Search Publications
Hazy Blue Worlds: A Holistic Aerosol Model for Uranus and Neptune, Including Dark Spots
Fletcher, L. N.; Pérez-Hoyos, S.; Wong, M. H. +7 more
We present a reanalysis (using the Minnaert limb-darkening approximation) of visible/near-infrared (0.3-2.5 µm) observations of Uranus and Neptune made by several instruments. We find a common model of the vertical aerosol distribution i.e., consistent with the observed reflectivity spectra of both planets, consisting of: (a) a deep aerosol …
New Craters on Mars: An Updated Catalog
Piqueux, S.; Dundas, C. M.; Werynski, A. +15 more
We present a catalog of new impacts on Mars. These craters formed in the last few decades, constrained with repeat orbital imaging. Crater diameters range from 58 m down to <1 m. For each impact, we report whether it formed a single crater or a cluster (58% clusters); albedo features of the blast zone (88% halos; 64% linear rays; 10% arcuate ra…
Geometry and Segmentation of Cerberus Fossae, Mars: Implications for Marsquake Properties
Rodriguez, S.; Hauber, E.; Lognonné, P. +9 more
The NASA InSight mission to Mars successfully landed on 26 November 2018 in Elysium Planitia. It aims to characterize the seismic activity and aid in the understanding of the internal structure of Mars. We focus on the Cerberus Fossae region, a giant fracture network ∼1,200 km long situated east of the InSight landing site where M ∼3 marsquakes we…
Global Vertical Distribution of Water Vapor on Mars: Results From 3.5 Years of ExoMars-TGO/NOMAD Science Operations
Aoki, S.; Vandaele, A. C.; Daerden, F. +20 more
We present water vapor vertical distributions on Mars retrieved from 3.5 years of solar occultation measurements by Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which reveal a strong contrast between aphelion and perihelion water climates. In equinox periods, most of water vapor is confined into the low-middle la…
Differential Rotation in Jupiter's Interior Revealed by Simultaneous Inversion for the Magnetic Field and Zonal Flux Velocity
Cao, Hao; Stevenson, David J.; Connerney, John E. P. +5 more
A key objective of the current Juno mission (Bolton et al., 2017, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal2108) is the direct determination of the secular variation (time dependency) of Jupiter's internal magnetic field in order to further understand the dynamics of Jupiter's interior. Here, we find…
Rivers and Lakes in Western Arabia Terra: The Fluvial Catchment of the ExoMars 2022 Rover Landing Site
Fawdon, Peter; Davis, Joel; Bridges, John +3 more
Oxia Planum, the landing site for the ExoMars rover mission, is a shallow basin on the southern margin of Chryse Planitia that hosts remnants of fan-shaped sedimentary deposits associated with the ancient channel system Coogoon Vallis. This indicates runoff from a catchment in Arabia Terra has transported sediment into the landing site. To explore…
Callisto's Atmosphere: First Evidence for H2 and Constraints on H2O
Alday, Juan; Johnson, Robert E.; Roth, Lorenz +8 more
We explore the parameter space for the contribution to Callisto's H corona observed by the Hubble Space Telescope from sublimated H2O and radiolytically produced H2 using the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method. The spatial morphology of this corona produced via photoelectron and magnetospheric electron-impact-induced dissoc…
Explaining NOMAD D/H Observations by Cloud-Induced Fractionation of Water Vapor on Mars
Aoki, S.; Vandaele, A. C.; Daerden, F. +25 more
The vertical profiles of water vapor and its semi-heavy hydrogen isotope HDO provided by instruments on ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter constitute a unique new data set to understand the Martian water cycle including its isotopic composition. As water vapor undergoes hydrogen isotopic fractionation upon deposition (but not sublimation), the D/H isotopic…
A Two Martian Years Survey of Water Ice Clouds on Mars With ACS Onboard TGO
Montmessin, Franck; Trokhimovskiy, Alexander; Korablev, Oleg +7 more
The middle infrared (MIR) channel of the atmospheric chemistry suite (ACS) instrument onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter ESA-Roscosmos mission has performed Solar occultation measurements of the Martian atmosphere in the 2.3-4.2 µm spectral range since March 2018, which now covers two Martian years (MY). We use the methodology previously …
Martian Dust Storms and Gravity Waves: Disentangling Water Transport to the Upper Atmosphere
Medvedev, Alexander S.; Yiǧit, Erdal; Hartogh, Paul +2 more
Simulations with the Max Planck Institute Martian general circulation model for Martian years 28 and 34 reveal details of the water "pump" mechanism and the role of gravity wave (GW) forcing. Water is advected to the upper atmosphere mainly by upward branches of the meridional circulation: in low latitudes during equinoxes and over the south pole …