Search Publications
Enceladus plume density from Cassini spacecraft attitude control data
Lorenz, Ralph D.; Burk, Thomas A.
The plumes of Enceladus are of interest both as a geophysical phenomenon, and as an astrobiological opportunity for sampling internal material. Here we report measurements of the total mass density (gas plus dust, a combination not reported before except in the engineering literature) deduced from telemetry of Cassini's Attitude and Articulation C…
Sesquinary reimpacts dominate surface characteristics on Phobos
Nayak, Michael
We use topographic data to show that impact craters with pitted floor deposits are among the deepest on Mars. This is consistent with the interpretation of pitted materials as primary crater-fill impactite deposits emplaced during crater formation. Our database consists of 224 pitted material craters ranging in size from ∼1 to 150 km in diameter. …
Temperature estimation from hydroxyl airglow emission in the Venus night side mesosphere
Drossart, P.; Piccioni, G.; Gérard, J. -C. +3 more
The temperature of the night side of Venus at about 95 km has been determined by using spectral features of the hydroxyl airglow emission around 3 µm, recorded from July 2006 to July 2008 by VIRTIS onboard Venus Express. The retrieved temperatures vary from 145.5 to about 198.1 K with an average value of 176.3 ± 14.3 K and are in good agreem…
Corrigendum to "The opposition effect in Saturn's main rings as seen by Cassini ISS: 2. Constraints on the ring particles and their regolith with analytical radiative transfer models" Icarus; Vol 253 (2015); Pages 311-345
Estelle, Déau
The authors report a correction to their paper relative to the Hapke (2002, 2008) parameters:
New constraints on Saturn's interior from Cassini astrometric data
Thuillot, William; Pascu, Dan; Guillot, Tristan +15 more
Using astrometric observations spanning more than a century and including a large set of Cassini data, we determine Saturn's tidal parameters through their current effects on the orbits of the eight main and four coorbital Moons. We have used the latter to make the first determination of Saturn's Love number from observations, k2=0.390 …
Winds measured by the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) during the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover's Bagnold Dunes Campaign and comparison with numerical modeling using MarsWRF
Bridges, Nathan T.; Sullivan, Robert; Newman, Claire E. +9 more
A high density of REMS wind measurements were collected in three science investigations during MSL's Bagnold Dunes Campaign, which took place over ∼80 sols around southern winter solstice (Ls∼90°) and constituted the first in situ analysis of the environmental conditions, morphology, structure, and composition of an active dune field on Mars. The …
Changes in Jupiter's Zonal Wind Profile preceding and during the Juno mission
Wong, Michael H.; Atreya, Sushil K.; Orton, Glenn S. +8 more
We present five epochs of WFC3 HST Jupiter observations taken between 2009-2016 and extract global zonal wind profiles for each epoch. Jupiter's zonal wind field is globally stable throughout these years, but significant variations in certain latitude regions persist. We find that the largest uncertainties in the wind field are due to vortices or …
SPICAM on Mars Express: A 10 year in-depth survey of the Martian atmosphere
Gondet, B.; Vandaele, A. C.; Reberac, A. +24 more
The SPICAM experiment onboard Mars Express has accumulated during the last decade a wealth of observations that has permitted a detailed characterization of the atmospheric composition and activity from the near-surface up to above the exosphere. The SPICAM climatology is one of the longest assembled to date by an instrument in orbit around Mars, …
Resolved spectrophotometric properties of the Ceres surface from Dawn Framing Camera images
Russell, C. T.; Jaumann, R.; Mottola, S. +9 more
We present a global spectrophotometric characterization of the Ceres surface using Dawn Framing Camera (FC) images. We identify the photometric model that yields the best results for photometrically correcting images. Corrected FC images acquired on approach to Ceres were assembled into global maps of albedo and color. Generally, albedo and color …
Revisiting the field geology of Taurus-Littrow
Weiss, B. P.; Robinson, M. S.; Petro, N. E. +3 more
Integration of Apollo 17 field observations and photographs, sample investigations, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera images, Chandrayaan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) spectra, and Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) S-band radar images provides new insights into the geology of the valley of Taurus-Littrow on the Moon. Connecting the …