Search Publications
Titan's emission processes during eclipse
West, R. A.; Rannou, P.; Lavvas, P. +1 more
Observations of Titan's emissions during its 2009 eclipse by Saturn revealed a weak airglow around the moon, as well as a brighter emission from its disk (West et al. [2012]. Geophys. Res. Lett. 39 (1), 18204). We explore here the potential mechanisms that could generate these emissions and more specifically the role of magnetospheric plasma and c…
Azimuthal temperature modulations of Saturn's A ring caused by self-gravity wakes
Spilker, Linda; Morishima, Ryuji; Turner, Neal
The physical temperatures of the Saturn's A ring measured by the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) show quadrupole azimuthal modulations besides temperature drops in Saturn's shadow. These azimuthal modulations are likely to be caused by self-gravity wakes. In this paper, we develop a new thermal model in which wakes are modeled as el…
Two numerical models designed to reproduce Saturn ring temperatures as measured by Cassini-CIRS
Altobelli, Nicolas; Flandes, A.; Leyrat, C. +7 more
We present two numerical models designed to reproduce the temperatures of the illuminated Saturn rings as measured by the CASSINI-CIRS instrument. Our models are constrained by all available temperature measurements performed on the illuminated rings since SOI. Both models reproduce well the variations of temperature under any illumination and obs…
Western Oceanus Procellarum as seen by C1XS on Chandrayaan-1
Howe, C. J.; Kellett, B. J.; Crawford, I. A. +3 more
We present the analysis of an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) observation of the western part of Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon’s nearside made by the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer on 10th February 2009. Through forward modelling of the X-ray spectra, we provide estimates of the MgO/SiO2 and Al2O3/SiO2 rati…
Circumferential graben and the structural evolution of Alba Mons, Mars
McGovern, Patrick J.; Öhman, Teemu
Alba Mons is a unique, very extensive but shallow volcanotectonic construct in northern Tharsis, Mars. Numerous models have been presented to explain the formation of Alba Mons and its most characteristic feature, a wristwatch-like pattern of radial and circumferential graben. We used a wide selection of topographic datasets to characterize the fa…
Sub-millimeter observation of water vapor at 557 GHz in Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR)
Choukroun, Mathieu; Janssen, Michael; Keihm, Stephen +9 more
We present sub-millimeter observations of the ground-state rotational transition (110-101) of water vapor from Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) obtained with the MIRO instrument on the ESA Rosetta spacecraft (s/c) orbiter on April 30, 2004. At the time of the observations, the comet was at a distance of 0.63 AU from the Sun, 0.68 AU …
Probing the extreme planetary atmosphere of WASP-12b
Showman, Adam P.; Swain, Mark; Kawahara, Hajime +7 more
We report near-infrared measurements of the terminator region transmission spectrum and dayside emission spectrum of the exoplanet WASP-12b obtained using the HST WFC3 instrument. The disk-average dayside brightness temperature averages about 2900 K, peaking to 3200 K around 1.46 µm. We modeled a range of atmospheric cases for both the emiss…
Annual survey of water vapor vertical distribution and water-aerosol coupling in the martian atmosphere observed by SPICAM/MEx solar occultations
Forget, F.; Maltagliati, L.; Montmessin, F. +5 more
The vertical distribution of water vapor is a very important diagnostic to determine the physical and chemical processes that drive the martian water cycle. Yet, very few direct measurements have been performed so far, and our knowledge of the H2O vertical distribution on Mars relies on General Circulation Models (GCMs). The study prese…
Titan’s surface and atmosphere from Cassini/VIMS data with updated methane opacity
Le Mouélic, S.; Rodriguez, S.; Lellouch, E. +13 more
We present an analysis of Titan data acquired by the Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), making use of recent improvements in methane spectroscopic parameters in the region 1.3-5.2 µm. We first analyzed VIMS spectra covering a 8 × 10-km2 area near the Huygens landing site in order to constrain the single scatt…
Cloud level winds from the Venus Express Monitoring Camera imaging
Roatsch, Th.; Ignatiev, N. I.; Markiewicz, W. J. +7 more
Six years of continuous monitoring of Venus by European Space Agency’s Venus Express orbiter provides an opportunity to study dynamics of the atmosphere our neighbor planet. Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) on-board the orbiter has acquired the longest and the most complete so far set of ultra violet images of Venus. These images enable a study the c…