The Taiwanese–American Occultation Survey (TAOS) is a robotic survey of the

Outer Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sol ...

. TAOS uses an array of four 50 cm aperture telescopes to monitor background stars awaiting the alignment of an

with a star target: an ''occultation''. Small objects in the

that are too small to be observed by direct observations at this time can be probed with this technique.

Occultation An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks f ...

surveys take advantage of

diffraction Diffraction is the deviation of waves from straight-line propagation without any change in their energy due to an obstacle or through an aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a secondary source of the Wave propagation ...

effects during the transit of the occulting object (the ''occulter'') in front of a background star to constraint the size and distance of the occulter. TAOS is sensitive to occultations by

Kuiper Belt Objects The Kuiper belt ( ) is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times ...

(KBOs) larger than about 500 m in diameter Z.-W. Zhang, F. B. Bianco, M. J. Lehner, N. K. Coehlo, J.-H. Wang, S. Mondal, C. Alcock, T. Axelrod, Y.-I. Byun, W.-P. Chen, K. H. Cook, R. Dave, I. de Pater, R. Porrata, D.-W. Kim, S.-K. King, T. Lee, H.-C. Lin, J. J. Lissauer, S. L. Marshall, P. Protopapas, J. A. Rice, M. E. Schwamb, S.-Y. Wang, C.-Y. We
First Results From The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS)
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 685, Issue 2, pp. L157-L160. and to Sedna-like objects. The TAOS telescopes are located in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, at the

Lulin Observatory The Lulin Observatory (, obs. code: D35) is an astronomical observatory operated by the Institute of Astronomy, National Central University in Taiwan. It is located at the summit of Mount Lulin in Xinyi Township, Nantou County. In 2007, ...

Yushan National Park Yushan National Park () is one of the nine national parks in Taiwan and was named after the summit Yushan, the highest peak of the park.Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

, Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian,

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now i ...

, The Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics,

National Central University National Central University (; abbreviated NCU; ) is a public research university based in Taiwan. It was founded in 1902 in Nanjing; initially located in Miaoli after moving to Taiwan, it relocated to Zhongli in 1962 and developed into a com ...

, Institute of Astronomy and

Yonsei University Yonsei University () is a Private university, private Christian university, Christian research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Yonsei is one of the three most prestigious universities in the country, part of a group referred to as SK ...

, South Korea. Currently, an expansion to the TAOS project is being planned called TAOS II, with a new meaning to the acronym, the Transneptunian Automated Occultation Survey. The data volume is expected to be over 300 terabytes per year.

References

External links

*
TAOS at National Central University, Institute of Astronomy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tawianese-American Occultation Survey Astronomical surveys Astronomical imaging Observational astronomy Trans-Neptunian region