arXiv subjects

Stefano Bertone

Publications and source records attributed to Stefano Bertone.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Potential survivable niches for microbial life on the lunar south pole

Most lunar surface conditions are incredibly harsh for microbial survival. High ultraviolet radiation, temperatures, and energetic particle radiation limit survival over most unprotected lunar surfaces, particularly in equatorial regions where all previous crewed exploration occurred. However, whether these harsh conditions are widespread at lunar poles has not been examined considering topographical effects. Here, we show that recent microorganism survivability data and lunar surface remote sensing reveal likely survivable niches in lunar polar regions. Analysis of topography and latitude-driven surface conditions using remote sensing data and high-resolution illumination models indicates the lunar south pole possesses significant regions with persistent low temperatures and ultraviolet flux. Comparing these conditions to survivability data of specific microorganisms, we find significant lunar polar areas likely possess surface conditions amenable to microbial survival. Our findings suggest lunar polar regions may be less hostile to microbial survival than previously assumed. This does not encompass growth likelihood, but survival in a cryptobiotic state where growth would be possible if habitable conditions were present. Potential microbial survivability at lunar poles is particularly significant given many examined microbes will likely be transported to the Moon during crewed lunar south pole exploration planned in numerous near-term missions. Thoughtfully planning exploration and tracking its impact is key to limiting and understanding potential unintended life transfer to the Moon.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2026

Improving Lunar Topography with Deep Learning Schr\"odinger Bridges

Increasing the resolution of planetary topography models can enable a better understanding of surface processes and geomorphology; however, existing analytical super-resolution methods are expensive and difficult to apply at large scales. Generative models provide the tools to learn complex relationships within data and can be applied at scale due to hardware accelerators and parallelization. We present a diffusion-based Schr\"odinger Bridge (SB) generative modeling approach for lunar topography super-resolution, connecting the distribution of low-resolution topography to that of high-resolution topography, incorporating physically-constraining optical imagery. Our approach is inspired by existing Shape-from-Shading methods, which improve a priori low-resolution topography by using optical images at the target resolution. We train SBs on a novel dataset of rendered lunar topography, emulating optical imagery from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera. The result is a flexible approach for topography super-resolution which can provide pixel-level uncertainties in the reconstruction.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2025

Accelerometer Measurements for Orbit and Gravity Recovery: Challenges and Benefits for the BepiColombo Mission

The European Space Agency's BepiColombo mission continues its pioneering voyage to Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System. Among the advanced instruments onboard the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) is the Italian Spring Accelerometer (ISA), whose scientific objectives are closely linked to the Mercury Orbiter Radio-Science Experiment (MORE). Together, these instruments aim to provide high-precision data on the spacecraft's orbit, as well as Mercury's gravity field and internal structure. This simulation study investigates how the modeling and parametrization of accelerometer measurements influence orbit and gravity field recovery and explores strategies to overcome the challenges associated with the co-estimation of all parameters. We assess the integrated retrieval accuracy of the spacecraft orbit, gravity field, and accelerometer parameters under different noise levels and varying observation geometries during the mission. The MPO orbit is propagated, and Doppler and accelerometer measurements are simulated based on available noise models. Our results indicate that postponing the estimation of accelerometer biases until a preliminary gravity field is established helps prevent gravity field mismodelings from being absorbed into the accelerometer parameters. The daily estimation of bias was found to be essential. Using one year of Doppler tracking data and applying Kaula regularization, we demonstrate the potential to recover Mercury's gravity field up to degree and order 40. Low-degree coefficients improve under more optimistic noise conditions. Errors in cross-track bias estimation rise sharply when the beta-Earth angle falls below 45{\deg}, corresponding to the degraded Doppler observability. Orbit determination achieved centimetre-level radial accuracy and metre-level along- and cross-track accuracy, with increased cross-track errors during low-observability periods.

physics.space-ph↗

arXiv2022

Fast hierarchical low-rank view factor matrices for thermal irradiance on planetary surfaces

We present an algorithm for compressing the radiosity view factor model commonly used in radiation heat transfer and computer graphics. We use a format inspired by the hierarchical off-diagonal low rank format, where elements are recursively partitioned using a quadtree or octree and blocks are compressed using a sparse singular value decomposition -- the hierarchical matrix is assembled using dynamic programming. The motivating application is time-dependent thermal modeling on vast planetary surfaces, with a focus on permanently shadowed craters which receive energy through indirect irradiance. In this setting, shape models are comprised of a large number of triangular facets which conform to a rough surface. At each time step, a quadratic number of triangle-to-triangle scattered fluxes must be summed; that is, as the sun moves through the sky, we must solve the same view factor system of equations for a potentially unlimited number of time-varying righthand sides. We first conduct numerical experiments with a synthetic spherical cap-shaped crater, where the equilibrium temperature is analytically available. We also test our implementation with triangle meshes of planetary surfaces derived from digital elevation models recovered by orbiting spacecrafts. Our results indicate that the compressed view factor matrix can be assembled in quadratic time, which is comparable to the time it takes to assemble the full view matrix itself. Memory requirements during assembly are reduced by a large factor. Finally, for a range of compression tolerances, the size of the compressed view factor matrix and the speed of the resulting matrix vector product both scale linearly (as opposed to quadratically for the full matrix), resulting in orders of magnitude savings in processing time and memory space.

math.NA↗

arXiv2017

Impact analysis of the transponder time delay on radio-tracking observables

Accurate tracking of probes is one of the key points of space exploration. Range and Doppler techniques are the most commonly used. In this paper we analyze the impact of the transponder delay, $i.e.$ the processing time between reception and re-emission of a two-way tracking link at the satellite, on tracking observables and on spacecraft orbits. We show that this term, only partially accounted for in the standard formulation of computed space observables, can actually be relevant for future missions with high nominal tracking accuracies or for the re-processing of old missions. We present several applications of our formulation to Earth flybys, the NASA GRAIL and the ESA BepiColombo missions.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2017

Application of Time Transfer Functions to Gaia's global astrometry - Validation on DPAC simulated Gaia-like observations

A key objective of the ESA Gaia satellite is the realization of a quasi-inertial reference frame at visual wavelengths by means of global astrometric techniques. This requires an accurate mathematical and numerical modeling of relativistic light propagation, as well as double-blind-like procedures for the internal validation of the results, before they are released to the scientific community at large. Aim of this work is to specialize the Time Transfer Functions (TTF) formalism to the case of the Gaia observer and prove its applicability to the task of Global Sphere Reconstruction (GSR), in anticipation of its inclusion in the GSR system, already featuring the suite of RAMOD models, as an additional semi-external validation of the forthcoming Gaia baseline astrometric solutions. We extend the current GSR framework and software infrastructure (GSR2) to include TTF relativistic observation equations compatible with Gaia's operations. We use simulated data generated by the Gaia Data Reduction and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) to obtain different least-squares estimations of the full stellar spheres and gauge results. These are compared to analogous solutions obtained with the current RAMOD model in GSR2 and to the catalog generated with GREM, the model baselined for Gaia and used to generate the DPAC synthetic data. Linearized least-squares TTF solutions are based on spheres of about 132,000 primary stars uniformly distributed on the sky and simulated observations spanning the entire 5-yr range of Gaia's nominal operational lifetime. The statistical properties of the results compare well with those of GREM. Finally, comparisons to RAMOD@GSR2 solutions confirmed the known lower accuracy of that model and allowed us to establish firm limits on the quality of the linearization point outside of which an iteration for non-linearity is required for its proper convergence.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2017

Theia: Faint objects in motion or the new astrometry frontier

In the context of the ESA M5 (medium mission) call we proposed a new satellite mission, Theia, based on relative astrometry and extreme precision to study the motion of very faint objects in the Universe. Theia is primarily designed to study the local dark matter properties, the existence of Earth-like exoplanets in our nearest star systems and the physics of compact objects. Furthermore, about 15 $\%$ of the mission time was dedicated to an open observatory for the wider community to propose complementary science cases. With its unique metrology system and "point and stare" strategy, Theia's precision would have reached the sub micro-arcsecond level. This is about 1000 times better than ESA/Gaia's accuracy for the brightest objects and represents a factor 10-30 improvement for the faintest stars (depending on the exact observational program). In the version submitted to ESA, we proposed an optical (350-1000nm) on-axis TMA telescope. Due to ESA Technology readiness level, the camera's focal plane would have been made of CCD detectors but we anticipated an upgrade with CMOS detectors. Photometric measurements would have been performed during slew time and stabilisation phases needed for reaching the required astrometric precision.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2014

Transponder delay effect in light time calculations for deep space navigation

During the last decade, the precision in the tracking of spacecraft has constantly improved. The discovery of few astrometric anomalies, such as the Pioneer and Earth flyby anomalies, stimulated further analysis of the operative modeling currently adopted in Deep Space Navigation (DSN). Our study shows that some traditional approximations lead to neglect tiny terms that could have consequences in the orbit determination of a probe in specific configurations such as during an Earth flyby. Therefore, we suggest here a way to improve the light time calculation used for probe tracking.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2014

Latest advances in an astrometric model based on the Time Transfer Functions formalism

Given the extreme accuracy of modern space astrometry, a precise relativistic modeling of observations is required. Moreover, the availability of several models formulated in different and independent ways is a security against the presence of systematic errors in the analysis of future experimental results, like in the case of the Gaia mission. In this work, we simulate a series of observations using the two models to be used for the data analysis of Gaia, the Gaia RElativistic Model (GREM) and the Relativistic Astrometric MODel (RAMOD), and we compare them with the results of our astrometric model based on the Time Transfer Functions.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Astrometric tests of General Relativity in the Solar System: mathematical and computational scenarios

We review the mathematical models available for relativistic astrometry, discussing the different approaches and their accuracies in the context of the modern experiments from space like Gaia and GAME, and we show how these models can be applied to the real world, and their consequences from the mathematical and numerical point of view, with specific reference to the case of Gaia, whose launch is due before the end of the year.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Time Transfer functions as a way to validate light propagation solutions for space astrometry

Given the extreme accuracy of modern space astrometry, a precise relativistic modeling of observations is required. Concerning light propagation, the standard procedure is the solution of the null-geodesic equations. However, another approach based on the Time Transfer Functions (TTF) has demonstrated its capability to give access to key quantities such as the time of flight of a light signal between two point-events and the tangent vector to its null-geodesic in a weak gravitational field using an integral-based method. The availability of several models, formulated in different and independent ways, must not be considered like an oversized relativistic toolbox. Quite the contrary, they are needed as validation to put future experimental results on solid ground. The objective of this work is then twofold. First, we build the time of flight and tangent vectors in a closed form within the TTF formalism giving the case of a time dependent metric. Second, we show how to use this new approach to obtain a comparison of the TTF with two existing modelings, namely GREM and RAMOD. In this way, we evidentiate the mutual consistency of the three models, opening the basis for further links between all the approaches, which is mandatory for the interpretation of future space missions data. This will be illustrated through two recognized cases: a static gravitational field and a system of monopoles in uniform motion.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Light Deflection for relativistic space astrometry in closed form

Given the extreme accuracy reached by future global space astrometry, one needs a global relativistic modeling of observations. A relativistic definition of astrometric observables is then essential to find uniquely coordinates, parallax and proper motion of a stellar object. The standard procedure is to explicitly solve the null geodesic equations to describe the trajectory of a photon emitted by a celestial object and received by a moving observing satellite. However, this task can be avoided if one builds an astrometric set up using the recent formalism of time transfer functions.

gr-qc↗