 GHz), toward the Mira variable star WX Serpentis with the 21-m antennas of the Korean VLBI Network (KVN) in 2009-2021 (~12 years). Most spectra of the H₂O maser are well separated into two parts of two blue- and one redshifted features within ± 10 km s-1 of the stellar velocity. All detected SiO masers are generally concentrated within ± 5 km s-1 of the stellar velocity, and sometimes appear split into two components. Overall, the profiles of SiO and H₂O masers detected in WX Serpentis illustrate typical characteristics of the Mira variable. In addition, flux variations of both SiO and H₂O masers are well correlated with the optical light curve of the central star, showing a phase lag of ~ 0.1 for SiO masers and ~ 0.2 for H₂O maser. This phenomenon is considered to be the direct effect of propagating shock waves generated by the stellar pulsation, because SiO and H₂O masers are sequentially distributed at different positions with respect to the central star. In addition, we analyzed long-term trends and characteristics of maser velocities, maser ratio, and the velocity extents (the full width at zero power; FWZP). We also investigated a spectral energy distribution (SED) ranging from 1.2 to 240 ㎛ obtained using several infrared data: 2MASS, WISE, IRAS, ISO, COBE DIBRE, RAFGL, and AKARI (IRC and FIS). From the IRAS LRS and ISO SWS spectra of this star, we identified 9.7 and 12 ㎛ silicate emission features consistent with the SE6 spectrum model, corresponding to the typical AGB phase.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.147.2-147.2
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• 2011

We have initiated a long-term identification campaign of supernova remnant candidates in X-ray regime. In the short-listed unidentified sources from the ROSAT All Sky Survey, we have chosen the brightest candidate, G308.3-1.4, as our pilot target for a dedicated investigation with Chandra X-ray Observatory. Our observation has revealed an incomplete shell-like X-ray structure which well-correlated with the radio feature. Together with the spectral properties of a shocked heated plasma, we confirm that G308.3-1.4 is indeed a supernova remnant. A bright X-ray point source which locates close to the remnant center is also uncovered in this observation. Its spectral behavior conform with those observed in a rare class of neutron stars. The properties of its optical/infrared counterpart suggests the evidence for a late-type companion star. Interestingly, possible excesses in B-band and H-alpha have been found which indicate this can be an accretion-powered system. With the further support from the putative periodicity of ~1.4 hrs, this source can possibly provide the direct evidence of a binary system survived in a supernova explosion for the first time.