Occultation studies with SOFIA.

The high angular resolution attainable by occultation observations offers a great potential for studies of solar system bodies, young stellar objects and late-type stars. The instrumentation foreseen for SOFIA should meet the requirements of occultation measurements in order to allow the application of this technique which delivered valuable insights so far, a fact that is impressively emphasized by results obtained with the KAO. Besides the possibility of recording stellar occultations by solar system bodies, e.g. asteroids and planetary rings, the authors also consider occultations of infrared sources by the Moon. Among various advantages (e.g. concerning ground track coverage and sampling speed of occultation light curves), the unprecedented angular resolution in the mid-infrared will be the major benefit of occultation studies with SOFIA. In order to employ this possibility, the application of array detectors is essential as shown by the authors' ground-based occultation observations in the thermal infrared. First results of these measurements are presented to illustrate the expectations concerning occultation studies with SOFIA.