Search Publications
A Detailed Study of Jupiter's Great Red Spot over a 90-day Oscillation Cycle
Wong, Michael H.; Irwin, Patrick G. J.; Simon, Amy A. +1 more
Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) is known to exhibit oscillations in its westward drift with a 90-day period. The GRS was observed with the Hubble Space Telescope on eight dates over a single oscillation cycle in 2023 December to 2024 March to search for correlations in its physical characteristics over that time. Measured longitudinal positions are…
Effects of the 2007 Martian Global Dust Storm on Boundary Positions in the Induced Magnetosphere
Holmström, Mats; Coates, Andrew J.; Frahm, Rudy A. +8 more
Mars's magnetosphere is a sensitive system, varying due to external and internal factors, such as solar wind conditions and crustal magnetic fields. A signature of this influence can be seen in the position of two boundaries; the bow shock and the induced magnetospheric boundary (IMB). The bow shock moves closer to Mars during times of high solar …
Pre-impact Thermophysical Properties and the Yarkovsky Effect of NASA DART Target (65803) Didymos
Kolb, Ulrich C.; Daly, R. Terik; Rivkin, Andrew S. +8 more
The NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft impacted the secondary body of the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos on 2022 September 26 and altered its orbit about the primary body. Before the DART impact, we performed visible and mid-infrared observations to constrain the pre-impact thermophysical properties of the Didymos system and …
Europa's H2O2: Temperature Insensitivity and a Correlation with CO2
Brown, Michael E.; de Kleer, Katherine; Trumbo, Samantha K. +1 more
H2O2 is part of Europa's water-ice radiolytic cycle and a potential source of oxidants to Europa's subsurface ocean. However, factors controlling the concentration of this critical surface species remain unclear. Though laboratory experiments suggest that Europa's H2O2 should be concentrated in the colde…
Parent Volatile Outgassing Associations in Cometary Nuclei: Synthesizing Rosetta Measurements and Ground-based Observations
Bodewits, Dennis; Luspay-Kuti, Adrienn; Bonev, Boncho P. +5 more
Comets, as remnants of the solar system's formation, vary in volatile-refractory content. In situ comet studies, such as the Rosetta mission to 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, provide detailed volatile composition insights, while ground-based studies offer broader comet samples but in fewer species. Comparing 67P's volatile correlations during the 2 yr…
The Discovery and Evolution of a Possible New Epoch of Cometary Activity by the Centaur (2060) Chiron
Fedorets, Grigori; Siverd, Robert J.; Schwamb, Megan E. +24 more
Centaurs are small solar system objects on chaotic orbits in the giant planet region, forming an evolutionary continuum with the Kuiper Belt objects and Jupiter-family comets. Some Centaurs are known to exhibit cometary activity, though unlike comets, this activity tends not to correlate with heliocentric distance, and the mechanism behind it is c…
Cassini UVIS Observations of the Enceladus Auroral Footprint on Saturn in 2017
Pryor, Wayne R.; Magalhães, Fabiola P.; Lamy, Laurent +5 more
Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observations show the Enceladus auroral footprint on Saturn on 2017 September 14, near the end of the Cassini mission. A series of Saturn north polar auroral images were obtained by slowly slewing the Cassini spacecraft at right angles to the UVIS long slit. The images were limb-fit to improve the spacecraft…
Pre-impact Albedo Map and Photometric Properties of the (65803) Didymos Asteroid Binary System from DART and Ground-based Data
Buratti, B. J.; Sunshine, J. M.; Rivkin, A. S. +11 more
This study provides a pre-impact map of the albedo of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) target Dimorphos corrected for all the effects of viewing geometry, as well as an estimate of photometric roughness for the hemisphere imaged by DART. Other photometric properties are derived for the (65803) Didymos binary system based on DART and gro…
Detection of Close Kuiper Belt Binaries with HST WFC3
Porter, Simon B.; Verbiscer, Anne J.; Noll, Keith S. +3 more
Binaries in the Kuiper Belt are common. Here we present our analysis of the Solar System Origins Legacy Survey (SSOLS) to show that using a point-spread function (PSF)-fitting method can roughly double the number of binaries identified in that data set. Out of 198 Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) observed by SSOLS, we find 23 to be visually separated bi…
Observations of Titan's Stratosphere during Northern Summer: Temperatures, CH3CN and CH3D Abundances
Butler, Bryan; Vinatier, Sandrine; Lellouch, Emmanuel +11 more
Titan's atmospheric composition and dynamical state have previously been studied over numerous epochs by both ground- and space-based facilities. However, stratospheric measurements remain sparse during Titan's northern summer and fall. The lack of seasonal symmetry in observations of Titan's temperature field and chemical abundances raises questi…