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In situ methods for measuring thermal properties and heat flux on planetary bodies

Banaszkiewicz, Marek; Spohn, Tilman; Knollenberg, Jörg +9 more

The thermo-mechanical properties of planetary surface and subsurface layers control to a high extent in which way a body interacts with its environment, in particular how it responds to solar irradiation and how it interacts with a potentially existing atmosphere. Furthermore, if the natural temperature profile over a certain depth can be measured…

Implementation of cartographic symbols for planetary mapping in geographic information systems

Jaumann, R.; van Gasselt, S.; Nass, A. +1 more

The steadily growing international interest in the exploration of planets in our Solar System and many advances in the development of space-sensor technology have led to the launch of a multitude of planetary missions to Mercury, Venus, the Earth's moon, Mars and various Outer-Solar System objects, such as the Jovian and Saturnian satellites. Came…

Magnetic states of the ionosphere of Venus observed by Venus Express

Barabash, S.; Woch, J.; Fränz, M. +4 more

Strong ultraviolet radiation from the Sun ionizes the upper atmosphere of Venus, creating a dense ionosphere on the dayside of the planet. In contrast to Earth, the ionosphere of Venus is not protected against the solar wind by a magnetic field. However, the interaction between charged ionospheric particles and the solar wind dynamic and magnetic …

Methane on Mars: Current observations, interpretation, and future plans

Forget, Francois; Atreya, Sushil K.; Witasse, Olivier +5 more

High-altitude charged aerosols in the atmosphere of Titan

Coates, Andrew; Young, David T.; Wellbrock, Anne +3 more

Observations by several instruments onboard the Cassini spacecraft revealed the existence of heavy hydrocarbon and nitrile species with masses of several thousand atomic mass units in the ionosphere of Titan. These very large molecules are in fact aerosols. The goal of this paper is to compute the concentrations of the charged aerosols in the uppe…

Modeling the atmospheric limb emission of CO ₂ at 4.3 µm in the terrestrial planets

López-Puertas, M.; López-Valverde, M. A.; Gilli, G. +5 more

The MIPAS instrument on board Envisat, in Earth orbit, the PFS and OMEGA instruments on Mars Express, and VIRTIS on board Venus Express are currently providing a dataset of limb measurements of the CO ₂ atmospheric fluorescence emission at 4.3-µm from the upper atmosphere of the three planets. These measurements represent an excel…

A case study of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices on both flanks of the Earth's magnetotail

Retinò, Alessandro; Dandouras, Iannis; Saito, Yoshifumi +8 more

Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI) is a fundamental fluid dynamical process that develops in a velocity shear layer. It is excited on the tail-flanks of the Earth's magnetosphere where the flowing magnetosheath plasma and the stagnant magnetospheric plasma sit adjacent to each other. This instability is thought to induce vortical structures and pl…

Atmospheric chemistry on Venus, Earth, and Mars: Main features and comparison

Krasnopolsky, Vladimir A.

This paper deals with two common problems and then considers major aspects of chemistry in the atmospheres of Mars and Venus. (1) The atmospheres of the terrestrial planets have similar origins but different evolutionary pathways because of the different masses and distances to the Sun. Venus lost its water by hydrodynamic escape, Earth lost CO

Modelling the atmospheric CO ₂ 10-µm non-thermal emission in Mars and Venus at high spectral resolution

Sornig, M.; Sonnabend, G.; Kroetz, P. +1 more

A study of the CO ₂ atmospheric emissions at 10-µm in the upper atmospheres of Mars and Venus is performed in order to explain a number of ground-based measurements of these emissions recently taken at very high spectral resolution in both planets. The measurements are normally used to derive atmospheric temperatures and winds, bu…

Chandrayaan-1 observation of distant secondary craters of Copernicus exhibiting central mound morphology: Evidence for low velocity clustered impacts on the Moon

Kiran Kumar, A. S.; Gopala Krishna, B.; Senthil Kumar, P. +3 more

Analysis of the Chandrayaan-1 Terrain Mapping Camera image of a 20 km×27 km area in the Mare Imbrium region revealed a cluster of thousands of fresh and buried impact craters in the size range of 20-1300 m. A majority of the large fresh craters with diameter ranging from 160 to 1270 m exhibit near-circular mounds (30-335 m diameter and 10-40 m hei…