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The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) of Mars Express and its approach to science analysis and mapping for Mars and its satellites

Jaumann, R.; Oberst, J.; Preusker, F. +32 more

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) of ESA's Mars Express is designed to map and investigate the topography of Mars. The camera, in particular its Super Resolution Channel (SRC), also obtains images of Phobos and Deimos on a regular basis. As HRSC is a push broom scanning instrument with nine CCD line detectors mounted in parallel, its unique…

A first assessment of the strength of cometary particles collected in-situ by the COSIMA instrument onboard ROSETTA

Langevin, Yves; Della Corte, Vincenzo; Hornung, Klaus +9 more

Soon after the arrival of the ROSETTA spacecraft at Comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko the onboard instrument COSIMA ("Cometary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer") collected a large number of cometary dust particles on targets from gold black of thickness between 10 and 30 µm. Inspection by its camera subsystem revealed that many of them consist of …

Mars Express 10 years at Mars: Observations by the Mars Express Radio Science Experiment (MaRS)

Pätzold, M.; Hahn, M.; Rosenblatt, P. +17 more

The Mars Express spacecraft is operating in Mars orbit since early 2004. The Mars Express Radio Science Experiment (MaRS) employs the spacecraft and ground station radio systems (i) to conduct radio occultations of the atmosphere and ionosphere to obtain vertical profiles of temperature, pressure, neutral number densities and electron density, (ii…

Martian ionosphere observed by Mars Express. 1. Influence of the crustal magnetic fields

Dubinin, E.; Fraenz, M.; Andrews, D. +1 more

Exploring the Venus global super-rotation using a comprehensive general circulation model

Read, P. L.; Mendonça, J. M.

The atmospheric circulation in Venus is well known to exhibit strong super-rotation. However, the atmospheric mechanisms responsible for the formation of this super-rotation are still not fully understood. In this work, we developed a new Venus general circulation model to study the most likely mechanisms driving the atmosphere to the current obse…

ROSETTA lander Philae: Touch-down reconstruction

Roll, Reinhard; Witte, Lars

The landing of the ROSETTA-mission lander Philae on November 12th 2014 on Comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was planned as a descent with passive landing and anchoring by harpoons at touch-down. Actually the lander was not fixed at touch-down to the ground due to failing harpoons. The lander internal damper was actuated at touch-down for 42.6 mm wi…

Isolated magnetic field structures in Mercury's magnetosheath as possible analogues for terrestrial magnetosheath plasmoids and jets

Karlsson, Tomas; Raines, Jim M.; Liljeblad, Elisabet +3 more

We have investigated MESSENGER magnetic field data from the Mercury magnetosheath and near solar wind, to identify isolated magnetic field structures (defined as clear, isolated changes in the field magnitude). Their properties are studied in order to determine if they may be considered as analogues to plasmoids and jets known to exist in Earth's …

Access of energetic particles to Titan's exobase: A study of Cassini's T9 flyby

Coates, A. J.; Krupp, N.; Dougherty, M. K. +6 more

We study how the local electromagnetic disturbances introduced by Titan affect the ionization rates of the atmosphere. For this, we model the precipitation of energetic particles, specifically hydrogen and oxygen ions with energies between 1 keV and 1 MeV, into Titan's exobase for the specific magnetospheric configuration of the T9 flyby. For the …

A classification of martian gullies from HiRISE imagery

Auld, Katherine S.; Dixon, John C.

Due to the large and varied population of gullies observed in Mars High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) imagery that exhibit diverse characteristics, this paper develops a classification of martian gullies based on their morphological characteristics. This provides a firmer foundation for future investigation of the genesis of diffe…

Dynamics of planetary ions in the induced magnetospheres of Venus and Mars

Luhmann, J. G.; Brain, D. A.; Jarvinen, R.

We compare dynamics of planetary ions in the induced magnetospheres of Venus and Mars in a global hybrid simulation to study factors controlling the ion escape at unmagnetized planets. In the simulation we find that the finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects of escaping heavy ions are stronger at Mars than Venus under nominal solar wind conditions. Bu…