Triton: Fascinating Moon, Likely Ocean World, Compelling Destination!
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GAME of MOONS a TALE of ICE and FIRE 3 × 50 Min
© NASA SCIENCE GAME OF MOONS A TALE OF ICE AND FIRE 3 × 50 min. Written and produced by Ivo Filatsch 4K, 5.1 and Stereo Executive Producer: Sabine Holzer Join us on a spectacular rollercoaster ride through our solar system! This three-part series explores alien worlds of extremes right in our celestial neighbourhood, each single one amazing, fascinating, and unique in its own way. veryone knows the moon — our Moon … case for Triton. It circles around Neptune in the It may come as a surprise, but there are opposite direction — in a retrograde orbit. more than 200 of these natural satellites But this brings a problem: the laws of physics orbiting other planets in the solar system! dictate that in this situation, Triton is being EAll these moons are incredibly different regarding slowed down all the while, this way getting ever their size, but also in terms of their environments. closer to Neptune. Studying these alien worlds in detail is important. Scientists have calculated that in about 100 Thanks to the insights scientists are getting million years from now, Triton will reach its Roche through observations, measurements, and radius. This is the zone where the gravitational conclusions, we all get a better understanding of forces of Neptune will become too strong to our world as a whole. withstand — and Triton will be ripped apart into pieces … And the better we understand our neighbour- hood, the better we get to know our home planet CHAPTER 2: LIFE … Our moon is much more than just a nice decora- tion in the night sky. -
A Wunda-Full World? Carbon Dioxide Ice Deposits on Umbriel and Other Uranian Moons
Icarus 290 (2017) 1–13 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Icarus journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/icarus A Wunda-full world? Carbon dioxide ice deposits on Umbriel and other Uranian moons ∗ Michael M. Sori , Jonathan Bapst, Ali M. Bramson, Shane Byrne, Margaret E. Landis Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Carbon dioxide has been detected on the trailing hemispheres of several Uranian satellites, but the exact Received 22 June 2016 nature and distribution of the molecules remain unknown. One such satellite, Umbriel, has a prominent Revised 28 January 2017 high albedo annulus-shaped feature within the 131-km-diameter impact crater Wunda. We hypothesize Accepted 28 February 2017 that this feature is a solid deposit of CO ice. We combine thermal and ballistic transport modeling to Available online 2 March 2017 2 study the evolution of CO 2 molecules on the surface of Umbriel, a high-obliquity ( ∼98 °) body. Consid- ering processes such as sublimation and Jeans escape, we find that CO 2 ice migrates to low latitudes on geologically short (100s–1000 s of years) timescales. Crater morphology and location create a local cold trap inside Wunda, and the slopes of crater walls and a central peak explain the deposit’s annular shape. The high albedo and thermal inertia of CO 2 ice relative to regolith allows deposits 15-m-thick or greater to be stable over the age of the solar system. -
The Evolution of Star Habitable Zones
The Evolution of Star Habitable Zones Jeffrey J. Wolynski November 17, 2018 Rockledge, FL 32922 Abstract: It was discovered that planets are older, evolving stars. This means the Circumstellar Habitable Zone collapses and/or shrinks into the star itself, thus evolves as the star evolves. Explanation is provided. The habitable zone of a star is the area where liquid water exists or can exist. Since stars cool down and become water worlds as they evolve, combining their hydrogen with the leftover oxygen in large amounts, it is easy to see what happens. The star is too hot in the beginning to form water, or sustain it, but it can heat up other much colder stars allowing them to pool water on their surfaces from a distance. As the star cools and evolves, the distance it can do this diminishes considerably and its habitable zone shrinks. Blue giants have the largest habitable zones, but they quickly contract because they are so young and are evolving rapidly to cooler, less massive states. What this means is that the time variable for the habitable zones of these objects is quite small. The activity of more evolved stars around blue giants should be short-lived, but interesting to say the least. White stars have smaller habitable zones but are still very large. Orange dwarfs have even smaller habitable zones, as well show a noticeable thinning of the zone as opposed to earlier stages. Red dwarfs have very small external habitable zones and the smallest external habitable zone belongs to only the smallest brown dwarfs, which still have a small amount of heat to radiate the surface of another more evolved star. -
Pluto, Titan, and Triton: How Do Their Haze Properties Compare? B. J. Buratti1, J
51st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2020) 1168.pdf Pluto, Titan, and Triton: How do their Haze Properties Compare? B. J. Buratti1, J. D. Hillier2, J. D. Hofgart- ner2, M. D. Hicks1, 1Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109; bon- [email protected]; 2Grays Harbor College, Aberdeen, WA 98520. Introduction: The July 2015 encounter of the New Horizons spacecraft with Pluto brought a large Kuiper Belt Object into sharp focus for the first time [1]. In- struments on the spacecraft observed Pluto at solar phase angles not visible from the Earth, where the max- imum solar phase angle is about 2°. The large solar phase angles (>150°), are especially useful for charac- terizing the properties of Pluto’s haze. But key obser- vations were not made during the encounter because of the fast nature of the flyby. These included the small solar phase angles observable from Earth. Thus, the best data set is one consisting of both spacecraft and ground-based data. We have combined Earth-based observations, in- cluding those from the Palomar Adaptive Optics (AO) system, to construct a complete solar phase curve of Figure 1: Charon and Pluto from the Palomar Pluto. Using the classical radiative transfer model of adaptive optics system. Chandrasekhar’s “Planetary Problem” (2,3) we have fit Data from the spacecraft are summarized in Table physical parameters to the surface and haze of Pluto. 2. Comparison with the properties of Titan’s haze shows Table 1- New Horizons Data used in this Study. that both worlds are factories for producing reddish, organic rich molecules. -
Dwarf Planet Ceres
Dwarf Planet Ceres drishtiias.com/printpdf/dwarf-planet-ceres Why in News As per the data collected by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, dwarf planet Ceres reportedly has salty water underground. Dawn (2007-18) was a mission to the two most massive bodies in the main asteroid belt - Vesta and Ceres. Key Points 1/3 Latest Findings: The scientists have given Ceres the status of an “ocean world” as it has a big reservoir of salty water underneath its frigid surface. This has led to an increased interest of scientists that the dwarf planet was maybe habitable or has the potential to be. Ocean Worlds is a term for ‘Water in the Solar System and Beyond’. The salty water originated in a brine reservoir spread hundreds of miles and about 40 km beneath the surface of the Ceres. Further, there is an evidence that Ceres remains geologically active with cryovolcanism - volcanoes oozing icy material. Instead of molten rock, cryovolcanoes or salty-mud volcanoes release frigid, salty water sometimes mixed with mud. Subsurface Oceans on other Celestial Bodies: Jupiter’s moon Europa, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, Neptune’s moon Triton, and the dwarf planet Pluto. This provides scientists a means to understand the history of the solar system. Ceres: It is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. It is the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system (includes planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars). Scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. -
The Evolving Universe and the Origin of Life
Pekka Teerikorpi · Mauri Valtonen · Kirsi Lehto · Harry Lehto · Gene Byrd · Arthur Chernin The Evolving Universe and the Origin of Life The Search for Our Cosmic Roots Second Edition The Evolving Universe and the Origin of Life Pekka Teerikorpi • Mauri Valtonen • Kirsi Lehto • Harry Lehto • Gene Byrd • Arthur Chernin The Evolving Universe and the Origin of Life The Search for Our Cosmic Roots Second Edition 123 Pekka Teerikorpi Mauri Valtonen Department of Physics and Astronomy Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Turku University of Turku Turku, Finland Turku, Finland Kirsi Lehto Harry Lehto Department of Biology Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Turku University of Turku Turku, Finland Turku, Finland Gene Byrd Arthur Chernin Department of Physics and Astronomy Sternberg Astronomical Institute The University of Alabama Moscow University Tuscaloosa, AL, USA Moscow, Russia ISBN 978-3-030-17920-5 ISBN 978-3-030-17921-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17921-2 1st edition: © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2nd edition: © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. -
Triton: Topography and Geology of a Probable Ocean World with Comparison to Pluto and Charon
remote sensing Article Triton: Topography and Geology of a Probable Ocean World with Comparison to Pluto and Charon Paul M. Schenk 1,* , Chloe B. Beddingfield 2,3, Tanguy Bertrand 3, Carver Bierson 4 , Ross Beyer 2,3, Veronica J. Bray 5, Dale Cruikshank 3 , William M. Grundy 6, Candice Hansen 7, Jason Hofgartner 8 , Emily Martin 9, William B. McKinnon 10, Jeffrey M. Moore 3, Stuart Robbins 11 , Kirby D. Runyon 12 , Kelsi N. Singer 11 , John Spencer 11, S. Alan Stern 11 and Ted Stryk 13 1 Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX 77058, USA 2 SETI Institute, Palo Alto, CA 94020, USA; chloe.b.beddingfi[email protected] (C.B.B.); [email protected] (R.B.) 3 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; [email protected] (T.B.); [email protected] (D.C.); [email protected] (J.M.M.) 4 School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85202, USA; [email protected] 5 Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85641, USA; [email protected] 6 Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA; [email protected] 7 Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85704, USA; [email protected] 8 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91001, USA; [email protected] 9 National Air & Space Museum, Washington, DC 20001, USA; [email protected] 10 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in Saint Louis, Saint Louis, MO 63101, USA; [email protected] 11 Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80301, USA; [email protected] (S.R.); [email protected] (K.N.S.); [email protected] (J.S.); [email protected] (S.A.S.) Citation: Schenk, P.M.; Beddingfield, 12 Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20707, USA; [email protected] 13 C.B.; Bertrand, T.; Bierson, C.; Beyer, Humanities Division, Roane State Community College, Harriman, TN 37748, USA; [email protected] R.; Bray, V.J.; Cruikshank, D.; Grundy, * Correspondence: [email protected] W.M.; Hansen, C.; Hofgartner, J.; et al. -
Westminsterresearch the Astrobiology Primer V2.0 Domagal-Goldman, S.D., Wright, K.E., Adamala, K., De La Rubia Leigh, A., Bond
WestminsterResearch http://www.westminster.ac.uk/westminsterresearch The Astrobiology Primer v2.0 Domagal-Goldman, S.D., Wright, K.E., Adamala, K., de la Rubia Leigh, A., Bond, J., Dartnell, L., Goldman, A.D., Lynch, K., Naud, M.-E., Paulino-Lima, I.G., Kelsi, S., Walter-Antonio, M., Abrevaya, X.C., Anderson, R., Arney, G., Atri, D., Azúa-Bustos, A., Bowman, J.S., Brazelton, W.J., Brennecka, G.A., Carns, R., Chopra, A., Colangelo-Lillis, J., Crockett, C.J., DeMarines, J., Frank, E.A., Frantz, C., de la Fuente, E., Galante, D., Glass, J., Gleeson, D., Glein, C.R., Goldblatt, C., Horak, R., Horodyskyj, L., Kaçar, B., Kereszturi, A., Knowles, E., Mayeur, P., McGlynn, S., Miguel, Y., Montgomery, M., Neish, C., Noack, L., Rugheimer, S., Stüeken, E.E., Tamez-Hidalgo, P., Walker, S.I. and Wong, T. This is a copy of the final version of an article published in Astrobiology. August 2016, 16(8): 561-653. doi:10.1089/ast.2015.1460. It is available from the publisher at: https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2015.1460 © Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman and Katherine E. Wright, et al., 2016; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc/4.0/) which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. -
Monday, November 13, 2017 WHAT DOES IT MEAN to BE HABITABLE? 8:15 A.M. MHRGC Salons ABCD 8:15 A.M. Jang-Condell H. * Welcome C
Monday, November 13, 2017 WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HABITABLE? 8:15 a.m. MHRGC Salons ABCD 8:15 a.m. Jang-Condell H. * Welcome Chair: Stephen Kane 8:30 a.m. Forget F. * Turbet M. Selsis F. Leconte J. Definition and Characterization of the Habitable Zone [#4057] We review the concept of habitable zone (HZ), why it is useful, and how to characterize it. The HZ could be nicknamed the “Hunting Zone” because its primary objective is now to help astronomers plan observations. This has interesting consequences. 9:00 a.m. Rushby A. J. Johnson M. Mills B. J. W. Watson A. J. Claire M. W. Long Term Planetary Habitability and the Carbonate-Silicate Cycle [#4026] We develop a coupled carbonate-silicate and stellar evolution model to investigate the effect of planet size on the operation of the long-term carbon cycle, and determine that larger planets are generally warmer for a given incident flux. 9:20 a.m. Dong C. F. * Huang Z. G. Jin M. Lingam M. Ma Y. J. Toth G. van der Holst B. Airapetian V. Cohen O. Gombosi T. Are “Habitable” Exoplanets Really Habitable? A Perspective from Atmospheric Loss [#4021] We will discuss the impact of exoplanetary space weather on the climate and habitability, which offers fresh insights concerning the habitability of exoplanets, especially those orbiting M-dwarfs, such as Proxima b and the TRAPPIST-1 system. 9:40 a.m. Fisher T. M. * Walker S. I. Desch S. J. Hartnett H. E. Glaser S. Limitations of Primary Productivity on “Aqua Planets:” Implications for Detectability [#4109] While ocean-covered planets have been considered a strong candidate for the search for life, the lack of surface weathering may lead to phosphorus scarcity and low primary productivity, making aqua planet biospheres difficult to detect. -
The Solar System Cause Impact Craters
ASTRONOMY 161 Introduction to Solar System Astronomy Class 12 Solar System Survey Monday, February 5 Key Concepts (1) The terrestrial planets are made primarily of rock and metal. (2) The Jovian planets are made primarily of hydrogen and helium. (3) Moons (a.k.a. satellites) orbit the planets; some moons are large. (4) Asteroids, meteoroids, comets, and Kuiper Belt objects orbit the Sun. (5) Collision between objects in the Solar System cause impact craters. Family portrait of the Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, (Eris, Ceres, Pluto): My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine (Extra Cheese Pizzas). The Solar System: List of Ingredients Ingredient Percent of total mass Sun 99.8% Jupiter 0.1% other planets 0.05% everything else 0.05% The Sun dominates the Solar System Jupiter dominates the planets Object Mass Object Mass 1) Sun 330,000 2) Jupiter 320 10) Ganymede 0.025 3) Saturn 95 11) Titan 0.023 4) Neptune 17 12) Callisto 0.018 5) Uranus 15 13) Io 0.015 6) Earth 1.0 14) Moon 0.012 7) Venus 0.82 15) Europa 0.008 8) Mars 0.11 16) Triton 0.004 9) Mercury 0.055 17) Pluto 0.002 A few words about the Sun. The Sun is a large sphere of gas (mostly H, He – hydrogen and helium). The Sun shines because it is hot (T = 5,800 K). The Sun remains hot because it is powered by fusion of hydrogen to helium (H-bomb). (1) The terrestrial planets are made primarily of rock and metal. -
Charon Tectonics
Icarus 287 (2017) 161–174 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Icarus journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/icarus Charon tectonics ∗ Ross A. Beyer a,b, , Francis Nimmo c, William B. McKinnon d, Jeffrey M. Moore b, Richard P. Binzel e, Jack W. Conrad c, Andy Cheng f, K. Ennico b, Tod R. Lauer g, C.B. Olkin h, Stuart Robbins h, Paul Schenk i, Kelsi Singer h, John R. Spencer h, S. Alan Stern h, H.A. Weaver f, L.A. Young h, Amanda M. Zangari h a Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, 189 Berndardo Ave, Mountain View, California 94043, USA b NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, CA 94035-0 0 01, USA c University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA d Washington University in St. Louis, St Louis, MO 63130-4899, USA e Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA f Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA g National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA h Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA i Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX 77058, USA a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: New Horizons images of Pluto’s companion Charon show a variety of terrains that display extensional Received 14 April 2016 tectonic features, with relief surprising for this relatively small world. These features suggest a global ex- Revised 8 December 2016 tensional areal strain of order 1% early in Charon’s history. Such extension is consistent with the presence Accepted 12 December 2016 of an ancient global ocean, now frozen. -
A Search for Temporal Changes on Pluto and Charon
A Search for Temporal Changes on Pluto and Charon J. D. Hofgartner*1, B. J. Buratti1, S. L. Devins1, R. A. Beyer2,3, P. Schenk4, S. A. Stern5, H. A. Weaver6, C. B. Olkin5, A. Cheng6, K. Ennico3, T. R. Lauer7, W. B. McKinnon8, J. Spencer5, L. A. Young5, and the New Horizons Science Team *Corresponding author ([email protected]); 1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA; 2. Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA; 3. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA; 4. Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX; 5. Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO; 6. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD; 7. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ; 8. Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO; Abstract: A search for temporal changes on Pluto and Charon was motivated by (1) the discovery of young surfaces in the Pluto system that imply ongoing or recent geologic activity, (2) the detection of active plumes on Triton during the Voyager 2 flyby, and (3) the abundant and detailed information that observing geologic processes in action provides about the processes. A thorough search for temporal changes using New Horizons images was completed. Images that covered the same region were blinked and manually inspected for any differences in appearance. The search included full-disk images such that all illuminated regions of both bodies were investigated and higher resolution images such that parts of the encounter hemispheres were investigated at finer spatial scales. Changes of appearance between different images were observed but in all cases were attributed to variability of the imaging parameters (especially geometry) or artifacts.