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Cassini UVIS Detection of Saturn's North Polar Hexagon in the Grand Finale Orbits
Lamy, L.; West, R. A.; Esposito, L. W. +6 more
Cassini's final orbits in 2016 and 2017 provided unprecedented spatial resolution of Saturn's polar regions from near-polar spacecraft viewing geometries. Long-wavelength channels of Cassini's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph instrument detected Saturn's UV-dark north polar hexagon near 180 nm at planetocentric latitudes near 75°N. The dark polar …
Jupiter's Turbulent Power Spectra From Hubble Space Telescope
Morales-Juberías, Raúl; Simon, Amy; Cosentino, Richard G.
Turbulence in Jupiter's atmosphere was investigated with archival and ongoing observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Data sets that include one full rotation (360° longitude coverage) were used to produce complete maps of the planet's upper cloud layer. The global maps were analyzed to generate the passive tracer power spectrum of cloud fea…
Geomorphological Evidence of Localized Stagnant Ice Deposits in Terra Cimmeria, Mars
Hauber, Ernst; Jaumann, Ralf; Fawdon, Peter +3 more
The presence of snow and ice at midlatitudes of Mars cannot be explained by current climatic conditions, as surface ice is unstable. However, a large variety of debris-covered glaciers have been observed at both midlatitudes. Here, we report the presence of local, small-scale, and debris-covered stagnant ice deposits on the floor of a valley syste…
Oblique Reflections of Mars Express MARSIS Radar Signals From Ionospheric Density Structures: Raytracing Analysis
Gurnett, D. A.; Němec, F.; Morgan, D. D. +2 more
Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) radar sounder on board the Mars Express spacecraft revealed oblique reflections coming systematically from apparently stable density structures in the Martian ionosphere. Although these were typically interpreted by assuming a straight line propagation of the sounding signal at th…
Formation of Central Pits in Impact Craters on Mars: A Statistical Investigation of Proposed Mechanisms
Burr, Devon M.; Peel, Samantha E.; Tran, Liem
Central pit craters (CPCs) are complex craters that exhibit depressions within their floors or central uplifts. Some proposed models for central pit formation can be grouped by similar mechanism: (A) explosive volatile release, (B) central peak collapse, and (C) drainage of subsurface melted volatiles. We test these groups of mechanisms for centra…
Correlation Between Graben Orientation, Channel Direction Change, and Tectonic Loading: The Elysium Province, Mars
Kneller, B. D.; Roberts, G. P.; Grindrod, P. M.
We have investigated the links between regional stress fields, the volcanic centers, rifts, graben, and channels in the NW region of the Elysium Province (Figures a and b) to determine whether the sequence of stress events occurring during province development can be derived from the morphologies of these features, and thus provide a sequence of d…