Search Publications
Late origin of the Saturn system
Asphaug, Erik; Reufer, Andreas
Saturn is orbited by a half dozen ice rich middle-sized moons (MSMs) of diverse geology and composition. These comprise ∼4.4% of Saturn’s satellite mass; the rest is Titan, more massive per planet than Jupiter’s satellites combined. Jupiter has no MSMs. Disk-based models to explain these differences exist, but have various challenges and assumptio…
Photometric properties of the nucleus of Comet 103P/Hartley 2
A'Hearn, Michael F.; Thomas, Peter C.; Bodewits, Dennis +8 more
We have studied the photometric properties of the nucleus of a hyperactive comet, 103P/Hartley 2, at visible wavelengths using the DIXI flyby images with both disk-integrated and disk-resolved analyses. The disk-integrated phase function of the nucleus has a linear slope of 0.046 ± 0.002 mag/deg and an absolute magnitude of 18.4 ± 0.1 at V-band. T…
A complete climatology of the aerosol vertical distribution on Mars from MEx/SPICAM UV solar occultations
Montmessin, Franck; Bertaux, Jean-Loup; Maltagliati, Luca +4 more
We present the first results on solar occultations performed with the UV channel of SPICAM, on board Mars Express. From the dataset of over 900 occultations (performed between April 2004 and October 2011), about 640 atmospheric profiles of the martian atmosphere were derived. This dataset, spanning four martian years, allows characterization of th…
Survey of cometary CO2, CO, and particulate emissions using the Spitzer Space Telescope
Reach, William T.; Kelley, Michael S.; Vaubaillon, Jeremie
We surveyed 23 comets using the Infrared Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope in wide filters centered at 3.6 and 4.5 µm. Emission in the 3.6 µm filter arises from sunlight scattered by dust grains; the 3.6 µm images generally have a coma near the nucleus and a tail in the antisolar direction due to dust grains swept back …
CoRoT: Harvest of the exoplanet program
Guillot, Tristan; Cabrera, Juan; Deeg, Hans J. +6 more
One of the objectives of the CoRoT mission is the search for transiting extrasolar planets using high-precision photometry, and the accurate characterization of their fundamental parameters. The CoRoT satellite consecutively observes crowded stellar fields since February 2007, in high-cadence precise photometry; periodic eclipses are detected and …
Titan's atmosphere and surface liquid: New calculation using Statistical Associating Fluid Theory
Kargel, Jeffrey S.; Tan, Sugata P.; Marion, Giles M.
The application of PC-SAFT equation of state (EOS) in analyzing the in situ measurement of atmospheric data by Huygens probe reveals new insights into Titan's atmosphere and surface liquids. The EOS offers the most reliable and accurate calculations in fluid phase equilibria at the cryogenic conditions encountered in Titan and other extra-terrestr…
Sizes of main-belt asteroids by combining shape models and Keck adaptive optics observations
Hanuš, J.; Marchis, F.; Ďurech, J.
We select 50 main-belt asteroids with a diameter between 20 and 400 km for which we have (i) shape models derived by the lightcurve inversion method and (ii) resolved observations of good quality collected with the Keck II adaptive optics (AO) system in the near-infrared. We derive the size of these asteroids by minimizing the difference between t…
NeMars: An empirical model of the martian dayside ionosphere based on Mars Express MARSIS data
Sánchez-Cano, B.; Witasse, O.; Radicella, S. M. +2 more
Several models of the martian ionosphere have been developed in the last years. In this paper, a new empirical model for the dayside electron density of the martian ionosphere (primary and secondary layer), called NeMars, is described. The model is mainly based on MARSIS AIS data (Active Ionospheric Sounding from the Mars Advanced Radar and Ionosp…
Morphology of fluvial networks on Titan: Evidence for structural control
Black, Benjamin A.; Perron, J. Taylor; Burr, Devon M. +2 more
Although Titan’s surface shows clear evidence of erosional modification, such as fluvial incision, evidence for tectonism has been less apparent. On Earth, fluvial networks with strongly preferred orientations are often associated with structural features, such as faults or joints, that influence flow or erodibility. We delineated and classified t…
Mars ionosphere total electron content analysis from MARSIS subsurface data
Amata, E.; Orosei, R.; Picardi, G. +6 more
We describe a method to estimate the total electron content (TEC) of the Mars ionosphere from the output parameters of an algorithm, called the Contrast Method (Picardi, G., Sorge, S. [2000]. Proc. SPIE. Eighth International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar, vol. 4084, pp. 624-629; Ilyushin, Ya.A., Kunitsyn, V.E. [2004]. J. Commun. Technol. …