Search Publications
Ground-based near-infrared observations of water vapour in the Venus troposphere
Crisp, David; Bailey, Jeremy; Chamberlain, Sarah +1 more
We present a study of water vapour in the Venus troposphere obtained by modelling specific water vapour absorption bands within the 1.18 µm window. We compare the results with the normal technique of obtaining the abundance by matching the peak of the 1.18 µm window. Ground-based infrared imaging spectroscopy of the night side of Venus…
Reconciling main belt asteroid spectral flux density measurements with a self-consistent thermophysical model
Choukroun, Mathieu; Janssen, Michael; Keihm, Stephen +4 more
Thermophysical models consistent with Earth’s Moon and infrared and submillimeter measurements obtained during the Rosetta fly-by of Asteroid (21) Lutetia have been applied to computations of thermal fluxes from Asteroids (4) Vesta, (1) Ceres, (2) Pallas, and (10) Hygiea. Comparisons are made with Earth- and space-based flux measurements that cove…
Sunskirting comets discovered with the LASCO coronagraphs over the decade 1996-2008
Llebaria, A.; Lamy, P.; A'Hearn, M. F. +3 more
In addition to an unprecedented number of Kreutz sungrazing comets, the LASCO coronagraphs have discovered some 238 unrelated “sunskirting” comets over the 12 years from 1996 to 2008. This new class is organized in several groups, and at least two comets have further been found periodic. This article presents the photometry and the heliocentric li…
One Moon, many measurements 1: Radiance values
Yokota, Y.; Mall, U.; Besse, S. +10 more
Several modern optical instruments orbited the Moon during 2008 and 2009 onboard the SELENE and Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft and provided a welcomed feast of spectroscopic data to be used for scientific analyses. The different spatial and spectral resolutions of these sensors along with diverse illumination geometry during data acquisition make each s…
Analysis of Saturn’s thermal emission at 2.2-cm wavelength: Spatial distribution of ammonia vapor
Janssen, M. A.; Allison, M.; Ingersoll, A. P. +3 more
This work focuses on determining the latitudinal structure of ammonia vapor in Saturn’s cloud layer near 1.5 bars using the brightness temperature maps derived from the Cassini RADAR (Elachi et al. [2004], Space Sci. Rev. 115, 71-110) instrument, which works in a passive mode to measure thermal emission from Saturn at 2.2-cm wavelength. We perform…
Synergistic observations of Io’s atmosphere in 2010 from HST-COS in the mid-ultraviolet and IRTF-TEXES in the mid-infrared
Tsang, Constantine C. C.; Spencer, John R.; Jessup, Kandis Lea
We report on mid-UV spectroscopy of Io’s SO2 atmosphere from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and compare to contemporaneous ground-based mid-infrared spectroscopy of the atmosphere. Our motivation is to evaluate the consistency of atmospheric parameters derived by different observational techni…
Auroral electron precipitation and flux tube erosion in Titan’s upper atmosphere
Coates, A. J.; Jones, G. H.; Wellbrock, A. +4 more
Cassini dasta shows that Titan’s atmosphere strongly depletes the electron content in Saturn’s flux tubes, producing features known as electron bite-outs, which indicate that the flux of auroral electrons decreases over time. To understand this process we have developed a time-dependent two-stream model, which uses field line geometries and drift …
The behavior of spokes in Saturn's B ring
Porco, C. C.; Spitale, J. N.; Mitchell, C. J. +1 more
We present the first results from Cassini ISS observations aimed at determining both the short-term and long-term behavior of the spokes in Saturn's B ring. We have observed multiple spokes which appear between images where there was not a spoke before. The radial termini of these new spokes expand radially at ∼0.5 km/s in both the inward and outw…
Local spectrophotometric properties of pyroclastic deposits at the Lavoisier lunar crater
Besse, S.; Josset, J. -L.; Haruyama, J. +5 more
We present a study of the Lavoisier lunar crater combining photometric data from the AMIE camera (SMART-1 mission) and hyperspectral data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper M3 (Chandrayaan-1 mission), with a special emphasis on the pyroclastic deposits considered to be present on the crater floor. The photometric parameters are in agreemen…
Does ice float in Titan’s lakes and seas?
Lunine, Jonathan I.; Hofgartner, Jason D.
We model Titan’s lakes and seas as methane-ethane-nitrogen systems and model the buoyancy of solids in these systems assuming thermodynamic equilibrium. We find that ice will float in methane-rich lakes for all temperatures below the freezing point of pure methane and that ice will also float in ethane-rich seas provided the ice has an air porosit…