The Effect of Light Deflection by Solar System Objects on High-Precision SKA Astrometry

Abstract

We have computed the deflection angles caused by 195 objects in the solar system, including 177 satellites and eight asteroids. Twenty-one satellites and six asteroids can bend light from distant compact extragalactic sources by more than 0.1 $\mu$as, and fourteen satellites and the asteroid Ceres can deflect light by more than 1.0 $\mu$as. We calculated the zones and durations of perturbations posed by the gravitational fields of five planets (excluding Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn), Pluto, and Ceres, where the perturbations would affect astrometry measured with the Squared Kilometre Array (SKA). Perturbed zones with deflection angles larger than 0.1 and 1.0 $\mu$as appear as ribbons. Their widths range from dozens of degrees for Uranus, Neptune, and Venus to several degrees or less for other objects at 0.1 $\mu$as, and from $\sim$ 16${}^{\circ }$ for Venus to several degrees or less for other objects at 1.0 $\mu$as. From the calculated perturbation durations, the influence of the gravitational fields of selected objects can be divided into four levels: hardly affect SKA astrometry (I), may have little effect (II), may have a great effect (III) on single-epoch astrometry, and may greatly affect both single- and multi-epoch astrometry (IV). The objects corresponding to these levels are Ceres (I), Pluto (II), Mercury and Mars (III), and other objects (IV).

10 figures, 5 tables, accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (15)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Trigonometric Parallaxes of Massive Star Forming Regions: VI. Galactic Structure, Fundamental Parameters and Non-Circular Motions
• Trigonometric Parallaxes Of High-Mass Star Forming Regions: Our View Of The Milky Way
• The third realization of the International Celestial Reference Frame by very long baseline interferometry
• VLBI-Gaia offsets favor parsec-scale jet direction in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Gaia Data Release 1: The reference frame and the optical properties of ICRF sources
• The local spiral structure of the Milky Way
• Gravitational bending of light by planetary multipoles and its measurement with microarcsecond astronomical interferometers
• Precise radio astrometry and new developments for the next generation of instruments
• Local spiral structure based on the Gaia EDR3 parallaxes
• Odyssey: a Solar System Mission
• Super-ASTROD: Probing primordial gravitational waves and mapping the outer solar system
• Light propagation in the field of a moving axisymmetric body: theory and application to JUNO
• Astrometric precision tests on TESS data
• The ASTRA project: a doorway to future astrometry