Adaptive Optics

The official EPSC-DPS press-release about our latest discovery on the analysis of the moons of (93) Minerva and understanding of the composition of this main-belt triple system is finally out. Two years ago, I reported on this blog the discovery of those moons. Let's confess that I am glad to have finally solved secrets of this enigmatical main-belt asteroid. It was one of the most difficult multiple systems to characterize and understand due to its strangely spherical shape. Hopefully it will give birth to follow-up works... read more ❯

I am calling myself a Planetary Astronomer, essentially because I use ground-based telescopes to study our solar system bodies. Even if I often write posts on this blog  about the wonderful results brought to us by space missions, space stations and other space-releated projects, my heart and my work are mostly dedicated to pushing the limit of ground-based telescopes and their instruments. Extremely Large Telescopes (or ELTs), ground-based telescopes with an aperture larger than 30m are without any doubt the next giant leap in the development of astronomy. I always wondered what it would be to be close to one... read more ❯

Last Tuesday July 19 at 3:25am PDT, several SETI REU students and colleagues from SETI institute and Observatoire de Paris were on the road. They were looking at the sky with  tiny telescopes and surrounding by complex instruments somewhere in the middle the Californian countryside to witness and record a rare event: the occultation of a bright 7-mag star by the double asteroid (90) Antiope. (90) Antiope is clearly a remarkable and unique binary asteroid. It is made of 2 large (~86 km) ellipsoidal components orbiting around their center of mass in 16.5 hours, describing a circular orbit with a... read more ❯