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The Scientific Value of a Sustained Exploration Program at the Aristarchus Plateau
Glotch, Timothy D.; Li, Shuai; Lucey, Paul G. +13 more
The Aristarchus plateau hosts a diversity of volcanic features, including the largest pyroclastic deposit on the Moon, the largest sinuous rille on the Moon, and intrusive and extrusive examples of evolved, Th-rich silicic lithologies. We provide an overview of previous remote-sensing measurements of the Aristarchus plateau and provide new analyse…
Knowledge Inventory of Foundational Data Products in Planetary Science
Beyer, Ross A.; Laura, Jason R.
Some of the key components of any Planetary Spatial Data Infrastructure (PDSI) are the data products that end-users wish to discover, access, and interrogate. One precursor to the implementation of a PSDI is a knowledge inventory that catalogs what products are available, from which data producers, and at what initially understood data qualities. …
No Activity among 13 Centaurs Discovered in the Pan-STARRS1 Detection Database
Wainscoat, Richard J.; Lilly, Eva; Hsieh, Henry +5 more
Centaurs are small bodies orbiting in the giant planet region that were scattered inward from their source populations beyond Neptune. Some members of the population display comet-like activity during their transition through the solar system, the source of which is not well understood. The range of heliocentric distances where the active Centaurs…
Size and Shape of (11351) Leucus from Five Occultations
Dunham, David W.; Dunham, Joan B.; Lauer, Tod R. +76 more
We present observations of five stellar occultations for (11351) Leucus and reports from two efforts on (21900) Orus. Both objects are prime mission candidate targets for the Lucy Discovery mission. Combined results for Leucus indicate a very dark surface with pV = 0.037 ± 0.001, which is derived from the average of the multichord occul…
Transmission Spectroscopy of the Earth-Sun System to Inform the Search for Extrasolar Life
May, E. M.; Mayorga, L. C.; Sotzen, Kristin S. +7 more
Upcoming NASA astrophysics missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope will search for signs of life on planets transiting nearby stars. Doing so will require coadding dozens of transmission spectra to build up sufficient signal to noise while simultaneously accounting for challenging systematic effects such as surface/weather variability, atm…
FUV Observations of the Inner Coma of 46P/Wirtanen
Parker, Joel Wm.; Harris, Walter M.; Bodewits, Dennis +6 more
Far-ultraviolet observations of comets yield information about the energetic processes that dissociate the sublimated gases from their primitive surfaces. Understanding which emission processes are dominant, their effects on the observed cometary spectrum, and how to properly invert the spectrum back to the composition of the presumably pristine s…
Sampling Plume Deposits on Enceladus' Surface to Explore Ocean Materials and Search for Traces of Life or Biosignatures
Malaska, Michael J.; Choukroun, Mathieu; Backes, Paul +14 more
Enceladus is unique as an astrobiology target in that it hosts an active plume sourced directly from its habitable subsurface ocean. Ice particles from the plume contain geochemical constituents that are diagnostic of the ocean conditions, and may hold traces of life and/or biosignatures, if they exist. Up to 93% of the plume particles fall back o…
Using VIRTIS on Venus Express to Constrain the Properties of the Giant Dark Cloud Observed in Images of Venus by IR2 on Akatsuki
Tsang, Constantine C. C.; Barstow, Joanna K.; McGouldrick, Kevin +1 more
A cloud opacity contrast feature that has been called a "long-lived sharp disruption" has been seen in the atmosphere of Venus in the near-infrared using Akatsuki's IR2 camera, most clearly at equatorial latitudes. This feature was found to have a consistent planet-circling period of 4.9 days, and subsequent searches of past imagery revealed that …
The Geographic Distribution of Dense-phase O2 on Ganymede
Brown, Michael E.; Trumbo, Samantha K.; Adams, Danica
Ground-based spectroscopy of Ganymede's surface has revealed the surprising presence of dense-phase molecular oxygen (O2) via weak absorptions at visible wavelengths. To date, the state and stability of this O2 at the temperatures and pressures of Ganymede's surface are not understood. Its spatial distribution in relation to …
Titan in Transit: Ultraviolet Stellar Occultation Observations Reveal a Complex Atmospheric Structure
Tribbett, Patrick D.; Robinson, Tyler D.; Koskinen, Tommi T.
Transit spectroscopy is a key tool for exoplanet atmospheric characterization. However, transit spectrum observations can be limited by aerosol extinction when gas opacities are weak. The ultraviolet wavelength range contains a variety of strong molecular and atomic features, potentially enabling gas species detection even when atmospheric hazes a…