The Wide-Angle Polarimetric Camera (PolCam) is installed on the Korea’s lunar orbiter, Danuri, which launched on August 5, 2022. The mission objectives of PolCam are to construct photometric maps at a wavelength of 336 nm and polarization maps at 461 and 748 nm, with a phase angle range of 0◦–135◦ and a spatial resolution of less than 100 m. PolCam is an imager using the push-broom method and has two cameras, Cam 1 and Cam 2, with a viewing angle of 45◦ to the right and left of the spacecraft’s direction of orbit. We conducted performance tests in a laboratory setting before installing PolCam’s flight model on the spacecraft. We analyzed the CCD’s dark current, flat-field frame, spot size, and light flux. The dark current was obtained during thermal / vacuum test with various temperatures and the flat-field frame data was also obtained with an integrating sphere and tungsten light bulb. We describe the calibration method and results in this study.

The lunar surface progressively darkens and reddens as a result of sputtering from solar wind particles and bombardment of micrometeoroids. The extent of exposure to these space weathering agents is frequently calculated as the location in a diagram of reflectance at 750 nm vs. 950 nm/750 nm color (R-C). Sim & Kim (2018) examined the R-C trends of pixels within ∼3,500 craters, and revealed that the length (L) and skewness (s) of R-C trends can be employed as a secondary age or maturity indicator. We broaden this research to general lunar surface areas (3,400 tiles of 0.25◦ × 0.25◦ size) in 218 mare basalt units, whose ages have been derived from the size-frequency distribution analysis by Hiesinger et al. (2011). We discover that L and s rise with age until ∼3.2 Gyr and reduce rather rapidly afterward, while the optical maturity, OMAT, reduces monotonically with time. We show that in some situations, when not only OMAT but also L and s are incorporated in the estimation utilizing 750 & 950 nm photometry, the age estimation becomes considerably more reliable. We also observed that OMAT and the lunar cratering chronology function (cumulative number of craters larger than a certain diameter as a function of time) have a relatively linear relationship.

We investigate the plausibility of mass return, from stellar mass loss processes within the central ~100 pc region of the Milky Way (the inner nuclear bulge), as a mass supply mechanism for the Circumnuclear Disk (CND). Gas in the Galactic disk migrates inward to the Galactic centre due to the asymmetric potential caused by the Galactic bar. The inward migration of gas stops and accumulates to form the central molecular zone (CMZ), at 100{200 pc from the Galactic center. It is commonly assumed that stars have formed in the CMZ throughout the lifetime of the Galaxy and have diffused inward to form a 'r-2 stellar cusp' within the inner nuclear bulge. We propose that the stars migrating inward from the CMZ supply gas to the inner nuclear bulge via stellar mass loss, resulting in the formation of a gas disk along the Galactic plane and subsequent inward migration down to the central 10 pc region (CND). We simulate the evolution of a gas distribution that initially follows the stellar distribution of the aforementioned stellar cusp, and illustrate the potential gas supply toward the CND.

우리는 오리온 분자운 복합체의 북부 필라멘트(이하 NF)에 대하여 12CO (J=1-0) 분자선의 자료를 이용하여 은하 평면이 분자의 운동과 운동학에 미치는 영향을 연구하였다. 6 m 서울대학교 전파망원경(Seoul Radio Astronomy Observatory, SRAO)을 이용하여 2arcmin 공간분해능으로 은하면으로부터 먼 순서로 NF1, NF2, NF3 세 곳을 총 270시간 동안 관측된 자료를 사용하였다. 은하면과 OMC NF는 12CO (J=2-1) 경우 3% 밀도에서, 티끌의 경우 9% 밝기 수준에서 자기장을 따라 서로 연결되어 있었다. 12CO (J=1-0), 12CO (J=2-1), 성간 티끌 관측결과를 비교해본 결과, 세 경우 모두 NF3에서는 고루 분포했지만, NF1과 NF2에서는 비교적 밀도가 높은 특정 영역에서만 함께 나타났다. NF는 단일 구조를 보였으며, NF1에서는 부분 수축 운동을, NF2에서는 하단에서 회전 운동이 나타났고, NF3에서는 유일하게 명확히 자기장에 연관된 나선형 회전이 보였다. 위치-속도 분석 결과, 12CO (J=1-0)를 비롯한 물질들은 NF2와 NF3을 따라 은하면을 향하여 흐를 가능성이 있음을 확인할 수 있었다. 은하면을 향하여 물질이 흐르는 명백한 원인을 이번 연구결과에서 볼 수 없었지만 추후의 더 정교한 관측결과가 NF1과 NF2 상단부의 회전 운동을 확인 할 수 있겠다.