• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.48.2-48.2
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• 2018

SPHEREx is expected to provide us with the opportunity of unbiased sampling of small Solar System objects along with near-infrared ($0.75-5.0{\mu}m$) spectroscopic (R ~ 41) information. The estimated numbers of detections are tens of thousands for asteroids, thousands for Trojans, hundreds for comets, and several for Kuiper Belt Objects, Centaurs and Scattered Disk Objects. Wide spectral range covering many bands from carbon-bearing molecules and ices will enable us to systematically survey the volatile materials throughout the Solar System. SPHEREx will, for the first time, produce the near-infrared spectral map of the zodiacal light to pin-down the relative contributions of various populations of Solar System objects and interstellar dust to the dust grains in the interplanetary space. The study of the zodiacal light is also important to remove the foreground for the EBL (extragalactic background light) study, one of the main topics of the mission.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.34-34
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• 2001

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.11
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• pp.5.2-5.2
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• 1986

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.179-184
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• 2004

We have developed a wide-field imaging camera system, called WICZO, to monitor light of the night sky over extended period. Such monitoring is necessary for studying the morphology of interplanetary dust cloud and also the time and spatial variations of airglow emission. The system consists of an electric cooler a CCD camera with $60\%$ quantum efficiency at 500nm, and a fish-eye lens with $180^{\circ}$ field of view. Wide field imaging is highly desired in light of the night sky observations in general, because the zodiacal light and the airglow emission extend over the entire sky. This paper illustrates the design of WICZO, reports the result of its laboratory performance test, and presents the first night sky image, which was taken, under collaboration with Byulmaro Observatory, on top of Mt. Bongrae at Yongweol in January, 2004.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.47.3-48
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• 2016

The zodiacal light (ZL), combination of the sunlight scattered by and the infrared light emitted by the interplanetary dust (IPD) particles, changes with time due to the asymmetric distribution of the particles with respect to the Earth's orbit. Especially, the variation of the ZL brightness toward the ecliptic poles are useful to probe the properties of the global distribution of the IPD because we can evade the effect of the small scale structures, such as the asteroidal dust bands. The ecliptic poles are frequently visited by the infrared (IR) space telescopes owing to their sun-synchronous orbits or for specific purposes. We collect and analyze the observations toward the ecliptic poles by COBE/DIRBE, AKARI, and MIRIS, covering the wavelengths from about 1 to $25{\mu}m$. The observed seasonal variations of the ZL are modeled with a simple IPD cloud model to derive cloud parameters. The parameters are compared with those of the empirical cloud models by Kelsall et al. (1998) and Kondo et al. (2016), and the discrepancies are discussed.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.321-326
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• 2017

We analyzed spectral data of the astrophysical diffuse emission obtained with the low-resolution spectroscopy mode on the AKARI InfraRed Camera (IRC) in the $1.8-5.3{\mu}m$ wavelength region. Advanced reduction methods specialized for slit spectroscopy of diffuse sky spectra have been developed, and a catalog of 278 spectra of the diffuse sky covering a wide range of Galactic and ecliptic latitudes was constructed. Using this catalog, two other major foreground components, the zodiacal light (ZL) and the diffuse Galactic light (DGL), were separated and subtracted by taking correlations with ZL brightness estimated by the DIRBE ZL model and with the $100{\mu}m$ dust thermal emission, respectively. The isotropic emission was interpreted as the extragalactic background light (EBL), which shows significant excess over the integrated light of galaxies at <$4{\mu}m$.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.44.2-45
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• 2021

As implied by the zodiacal light and spacecraft impact measurements, the space between large bodies in our Solar System is filled with interplanetary dust particles (IDPs). IDPs give us deeper insight into the composition and evolution of the Solar System, as well as being a crucial reference for extrasolar research. IDPs can be interpreted as bearers of carbon and organic materials, and thus, their interaction with Earth can be considered as important factors for the birth of terrestrial life. One of the key routes of IDPs entering Earth is via meteoroid streams (Love and Brownlee 1993). The Geminid meteoroid stream is a notable example. Together with its source asteroid (3200) Phaethon, the Phaethon-Geminid stream complex (PGC) (Whipple 1983; Gustafson 1989) can potentially provide information on the properties and evolution of IDPs in near-Earth space. DESTINY+* is a JAXA/ISAS spacecraft planned to launch in 2024 to explore the physical and chemical features of near-Earth IDPs and uncover the dust ejection mechanism of active near-Earth asteroids, especially Phaethon (Arai et al. 2018). Previous studies on the dust ejection mechanism of Phaethon have various degrees of success in explaining the ejection of submillimeter particles and try to recreate the dust replenishment rate of the Geminid stream. However, none of them are satisfactory for explaining the observed Geminid stream, especially for larger particles of a millimeter and centimeter scales. Inspired by the discovery of rotational mass shedding in the Main Belt region (Jewitt et al., 2014), we investigate a dust ejection scenario by rotational instability on Phaethon. Using the N-body integrator MERCURY6 (Chambers 1999; modified by Jeong 2014), we performed a long-term integration of dust particles of various sizes ejected at ~1 m/s. Through this process, we discuss the implications Phaethon's rotation may have on its ejection, the formation and evolution of IDP by this mechanism, and contribute to the DESTINY+ mission.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.42.1-42.1
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• 2011

The main payload of the Science and Technology Satellite 3 (STSAT-3), Multipurpose Infrared Imaging System (MIRIS), will be equipped with the wide-field near-infrared camera. Its wide field-of-view ($3.67^{\circ}{\times}3.67^{\circ}$) is optimal for the observation of the zodiacal light (ZL), the sunlight scattered by the interplanetary dust (IPD). The MIRIS will continuously monitor the seasonal variation of the ZL towards both north and south ecliptic poles, which is caused by the asymmetries of the IPD distribution with respect to the Sun and the ecliptic plane. In addition to the monitoring observations, we are planning pointed observations for compelling structures in the ZL, the asteroidal dust bands and the gegenschein. This presentation proposes the zodiacal light observations with the MIRIS and discusses the expected results.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.353-356
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• 2012

We present new constraints on the cosmic optical background (COB) obtained from an analysis of the Pioneer 10/11 Imaging Photopolarimeter (IPP) data. After careful examination of the data quality, the usable measurements free from the zodiacal light are integrated into sky maps at the blue (${\sim}0.44{\mu}m$) and red (${\sim}0.64{\mu}m$) bands. Accurate starlight subtraction was achieved by referring to all-sky star catalogs and a Galactic stellar population synthesis model down to 32.0 mag. We find that the residual light is separated into two components: one component shows a clear correlation with the thermal $100{\mu}m$ brightness, whilst the other shows a constant level in the lowest $100{\mu}m$ brightness region. The presence of the second component is significant after all the uncertainties and possible residual light in the Galaxy are taken into account, thus it most likely has an extragalactic origin (i.e., the COB). The derived COB brightness is ($(1.8{\pm}0.9){\times}10^{-9}$ and $(1.2{\pm}0.9){\times}10^{-9}\;erg\;s^{-1}\;cm^{-2}\;sr^{-1}\;{\AA}^{-1}$ in the blue and red spectral regions, respectively, or $7.9{\pm}4.0$ and $7.7{\pm}5.8\;nW\;m^{-2}\;sr^{-1}$. Based on a comparison with the integrated brightness of galaxies, we conclude that the bulk of the COB is comprised of normal galaxies which have already been resolved by the current deepest observations. There seems to be little room for contributions from other populations including "first stars" at these wavelengths. On the other hand, the first component of the IPP residual light represents the diffuse Galactic light (DGL)-scattered starlight by the interstellar dust. We derive the mean DGL-to-$100{\mu}m$ brightness ratios of $2.1{\times}10^{-3}$ and $4.6{\times}10^{-3}$ at the two bands, which are roughly consistent with previous observations toward denser dust regions. Extended red emission in the diffuse interstellar medium is also confirmed.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.327-329
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• 2017

We report a spatial fluctuation analysis of the sky brightness in the near-infrared from observations towards the north ecliptic pole (NEP) by AKARI at 2.4 and $3.2{\mu}m$. As a follow up study of our previous work on the Monitor field of AKARI, we used NEP deep survey data, which covered a circular area of about 0.4 square degrees, in order to extend fluctuation analysis at angular scales up to 1000". After pre-processing, additional correction procedures were done to correct time varying components and instrumental effects such as MUXbleed. To remove resolved objects, we applied $2{\sigma}$ clipping and point spread function (PSF) subtraction. We finally obtained mosaicked images which can be used for the study of various diffuse emissions in the near-infrared sky and found that there are spatial structures in the mosaicked images using a power spectrum analysis.