Search Publications
Polyphase tectonics on Mars: Insight from the Claritas Fossae
Tosi, Silvano; Balbi, Evandro; Ferretti, Gabriele +2 more
The Claritas Fossae (CF) is an elongated system of scarps and depressions >900 km long, representing the western boundary of the Thaumasia Region to the south of the Tharsis volcanic province. Although there is general agreement on the tectonic nature of such major physiographic feature, the processes that led to its formation are still debated…
Comets, sliding of surface dust on illuminated surfaces
Kossacki, Konrad J.; Wesołowski, Marcin; Mikołajków, Tomasz +1 more
In our paper we presented the results of our laboratory experiments dealing with the formation and sliding of the desiccated nonvolatile granular material down the samples of potential cometary analogs. The studied samples were composed of porous aggregates containing water ice, quartz sand and charcoal. Their surfaces were initially free of desic…
Characterization of aqueous alteration and formation of salty exposures at Ius Chasma, Mars
Flahaut, Jessica; Weitz, Catherine M.; Bishop, Janice L. +6 more
Intriguing outcrops in Ius Chasma provide a window into past aqueous processes in Valles Marineris, Mars. Hydrous sulfate minerals are abundant throughout this region, but one area in Ius Chasma includes phyllosilicates, opal, and additional materials with unusual spectral features. This study at Geryon Montes, an east-west horst that divides Ius …
Atmospheric gravity waves in Venus dayside clouds from VIRTIS-M images
Cardesín-Moinelo, Alejandro; Hueso, Ricardo; Peralta, Javier +3 more
We perform a survey of the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer-Mapper (VIRTIS-M) images onboard the Venus Express space mission, at four narrow wavelength bands that target different altitude regions on the cloud deck of Venus' atmosphere (280–320, 365–400, 580–600, 900–920 nm). Our goal was to detect and characterize atmospheric gra…
Bimodal aerosol distribution in Venus' upper haze from joint SPICAV-UV and -IR observations on Venus Express
Montmessin, F.; Fedorova, A.; Korablev, O. +3 more
Spectroscopic solar occultation measurements by the Spectroscopy for Investigation of Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Venus/Solar Occultation at Infrared instrument (SPICAV/SOIR) onboard the Venus Express orbiter gave new data about upper haze aerosol properties, its vertical distribution and spatial and temporal variations. Early study with …
Automatic crater shape retrieval using unsupervised and semi-supervised systems
Tewari, Atal; Jain, Vikrant; Khanna, Nitin
Impact craters are depressions formed due to impacts on the surface of planetary bodies. Recent deep learning-based crater detection methods assume craters as circular-shaped without much attention to extracting craters' shape and morphology. Craters' shape information (i.e., instance segmentation map for craters) can be helpful for many advanced …
Spectro-photometry of Phobos simulants: I. Detectability of hydrated minerals and organic bands
Hasselmann, Pedro H.; Poggiali, Giovanni; Fornasier, Sonia +12 more
Previous Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Express observations of Phobos and Deimos, the moons of Mars, have improved our understanding of these small bodies. However, their formation and composition remain poorly constrained. Physical and spectral properties suggest that Phobos may be a weakly thermal-altered captured asteroid but the dynamic…
Ultraviolet spectrum reveals the presence of ozone on Jupiter's moon Callisto
Janardhan, P.; Bhardwaj, Anil; Ramachandran, R. +11 more
Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is known to be present on Callisto. In this paper, we studied the chemical evolution of SO2 astrochemical ice induced by irradiation using 9 eV (137.7 nm) vacuum ultraviolet light produced from the high-flux beamline of the storage ring at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Centre in Taiwan. Ult…
Particle sizes in Saturn's rings from UVIS stellar occultations 2. Outlier Populations in the C ring and Cassini Division
Colwell, J. E.; Esposito, L. W.; Jerousek, R. G. +1 more
The Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) included a High-Speed Photometer (HSP), which observed hundreds of stellar occultations by Saturn's ring system across a range of viewing geometries (Colwell et al. 2010). The unocculted time series data from the HSP follow Poisson counting statistics, such that the second and third central momen…
Thermophysical arguments against basal melting in the south polar region of Mars
Ojha, Lujendra; Buffo, Jacob; Journaux, Baptiste
The south polar layered deposits (SPLD) on Mars is primarily composed of H2O ice, with smaller quantities of impurities such as CO2 ice and dust. The presence of these impurities can affect the thermal structure of the SPLD, increasing the basal temperature and potentially leading to basal melting. Recently, bright basal refl…